Silly Clients

[jake108]

When dealing with a certain large government department linked to the NHS, we used to host a certain application for them because internally they made a complete mess of it.

They wanted to upgrade the Dell D620 laptops with Windows 7, the IT co-ord suggested it would not be feasible as some laptops only had 1GB - 2GB of ram plus system specs were low especially the hard disk size.

Que 4 weeks later due to the size of the patient applications where patient data is stored most of the laptops ran out of space and ground to a critical halt. Upgraded the hard disks only to discover the laptops were suffering hard disk trashing due to the swap file being in constant use and the laptops running very slowly. Upgraded to 4GB of ram and you guessed it; an upgrade to the application to support more than one instance open meant that the processor was getting taxed more than it should ergo slowing the inputting of data right down.

The head of IT who happens to be sitting at London says there isn't an issue because their laptop was fine. Bearing in mind they had a top spec Dell *edit* E6410 with even bluetooth and WWAN on an SSD. Therefore to save money the application was very expensively ported onto Citrix rather than used on the laptops themselves.

 

[Gzero]

It probably makes more sense though rather than having laptops insecurely all over the joint.

 

[[TW]Fox]

They wanted to upgrade the Dell D620 laptops with Windows 7, the IT co-ord suggested it would not be feasible as some laptops only had 1GB - 2GB of ram plus system specs were low especially the hard disk size.

I have a Dell D620 which runs Windows 7 perfectly and has done for years, infact, pretty much since Windows 7 came out

Infact many of them were supplied new with Vista on which is hardly hugely less taxing than 7. The ones with 1Gb a ram, sure, but thats typical IT thinking isnt it, throw machine in bin and order new machine instead of simply adding 1Gb more ram?

 

[Caged]

Throwing the machine in the bin and ordering another one is typically cheaper than extending the warranty on them though.

 

[ExRayTed]

If you are talking about an apocolyptic event then that is different. If you are talking about a system failure for a few minutes or an hour then that is different.

IT helpdesk staff are not important[/i], systems people are but out main important people are Operations and Customer Services.

Can Operations do there jobs without IT, yes. Would you want to do it long-term? No.

This is as obvious a troll as they get so take this:

You've been spotted - no more trolling allowed.

Although you've now been spotted I draw your attention to your own post demonstrating the hypocritical nature of the post above

you are there to do the crap IT jobs that people who actually make money for the company shouldn't have to do. As they need to be making money and not fixing computers.

They clearly are important if only to support your over-inflated ego.

 

[jake108]

I have a Dell D620 which runs Windows 7 perfectly and has done for years, infact, pretty much since Windows 7 came out

Infact many of them were supplied new with Vista on which is hardly hugely less taxing than 7. The ones with 1Gb a ram, sure, but thats typical IT thinking isnt it, throw machine in bin and order new machine instead of simply adding 1Gb more ram?

But the application itself with the OS, the machines were wayyy underspecced to run the application anyway. They were previously on Windows XP which operated fine for most NHS operations before they went to Windows 7 which broke practically everything to do with the application. Yes - the software was fine but they upgraded their security policy for Windows 7 which meant a much more beefier AV running on the systems.

If you had read my post, you would have read the RAM was increased but that didn't work either. Not to worry it's only tax payers money eh?

Considering the software was not meant to run in Citrix and wasn't designed to run in Citrix. It cost more money to get the application running in multi-tenant mode on servers than it would have cost to buy new machines. Each trust had their own tenant with their own customisations, in order to meet NHS guidelines on Citrix most of it had to be rewritten.

 

[Westyfield2]

This is, of course, rubbish - if they were unimportant they'd have been done away with. They are a cost to the business, they exist because they are needed or they wouldn't exist.

You haven't met our service desk. Bulgaria's finest. So great that there's the executive support team up on the fourth floor so that the important people can just bypass the service desk completely .

They wanted to upgrade the Dell D620 laptops with Windows 7

I've got Win7 working perfectly fine on an old trusty Latitude D610 . Stuck a couple of spare sticks of RAM in, a faster disk, and a clean build, and its great. (Kept it for use in the garage as its got a proper serial port).

 

[Caged]

You haven't met our service desk. Bulgaria's finest. So great that there's the executive support team up on the fourth floor so that the important people can just bypass the service desk completely .

Good old hypocrisy from the decision makers there . "Outsourced support is fine, and saves us loads of money! But we won't use them."

 

[Housey]

Like I always say in these threads, the user will take me apart in the stuff they know about.

Don't be stupid, IT people are a special person in any business, all seeing, all knowing, a different academic level to all other staff members from the CEO down. They know EVERYTHING that is wrong, why the company is so ****** up, how they would fix ANY problem because business is easy, people are idiots and IT is all knowing and occasionally is FORCED to work with the plebs, of course knowing they are simply better, better at everything, special.

Idiot.

 

[Gzero]

But the application itself with the OS, the machines were wayyy underspecced to run the application anyway. They were previously on Windows XP which operated fine for most NHS operations before they went to Windows 7 which broke practically everything to do with the application. Yes - the software was fine but they upgraded their security policy for Windows 7 which meant a much more beefier AV running on the systems.

If you had read my post, you would have read the RAM was increased but that didn't work either. Not to worry it's only tax payers money eh?

Considering the software was not meant to run in Citrix and wasn't designed to run in Citrix. It cost more money to get the application running in multi-tenant mode on servers than it would have cost to buy new machines. Each trust had their own tenant with their own customisations, in order to meet NHS guidelines on Citrix most of it had to be rewritten.

Oi oi now, lay off the citrix bashing. If the app doesn't support roaming profiles and windows server, the app is at fault as these are MS standards, nothing to do with citrix...

Oh but of course works fine on my PC/laptop is the standard these days eh?

 

[Resident]

Oi oi now, lay off the citrix bashing. If the app doesn't support roaming profiles and windows server, the app is at fault as these are MS standards, nothing to do with citrix...

Oh but of course works fine on my PC/laptop is the standard these days eh?

TBF we use Citrix in my job. It's terrible. I've lost count the number of times it's either logged me out/disconnected me at random and/or told me my "credentials" aren't valid.

 

[teaboy5]

If you are talking about an apocolyptic event then that is different. If you are talking about a system failure for a few minutes or an hour then that is different.

IT helpdesk staff are not important, systems people are but out main important people are Operations and Customer Services.

Can Operations do there jobs without IT, yes. Would you want to do it long-term? No.

I have to ask, what is it you do?

 

[Gzero]

TBF we use Citrix in my job. It's terrible. I've lost count the number of times it's either logged me out/disconnected me at random and/or told me my "credentials" aren't valid.

Works very well for us. Beats uag and single terminal server setups I've seen others use.

Sounds like you have a dodgy DC or sick gateway if you are getting drops and credential issues.

 

[cyber69]

So you didn't correctly ascertain whether the non expert user realised her mail archives were on the client or the server? You expected her to know they were not on a network fileshare? And when she didn't realise, you didn't tell her and she lost everything that's amusing?

When you ask a user if they have backed up their data and their reply is 'yes', then I suppose you could back it up anyway just in-case or put a spare HDD in and image that and retain their old one for a week if you have the time to do these extra's which the client is not paying for.

But on a contract where you provide deskside support whereby there is NO ONE onsite and it's on a per call basis where an engineer is called in to the site because they decide actually we don't need anyone onsite to do these IT activities anymore!

 

[Trifid]

When you ask a user if they have backed up their data and their reply is 'yes', then I suppose you could back it up anyway just in-case or put a spare HDD in and image that and retain their old one for a week if you have the time to do these extra's which the client is not paying for.

You could at least go through the different things that they might need backed up. And not allow PST files to avoid that situation as well. My experience of outsourced IT is there is very little care for anything outside of the contract and putting measures in place that the users/customer might not have thought of.

 

[mejinks]

I always enjoy having conversations with users who ask who I think I am, replacing their computer against their will.

This weeks one ended in a conversation in the site executives office asking if I would like to take it further. Dignity in work and all that....

In other news, the moron bint from hell hasn't been sacked and advised that a new pc would need to be replaced because of an error when launching a Citrix application. She actually rang a managers phone on Friday asking if they were in the office. He replied with "You rang my desk phone?" and she still didn't get it. Each service desk call takes over an hour of "troubleshooting" even when its stuff like adding a new printer.

I found out she is married to a senior IT exec. I guess that explains that then.

 

[Gzero]

When you ask a user if they have backed up their data and their reply is 'yes', then I suppose you could back it up anyway just in-case or put a spare HDD in and image that and retain their old one for a week if you have the time to do these extra's which the client is not paying for.

But on a contract where you provide deskside support whereby there is NO ONE onsite and it's on a per call basis where an engineer is called in to the site because they decide actually we don't need anyone onsite to do these IT activities anymore!

A car garage wouldn't go out their way to do extras that weren't paid for. Neither would any other profession in a strictly business contract.

 

[Caged]

You could at least go through the different things that they might need backed up. And not allow PST files to avoid that situation as well. My experience of outsourced IT is there is very little care for anything outside of the contract and putting measures in place that the users/customer might not have thought of.

You're right, but the reason companies outsource their IT support is because they think that it's a huge waste of money and someone else can promise something cheaper. What they often don't realise until it's too late is that they won't get anything more than what they've signed the contract for. Any exclusions that can be made to bring the price down will be made.

Having an outsourced support desk and an internal systems team is such a terrible thing for the people who actually have to use those services - there is often no real dialogue between the two teams, and often the internal guys will not bother doing things like you said (preventing PST use via GPO, etc.) because "we pay a helpdesk to do that sort of thing".

 

[RetiredGreyFox]

When you ask a user if they have backed up their data and their reply is 'yes', then I suppose you could back it up anyway just in-case or put a spare HDD in and image that and retain their old one for a week if you have the time to do these extra's which the client is not paying for.

Just a simple explanation of what 'backed up data' includes would suffice.

 

[Beren]

Thanks to this thread I have just realised that I have not read any BOFH for ages... I have a lot of reading to do... as long as the reg is still doing it...