Our six-step program to network computing success

When we first started evangelizing the how-to's
of rightsizing, downsizing, and capsizing back in 1993, we spoke about
our #1 priority, a client/server production acceptance process.
It was, and still is the most critical process, the key link in
implementing the proper infrastructure to support today's enterprise.
We'll update you on the latest revisions to this process in future
columns.

After visiting with thousands of companies around the world, we've
found the biggest problem large firms face when moving from host-based
to network-based computing is not technology, it's
people!

In previous columns we outlined how to retrain mainframe and
Unix people, but education is only a small piece of the puzzle. The
biggest piece is dealing with the diverse cultures within the
organization. You must break down the walls not only between PC, Unix,
and mainframe people, but between these groups and (horrors!)
users.

It's the big guy's fault

To a) get this out of our systems, and b) place the blame elsewhere,
let's point the finger at who's responsible for underestimating the
difficulty in adopting network-based computing. It's the CIO's fault.
(If you are a CIO, feel free to change the "I" in "CIO" to an "E.")

You know the scene: Well-dressed, lightly perfumed executives
shmoozing in ivory-tower boardrooms about mergers and acquisitions,
company politics, and reorganizations, punctuated by occasional pointed
questions why computers cost so darn much, and when the board will
start to see the ROI on all of the client/server spending. (Life as a
CIO can't be all fun.) Executives aren't stupid. Some just
don't have a clue what it takes to implement this crazy new enterprise,
or don't care to listen to a savvy CIO's warnings and explanations.

Lead by the CIO, the IT team must refresh the corporate memory
in regards to how
difficult it was in years past to exchange one mainframe operating system
for another. It took months of planning and testing to move the
organization from, essentially, one tractor-trailer rig to
another. How quickly people forget the three decades it took to
establish the procedures that established the foundation for
a secure and reliable central data center.

Executives and users are demanding and impatient. Spurred by competition
and oftentimes glowing accounts in trade magazines of client/server
bliss, executives and users fail to recognize that not only is a safe
change tough under ideal circumstances, it's very difficult when the
organization is adopting a computing system with double or perhaps
triple the number of variables. If moving from one mainframe OS to
another is like changing truck brands, then switching from centralized,
mainframe-style computing to a network-based system is like trading
trucks for airplanes.

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