When Does Third Party Support Make Sense?

The sales pitch by third party support vendors is compelling. The up-front cost savings are enough to make anyone pay attention. But can they deliver?

In some ways, the answer has to be no. They do not have direct access to new updates or the expertise of the engineers that produce them. When you go with third-party support, make sure that you have a way to get needed security and functionality upgrades, and make sure that you have a path forward.

License compliance, and compliance with regulatory and contractual requirements are your responsibility, not the responsibility of the support provider. If you have not worked around those issues, you have more work to do before making the leap to third party support.

Some vendors have fee requirements to re-establish a relationship if you need to upgrade to a new version or pull in the primary vendor's expertise. Make sure you are looking at the total cost picture, not just the pretty up-front cost picture the sales rep is showing you.

Scott Rosenberg suggests some situations that may be ripe for third party support:

• You have a highly customized environment that is several updates behind and may never be able to be updated.
• You are pulling in extra expertise outside of the basic maintenance agreement, for tuning or design support.
• No updates or upgrades are expected to be needed.

If you do go with a third-party vendor, make sure to protect yourself with a well-written contract and guarantees. Understand what the vendor will do, and how they will handle issues that are beyond their expertise. What timelines, deadlines, and service levels are guaranteed by the vendor?

As with any other business decision, make sure you have the facts before you proceed.

Tips for a Successful Interview

I've posted a few pointers recently in answer to some questions I have fielded from people who are preparing for interviews. I thought it might be useful to have a quick list of a few ideas that I have found useful in interviews:

1. Be enthusiastic, positive, and pleasant. Employers are looking for someone who is going to bring positive energy into their workplace. This is the time to explain what you like about the new position, as well as to catalog the positive aspects of your current and former positions. Be likable and friendly throughout.
2. Bring solutions to the employer's problems. Do your research, ask questions, and listen to the answer. Apply your experience and expertise to the employer's problems, and engage in a dialog about how to solve them. Show your prospective employer what you bring to the table, and set a solid tone for your future relationship.
3. Bring your full attention to the interview. Whatever is happening at home or your current job, it needs to stay outside the room. Listen to what your prospective boss is saying--and listen to what is not being said. Your full attention needs to be here, now, in the moment.
4. Be strong. Don't allow yourself to get discouraged. Be relentlessly positive, even when the interview hits rough patches. Some interviewers deliberately inject difficult questions or sections into their interviews to see how you react to adversity.
5. Prepare good answers. Examine the job listing for clues about what the hiring manager is looking for. Research common interview questions as well as guessing what questions you will be asked, and prepare good answers. Practice them with a coach who can suggest how to improve your answers.
6. Prepare good questions. When the interviewer invites you to ask questions, know what you are going to ask, and ask it in a positive way. Your questions should be on point and professional.

Critical Thinking

One of the most important characteristics of a good IT professional is an ability to think critically.

Mature IT professionals will understand industry best practices, but will also understand why those practices are widely adopted. Professionals will discover the needs of their organization, and will analyze the available tools and practices to adapt them to the current situation.

Cookbooking an IT environment is easy. Analyzing the challenges in the environment and creatively applying solid structures and processes is the mark of a mature IT professional.

Is It a Quantum Computer?

I ran across an article on the new Dwave 2 "quantum" computer.

Some specialists are expressing skepticism about whether or not what is happening in the box is truly "quantum" in nature or not, but it does seem clear that something unusual is happening. The issue is that direct examination of a quantum system leads to a collapse of the wave function, at which point quantum effects are no longer observable.

As these machines are built and tested, it will be interesting to see what types of problems are solved more quickly with this device. The types of problems that are solved may help to indicate whether or not "entanglement" is being used in the way that the manufacturer claims.

Negotiating Service Level Agreements

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are increasing in importance as enterprises rely on vendors for more and more services. Especially with the penetration of cloud computing in the enterprise, organizations need to protect their reputation by setting clear expectations with the vendors.

Vendors have to protect their own interests, so good vendors are not going to accept any agreement proposed by a single customer. Reaching a SLA will be a tough negotiating process, but it should be done as part of almost any contract negotiation.

There will be a lot of exceptions listed in any detailed SLA. This is the time to identify the exceptions that are of the most concern to your organization, and to demand mitigating actions to be taken by the vendor. (Keep in mind that the cost of these mitigations will be transferred to you in your bill from the vendor, but your organization's reputation needs to be protected against major risks.)

One of the attractive features of cloud computing in particular is that the costs can be spread out over time and across the vendor's customer base. To the extent that you request industry-standard protections, you may be able to spread the costs across your utilization rather than having to pay a lump sum or fixed fee.

A well-designed SLA will contain allowances for necessary maintenance activities and for force majeure. It is common for penalties to be granted as service credits, and it is also common for penalties to be capped at a fixed percentage of recurring costs.