Friday, July 29, 2011

Busy Busy Busy

Racing towards the end of the finical year trying to tie up the loose ends of the old year and see what I will get to do in the next 12 months. Been a bit of a busmans holiday last week as I was asked to look at HP’s Application Monitoring Solutions. It always amazes me to see a repeat pitch this reminded me of a day back in 1996 when I was peddled a very similar story at CA in Maidenhead in some fancy room on the top of their building. The challenge with such solutions has never been the capability its always been around the level of effort it takes to get there. I recall the first time we added the coke machine into Polycenter it was great fun but I’m not sure it had any value other than the fact we could do it! Later on I created a network of electronic rat traps around the farm attached via a wireless network I can tell when the battery source is low and when the trap has discharged. Nothing worse than frying a rat then not finding it for a couple of weeks . . .
Ah I’m off the point then I’m thinking that’s the whole point of a blog, my brain is a jumble of things going on mostly I’m trying to avoid writing a departmental structure, job descriptions etc for a build out in Asia. As the deadline looms my head crams up with all the other things going on in my brain, thoughts of my dead parents, of being alone, what to do at the weekend, the fact Billy is getting old. I did not plan to get another Weimaraner when he is gone but it is impossible to imagine a life without my constant shadow. He is 11, I can hear the cancer in his breathing the same story as Boo Dog his Aunt who was put to sleep in the back of my car aged 15 after an 11 year fight against cancer. I know the cancer wont kill him old age will but its still hard to think of a future without him. I worry about being selfish and getting another dog, its such a commitment and I’m not sure I have 15 years lifespan left to look after him. I’m in good health but statistically 15 years is more than I have, amazing how deadlines make you bottle up thoughts probably better I clear them from my head as they don’t want to seem to pack up into their box just yet.
Jumbling the work and technology stuff in with personal stuff is the way my mind works I guess in a real life situation I would not be what the casual reader expects.
In any case back to HP and their Application Monitoring Solutions all seems fairly nice in the end state but I want to see the level of effort required to get there. Back in the day I built a number of Enterprise Monitoring/Application Instrumentation solutions (some still in use today) it has always been possible but the cost often out weighed the benefit, not that I cared much it was the clients money not mine! If HP have got the implementation and updating costs licked into shape then it could be a viable approach for us, well if they can wrap it all up into a service . . .
Back to those Job Descriptions . . .

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