[2631] in Release_7.7_team
Re: Please strongly consider backing out the zephyr servers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jeffrey I. Schiller)
Tue Mar 6 18:44:40 2001
Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 18:43:41 -0500
From: "Jeffrey I. Schiller" <jis@MIT.EDU>
To: Garry Zacheiss <zacheiss@mit.edu>
Cc: "Susan S. Minai-Azary" <azary@mit.edu>, Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>,
John Hawkinson <jhawk@mit.edu>, release-team@mit.edu, op@mit.edu,
winzephyr-release@mit.edu
Message-ID: <20010306184341.C1894@mit.edu>
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In-Reply-To: <200103052007.PAA01233@riff-raff.mit.edu>; from zacheiss@MIT.EDU on Mon, Mar 05, 2001 at 03:07:51PM -0500
Let's talk when we see each other in person.
Ever hear the phrase "The Customer is Always Right!"? We need to be
thinking more along those lines at IS. When we make changes to a
service, particularly during off-hours where our support infrastructure
is not at full capacity, we have to be prepared to pull those changes if
the changes break a customer.
That the customer is a "tester" is besides the point. There is an
implied understanding with testers (generically, not just here at MIT)
that software being tested may have bugs. However this agreement does
not usually extend to "we can pull the service out from underneath you"
unless there is an agreement that states this. Of course customers are
not good agreement readers!
There is a technical issue hiding here. That issue has to do with where
the service "interface" is provided. When you control all of the
software (both client and server) you can ignore the wire protocol used
by the service. As long as you can arrange for all of your customers to
have a compatible client, you can change the server and wire protocol at
will. Throughout the history of Athena, this has pretty much been the
case.
However as we extend the environment to other platforms, the service
interface starts to become the wire protocol. You cannot make changes to
the wire protocol without massive coordination. Welcome to the Real
World. Alternatively you can make a wire protocol changes if you
believe it will have no negative impact. But then you MUST be prepared
to pull the change as soon as you hear of a negative impact.
The checksum change was a wire protocol change that had a negative
impact.
What I saw was an extended debate about who was responsible for fixing
what... while the customers were not working. Customer focus means that
we don't leave customers broken while we discuss the best approach to
solving the problem, not if there is any reasonable way to get them back
up and running. In the end IS is service organization. We need to
remember that.
-Jeff
