Curious to know how common this is - Nightmare vendor solutions
Hey TechExams, this post compromises of part rant and part question. Dealing with nightmare vendor solutions...
Quick background:
I work for a major pharmaceutical company spanning the globe. The site I work for is pretty large...sitting at 1500 or so employees in the central US. Our department is only 4 strong at the moment.
To get straight to the point, we have roughly 50-100 individuals that consider themselves project managers throughout the entire facility (from various departments). As a result, millions of dollars are spent like hot-cakes and to make matters difficult, communication with IT is minimal (we've changed the culture in the last year...it's better but we have a ways to go). Point being, despite having well defined standards for software/hardware, project leaders will introduce some pretty incredible solutions to the site with minimal if any communication with IT before the money is spent. So even if we are only prepared to support Lenovo...countless HP, Fujitsu, Dell, etc PC's are purchased without any form of long-term support model. These project leads are interested in simply installing a solution and walking away...turn key. Of course IT eats the overhead in the long run, despite a piss port implementation. I think thousands of IT people deal with this type of thing on a daily basis but what kills me is... I've had vendors at the end of 2014 REQUIRE the following in nearly every major install:
1) Solution must be non-networked to protect them from the uncertainties of a company domain. I get this to some degree but there are ways to protect a PC, plus gain all of the benefits of centralized authentication, streamline user management, able to mine and report/trend on data, etc.
2) XP is alive and well when dealing with vendors, particularly in the markets of packaging lines or production lines. XP is still being deployed despite being unsupported by Microsoft. These solutions tend to sit for 10-15 years.
3) Solutions are coming with their own DOMAIN CONTROLLERS, policy management, etc. They want to make production supervisors domain admins of their little internal domains. They plan to keep the DC isolated but there are so many things wrong with this...
We've spent 20-30 hours with vendors trying to marry their systems into our network but one major hurdle that kills us is SAT (Site Acceptance Testing) in addition to most of these solutions being over seas (customs/time zones/language barriers). We pay millions to ensure the equipment works at their facilities before shipping the equipment to our site. It's validated before it even arrives so the opportunities of changing the configuration after the fact is no bueno.
After exhausting our options trying to implement these types of solutions right...the business looks at us like we're just causing problems within their strict deadlines so we end up having to concede.
Even though I know these solutions will be a management nightmare I'm not stressing over it. I'm just curious if any of you have to deal with this kind of thing?
Quick background:
I work for a major pharmaceutical company spanning the globe. The site I work for is pretty large...sitting at 1500 or so employees in the central US. Our department is only 4 strong at the moment.
To get straight to the point, we have roughly 50-100 individuals that consider themselves project managers throughout the entire facility (from various departments). As a result, millions of dollars are spent like hot-cakes and to make matters difficult, communication with IT is minimal (we've changed the culture in the last year...it's better but we have a ways to go). Point being, despite having well defined standards for software/hardware, project leaders will introduce some pretty incredible solutions to the site with minimal if any communication with IT before the money is spent. So even if we are only prepared to support Lenovo...countless HP, Fujitsu, Dell, etc PC's are purchased without any form of long-term support model. These project leads are interested in simply installing a solution and walking away...turn key. Of course IT eats the overhead in the long run, despite a piss port implementation. I think thousands of IT people deal with this type of thing on a daily basis but what kills me is... I've had vendors at the end of 2014 REQUIRE the following in nearly every major install:
1) Solution must be non-networked to protect them from the uncertainties of a company domain. I get this to some degree but there are ways to protect a PC, plus gain all of the benefits of centralized authentication, streamline user management, able to mine and report/trend on data, etc.
2) XP is alive and well when dealing with vendors, particularly in the markets of packaging lines or production lines. XP is still being deployed despite being unsupported by Microsoft. These solutions tend to sit for 10-15 years.
3) Solutions are coming with their own DOMAIN CONTROLLERS, policy management, etc. They want to make production supervisors domain admins of their little internal domains. They plan to keep the DC isolated but there are so many things wrong with this...
We've spent 20-30 hours with vendors trying to marry their systems into our network but one major hurdle that kills us is SAT (Site Acceptance Testing) in addition to most of these solutions being over seas (customs/time zones/language barriers). We pay millions to ensure the equipment works at their facilities before shipping the equipment to our site. It's validated before it even arrives so the opportunities of changing the configuration after the fact is no bueno.
After exhausting our options trying to implement these types of solutions right...the business looks at us like we're just causing problems within their strict deadlines so we end up having to concede.
Even though I know these solutions will be a management nightmare I'm not stressing over it. I'm just curious if any of you have to deal with this kind of thing?
Comments
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cyberguypr
Mod Posts: 6,928 Mod
Sounds like your employer needs a CIO/CTO who is respected by the business and knows what he's doing. From your description it seems the current one is treated like a doormat.