[plug] E-MAIL NON DELIVERY UPDATE

[Bernd Felsche]

Alex Polglaze <apolglaze at book-keepingnetwork.com.au> wrote:
>Alex Polglaze wrote:

>>> In trying to work out why it no longer works, the IT guy at his work, 
>>> I am reluctant to use the word expert, has finally worked out that 
>>> when they upgraded their MS exchange, it is no longer able to send to 
>>> e-mail to Linux boxes.

>>> Therefore, the problem must be at my office and I need to change my OS.

>UPDATE

>It started working today, we rec'd an e-mail, first one for months.

>We rang to say that we had rec'd one.

>The IT "expert" now realises that they have a major problem and that it 
>has nothing to do with me using Linux here.

>Thank you to all those who replied and apologies to those who took 
>offence at my suggestion that the guy was an idiot.

>Luckily for me, I knew that the problem was not here and therefore 
>didn't spend time, which I can't spare, and money, that I couldn't 
>really afford to waste, chasing a solution for a non existent problem.

>This would not necessarily be the case for other people and businesses 
>and therefore, this "expert" would have wasted other peoples resources. 
>Hence my criticism.

A common problem in this "industry" is that there is a basic lack of
fault-finding skills. I.T. qualification is typically by training;
the following of relatively few routine processes.  As a result,
_blame_ gets shifted around (because *I* have followed all the
procedures it's not my fault) without even first identifying the
real problem or isolating it to a "black box".

It would be more appropriate (IMHO) if it were by a process of
education; one of incrementally increasing the students'
understanding of underlying principles and how they apply within the
various higher levels of the operating computer system and network.

I.T. can be an Engineering discipline. Problems can be solved
systematically by analysis, testing and measurement. And problems
can be averted by systems design based on the underlying principles,
quantitative analysis of requirements, testing and controlled
deployment.

I.T. staff need to at least concentrate on solving problems and not
attributing blame.

It is relatively trivial to test stuff like SMTP delivery; from
differently-configured machined ranging from plain-vanilla to those
struggling in a quagmire. It only requires a telnet client.

It is also trivial to check log files (on the *nix side at least) to
ensure that things are running as expected.

A lot of time and money is spent on hardware upgrades that simply
are not necessary. Abuse of existing systems is often the problem;
not one of insufficient capacity to cope with stuff that should be
happening.
-- 
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Innovative Reckoning, Perth, Western Australia
\ /  ASCII ribbon campaign | The object of life is not to be on the side of 
 X   against HTML mail     | the majority but to escape finding oneself in
/ \  and postings          | the ranks of the insane.  -- Marcus Aurelius