Posted on 09/21/2003 1:04:56 PM PDT by Coral Snake
Saturday September 20, 2003 - [ 08:08 AM GMT ] Topic - Business
- by Jeff Childers - Corporate IT budgets have become paralyzed by their resistance to monolithic, all-or-nothing upgrades accompanied by painful services interruptions and unexpected cost overruns. Their obstinacy has been learned by hard experience, and is caused by the near ubiquitous use of Microsoft software in business.
Microsoft has engineered its software to create just this interdependency. The result is the phenomenon of "cascading" upgrades, where the decision to upgrade a single Microsoft component triggers an avalanche of related upgrade requirements. Consider the following example:
A business wishes to upgrade its Exchange Server software in order to implement a virus protection protocol. In order to use the most current version of Exchange, its IT staff will also be required to upgrade their Windows NT server to Windows Server 2003. Because their server hardware is inadequate for Windows Server 2003, they will be required to purchase a new file server as well. Their backup software, designed for Windows NT, will not run on Windows Server 2003, and will also need to be upgraded or replaced. The (expensive) backup tape rotation device, purchased in 1998, has no driver support on Windows 2003, and, even though functioning perfectly, will have to be discarded and replaced with a new model that offers Windows 2003 driver support. A host of critical applications and related hardware will either require troubleshooting (DLL conflicts, etc.), upgrade, or replacement.
More at:
(Excerpt) Read more at newsforge.com ...
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