The right question
May 14th, 2010 | Published in Uncategorized
I attended the AITL meeting yesterday. I found it encouraging and frustrating.
What was encouraging? The AITL is made up of intelligent people who are committed to making the University run more effectively and efficiently. They have a clear grasp of the issues we’re facing, and want to do what’s best for the University.
What frustrated me can be illustrated by a sentence from Brad’s “ITS Weekly Update”:
The BSC will use AITL input as it decides whether we “stay status quo with the mainframe” or “move to Open Systems.”
This is wrong on so many levels. We can change the status quo significantly while staying on the mainframe, and the move to Open Systems envisioned by the Mainframe Migration Assessment would preserve the status quo in every dimension except the hardware and operating system. “Status quo on the mainframe” and “move current Adabas/Natural applications to Open Source” are not the only alternatives!
Dennis said at the beginning of the meeting that the purpose of the assessment was to see if the University could save money by moving our existing application portfolio off the mainframe. I think the report answered that question, and the answer is clearly “no.” But I thought when it was first proposed, and I still think now, that “Mainframe vs. Open Systems” is the wrong question. (Personally, I don’t see where there’s that big a difference.) The right question is something like “what should be the University’s long term strategy for administrative information technology?” If we can answer that correctly we will actually have a basis for tactical decisions like whether or how quickly we should migrate off the mainframe. Focusing on the hardware and operating system just distracts us from the real issues.