The Scarcity Mindsetvs.
The Abundance Mindset
Thomas A. Limoncelli
http://EverythingSysadmin.com
poverty
economics
infinity
The mindset of scarcity
plate of potatoes
The mindset of plenty
a parent’s love
plenty is more common than we are taught
compassionfairness
love
by paying attentionto them or spending time with them
by paying attentionto them or spending time with them
by giving our attentionto them or beingwith them
Potlatch and Open Source
System administration in a world of plenty
• Giving attention
• Showing concern
• Sharing expertise
• Improving the world
• Providing stability
• Ensuring protection
time
scarcity is scarce
scarcity in IT is scarce
Much of how we've defined ourselves as system administrators is based in scarcity.
With so many traditional services becoming commodities, what makes us special?
ScarcityIn college I had a job monitoring the mainframe to prevent people from hogging the CPU.
PlentyEveryone has their own CPU
CPUs
Modern policy: Desktops
ScarcityEvery server is expensive, requiring an OS license, Application license. Power was “free”
PlentyHardware becomes cheaper; F/OSS makes software cheaper; power becomes our main cost
Servers
Modern policy: Green Power a business imperative
Scarcity1990 - $700 / 70meg
PlentyRAID
“Free” web-drives
Storage
Modern policy: Storage as a community resource
Scarcity10M shared segments.
Manage users:port ratio
Routers slow and costly.
PlentyGigE to desktop, switched.
Route at “wire speeds”
LANs
Modern policy: Dedicated port per user.
ScarcityDon’t have time to be nice.
PlentyHire friendly people.
Helpdesks
...and...
Gatekeepers
Gatekeepers: Those in control of the flow of information.
Newspaper publishers and editors, Television producers, Encyclopedea editors,
Music Executives,etc.
ScarcityTV channels
News media
Music executives
PlentyYouTube.com
Blogs
cdbaby.com
Gatekeepers made obsolete by the internet
We want curators,not gatekeepers
Choice
The product space is bigger than the
gatekeepers want you to know.
Gatekeepers are everywhere
Gatekeeper:
• Proprietary Software Vendors
“we’ll say what features are worth adding”
• Manufacturers
“We’ll say what products are worth making”
Anti-Gatekeepers:
• Free/Open Source
“we’ll contribute to meet our needs”
• Fabs
“3D Printers”, Fabricators, Rapid Prototypers
Gatekeepers fear losing their power
IT departments are gatekeepers
Fallacies Reality
• We pick the apps because we know more than our users
• IT can provide everything the user needs
• We control everything for safety and security
• Remote access as our VPN permits
• Users are sophisticated, talk with peers
• Users work around us more than we think
• Users get their job done whether or not it is “safe”
• People work around our limits; take data home
No longer sole arbitrator
The IT department doesn’t choose your
search engine
Cloud Computing
A fancy name for a “hosted application”
• Salesforce.com
• Google Apps
• Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail
mashups
programmableweb.com lists 600+ APIs and
2700+ mashups
Google, Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo! are
now ecosystems
• Google Apps Engine• Amazon S3 and EC2• Facebook APIs
Friction-Free Scaling
Scale by clicking the mouse
Commodities
• Email services
• Document storage and backups
• IM/Chat systems
• Hardware Inventory, Distribution & Repair
• Cloud system administration
• Legacy apps (non-cloud apps)
• Desktop life-cycle management
Much of how we've defined ourselves as system administrators is based in scarcity.
With so many traditional services becoming commodities, what makes us special?
In a world of plenty, how do system
administrators add value?
What?and
How?
What?and
How?
System administration in a world of plenty
• Giving attention
• Showing concern
• Sharing expertise
• Improving the world
• Providing stability
• Ensuring protection
Giving our attention(helpdesks)
Showing Concern(Monitoring & SLAs)
Sharing Expertise(IT Coordinator)
Improve the world(Change Management)
Provide Stability(Release engineering)
Ensuring Protection(Security & Compliance)
What?and
How?
trustsafety
stability
Trust
• Transparency is...
• information is available about what we do
• openly shared data - no secrets
• Tip: written policies, written procedures
• consistency across locations and users
• correctness of work, even when delegated
• demystifies our profession
Safety• People feel safe when...
• they have control and have given consent
• Tips:
• Expectations & norms set via AUPs and SLAs
• Needs heard and understood
• Respect for each other and rules
Stability
• No surprises!
• Tips:
• Prevention and planning, less firefighting
• Data-driven decisions
• Incremental improvement (not stasis nor chaos)
Homework
1. Written policies (w/management sign-off) for:
• SLA and AUP
• Scope of support (who, what, where, when)
• How users should get help
• What constitutes an “emergency”2. Help request / ticket system + “next budget” wiki3. Checklists for procedures (wiki)4. Well-defined project priorities5. Monitor utilization - no surprise scarcity
plenty is more common than we are taught
compassionfairness
love
trustsafety
stability
www.EverythingSysadmin.com
∞
=
∞
Thank you
(backup slides)
1. Written policies (w/management sign-off) for:
• SLA and AUP
• Scope of support (who, what, where, when)
• How users should get help
• What constitutes an “emergency”2. Help request / ticket system + “next budget” queue3. Checklists for procedures (wiki)4. Well-defined project priorities5. Monitor utilization - no surprise scarcity
Homework
System administration in a world of plenty
• Giving attention
• Showing concern
• Sharing expertise
• Improving the world
• Providing stability
• Ensuring protection
www.EverythingSysadmin.com
www.EverythingSysadmin.com