Microsoft Technology: Networking, Concepts, Tools with Cdrom
Authors: Shay Woodard, Marshall Brain, Nick Gattuccio
Venue:  (1998)

From the Book:Preface: Preface You're a business manager. You are well educated and highly motivated. You've got a lot of experience, you're a firm but fair leader, and your staff works hard to please you. You understand your business, you understand your people, and you have a razor-sharp picture of what your business needs to make it prosper and grow. It's so perfect it sounds like a Hollywood movie. What could possible go wrong? What's wrong is you're a business person, not some propeller-head techie with about a thousand acronyms and a language all his own. When you boot a server you kick a waiter down the stairs, not restart a computer. CPU should be someone's alma mater. What's wrong is that lately every time you turn around, it seems, you have to have to go one-on-one with a techie. It used to be that the technical professionals now and again introduced a little complexity. Now the picture is different. It seems that every time they walk through your door there is some new constraint on the business. There are new "must have" technologies, systems that competitors are installing at a breathtaking pace, upgraded systems that break existing functionality... Each time the business is at risk. And it's the same three things every time: 1. You can't understand half of what they say. It may sound dire, but how can you know? It's like going to the doctor. You feel like running out to the library half way through the exam. 2. They always want money - and lots of it. They want to buy new machines or new network connections or hire more people, or two of those to support the other, or the other way around. They're insatiable. 3. Half the time, evenwhenyou give them all the money they want, there are half a dozen reasons why they can't do what the business needs. Of those six reasons, three are why it's impossible, and the other three are why it's a stupid idea. The tail wags the dog, and you're the dog. And the way it starts to feel is out of control. You begin to feel like a hostage of your technology department. It's like the telephone repair man walked in and said you'll have to move to a new building to get your phone working. What are you gong to say? You can't argue because you can't speak the language. Your business systems used to be your territory, but not any longer. The technology is everywhere. It infiltrates everything. So you can't not give them the money they ask for, or they'll threaten to leave. And that's not trivial. Hell, when FedEx's web site goes down the entire company is practically disabled. When an airline's reservation system goes down the airline might as well be grounded. Without email, no one in most companies could get anyting done. This is important stuff! This is too important to have no control over it. So what are you going to do? Either you are going to continue to feel like the president of a country overrun by terrorists, or else you are going to try something else. You are going to learn enough about the technology so that you can deal with these guys on their own turf. You are going to get yourself to the point where you can (a) ask the right questions, (b) build a list of options, with costs, (c) discover the business risks the technology creates and avoid them, and (d) take back control of the company and its business systems. This book is about taking control of your company's business systems by coming to grips with its technology. The fact is, technology is business as usual - or is rapidly becoming. That's the central premise of this book. Network technology is entwined (or soon will be) with the very fabric of your business. While technologies are evolving to accommodate business needs, the opposite is also happening - business is evolving (and rapidly!) to seize opportunities that network technology makes available. But this is very difficult because it's a rapidly moving target. The pace of change is astonishingly swift. In this book you will find a collection of capabilities that the network makes possible, as well as a collection of questions. You, as a business leader, need to be asking the right questions so that you know: 1) What it is that the technology can do for you, 2) How much it will cost to implement, and 3) what risks the presence and lack of technology presents to your business. We happen to align ourselves with the world of Microsoft technology for many of the examples in this book, but the concepts are easily extrapolated to other systems. The important part for you to understand is the capabilities, and what they can do for you. Acknowledgements Several people have contributed to this book, and we would like to recognize them for their help and effort. Kevin Webb supported this project from start to finish, making time from his main duties to be involved in book meetings that occurred 3 times a week. He drafted several chapter outlines and provided drafts of content for several areas covered by the book. He offered great insight and feedback throughout the entire process. Thanks Kevin! Carl Dodson created all the diagrams and figures for this book. His attention to consistency and clarity was a great help. Joe Magura contributed his knowledge by drafting the content about applications services. Furthermore, he helped out as we were getting down to the wire by working on the glossary. Ken Bagnal and Ken Roberts proofed and reviewed many of the chapters. Their feedback was most appreciated. Kelly Campbell, Wendy Braddy, and Shane Smith worked on glossary terms. Finally, Leigh Ann Brain did all the production work to make this book ready for publishing. Thanks to all of them!