The glitch that stole salesforce.com

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Third Party Vendors

I would like to thank Mr. Wainewright for this article. It is good to see a Third Party Vendor own up to their problems. However, it highlights the problem with TPVs. Like the recent spate of articles regarding TypePad, I really need to ask why in the world would anyone outsource not just a critical business process such as CRM, but critical, confidential data to a TPV. Wake up people! This is your business!

What if this article had been not about a database bug that took Salesforce.com offline, but about a database bug that revealed one clients data to another client? Not unimaginable, not by a long shot. A few days ago, a client of mine dropped a configuration file from the wrong local directory onto the server, and poof! Their application started working just fine... pulling data from a different database schema. That is all it takes. The application appears to be working correctly, because it is working correctly. It's just getting the wrong data from an identical data stack.

Every time I read something like this, I like to save the bookmark, so when my boss asks me why I am spending so much time installing software onto our server, or writing customer applications for ourselves, or requesting funds for additional hardware, redundancy, and software, I can show him why I refuse to ever have any part of our business be in the clutches of a third party vendor if possible.

At this point, our business has these items sourced by a TPV:

* Office space (we are working to buy our own building)
* Utilities (electricity, water)
* Telecommunications (phone service, Internet connectivity)

We have some measure of redundancy on all of these items. We perform regular backups with offsite storage; in a major "crunch" situation I can have our server duplicated in a new location. I can (at the speed of backup recovery) have users able to access important files on an ad hoc basis. We have UPS protection for critical pieces of equipment, and are looking to extend that coverage. We all have personal cell phones in case the lines are down. I am currently investigating a redundant data carrier.

Is this expensive? Heck yes. But thanks to articles like this, my boss sees the need for us to never be held hostage.

Folks: Get off the TPVs and end your pain. You are using a TPV because you are too lazy to learn how to run the system yourself, and too cheap to run the system yourself. These are the same reasons why home users don't run antivirus products, and then get viruses. This is why people who don't lock their doors get robbed. Lazyness and cheapness are two of the biggest drivers behind computer problems, if not most problems in this world. End your addiction to laziness and cheapness. Recognize that doing IT *right* requires a large investment in time, money, effort, sweat, frustration, and knowledge, just like any other aspect of your business. Recognize that yes, IT is a cost center, but cheap IT is a disaster center.

And get away from any TPV that you can, immediately.

J.Ja

Posted by: Justin James   Posted on: 12/22/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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