Re: IBM Engineer...
I take it there were no risks identified in the change control they were working under along with mitigating steps then!?
511 posts • joined 26 Oct 2010
It's interesting with the 'new' ESN network that some Blue Light services have their control rooms receiving radio traffic in hosted environments, it then gets pushed to a terminal where the user is logged on, where ever that may be. Networking has never been so important. One customer has had WAN problems ever since they started doing this to the extent they had to restrict WAN usage until they could upgrade their connectivity, something that has been ongoing for years now.
I had a fault on a bit of software that we supplied that I needed to escalate to our Development Team. Support was refused until it could be fitted into their 'sprints'.
Once I managed to get them to look at it (by escalating internally), it took them <5mins to see the issue and about 1hr to fix it. To get to that point was months.
Business my dad was at was in danger of going bust, so many were taking time off 'sick' that there were no staff left. The union reps were called in and warned that they would be redundant soon if it continued, an agreement was reached where the problematic staff were called in for a meeting and offered assistance or be retired off (don't know the exact details but this is the gist).
Problem with 'going equipt' to commit crime is that it can be used against you if you're stopped. Using what's about reduces the chances of that happening.
If I was a criminal I'd go round with a hammer or spray paint and destroy all the Ring door bells. Less chance of being on camera when you do look to nick something.
One of the main Birmingham Universities found that one of it's Computer Rooms fire suppression cylinders were empty recently, there wasn't anyone maintaining the system and topping them up as required. It took quite a period to source the required gas in the quantity required and get them charged!
We've a customer service 'apprentice' who hasn't met anyone in the business yet, they started just after lockdown 1. I've no idea how they're dealing with this, I try to help them out where possible as the last thing they need is someone they don't know, haven't met and are unlikely to ever meet making their life harder.
Our company is primarily older staff who are fairly experienced and disciplined. We could do with taking on some more junior ones but as we're remote, training is definitely an issue that we (and others) need to address. Culture has been lost to an extent. It'll be interesting to see what happens this time next year, I predict that certain departments will be back in the office full time.
Very frequently I find myself also on call with someone who has 'really poor' phone signal in their house. Or, as they work in the City, any calls that come in whilst they're underground travelling home come to me as the next in the line.
Unfortunately for them as I'm not trained in the same products as well they stack up ready for when they do answer the phone.
Likewise, I had a J1 until I lost it in a Taxi in Spain one holiday. It worked well, started to slow down towards the end but was still perfectly usable.
I currently use Android, when my current phone finally gives up on security updates (probably already happened!) I may consider putting Sailfish on it, not sure I'd do it with a primary device though.
My company were looking to refresh a public sector customer's system, an internal (to them) architect decided that as someone he knew had had a bad experience with what we and another company had proposed he'd have it rejected, after the contracts had been signed!
They've now had to go back out to tender and sort out the existing contracts.
I was in Lincolnshire last week, there was quite a bit of tune I had no 4G signal (I'm on EE). Itd be interesting to know of the areas I was in had a usable Airwave signal.
I think most forces have now accepted they need to buy new handsets, I think the HO had a grant available for this recently.
I use to have to visit a customer who had a number of servers in an old kitchen with a small extractor and a desk fan for cooling. They kept the door closed as it was so noisy with all the server fans running on full.
Frequently our server would overheat, it'd also log all the internal temperatures. We showed the customer how hot it was running, their response was to find the data sheet for the mother board and show that it was within it's operating parameters. Fortunately my manager agreed with me that we should exclude heat related faults from our maintenance agreement.
We've lost our customer service team who are working from home in the London area, fortunately we can re-route calls to different users. However, if this had been wider then we'd have lost our office connectivity and PBX access which would make it more interesting. We have some redundancy but if it'd be enough I'm not sure.
Chuckle, I worked at Oakhanger when Paradigm Serco started to manage Skynet 4/5. The same people were in charge that were there when the RAF ran it. They just left and went to work for Serco. I imagine the same still happens, they get Tupe'd between companies.
Many who pick up government contracts couldn't tie their own shoelaces but there must be some that do a reasonable job, we just never hear about them.
They're now more doomed at the HO with Capita on board than they were before, you'd think someone would read El Reg there?
Interesting that you say UKESN is run over 4G, it's a VoLTE system so 'should' be able to go over which ever flavour 'G' is available at the time. With 5 becoming more prevalent, I hope the handsets are compatible but I doubt it at this stage. They're also locked to EE as this is the SIM card that they're using, EE having bid for the specific lot to provide the network. Nothing to stop them sticking in a different SIM and jumping on a different network, however correct routing of the data into the ESN network would be needed.
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