RobbieTheGeek.Com

I am lucky enough to work in a situation where I get to go to instructor-led training for technology that I support. So for the record, this week I am in a HP OpenView Administration I class. All I have to say is wow, this is going to be brutal. For those that aren't familiar with this product I will give you the geek's sales pitch..."Hi there would you like to be more proactive? Would you like to make you bosses see what it is that IT supports and prove to them you are doing your job? Just tell your financial department it is spelled Hewlett Packard when they are filling out the check."This is a rather negative slant but this is how I entered this week of training. I am totally amazed that companies get there Chief Executive/Information Officer to buy into proactive monitoring of IT events and anomalies, but HP / Tivoli and others are making a killing in this marketspace. This seems like a market that IT geeks would be falling over themselves to get near, but as far as I can tell the only reason techfolks are going to this class isn't for furthering their personal knowledge and trying to advance their career. Nope it is because some administration type is making the IT department that they work in go forward and implement HP OVOW and all the sundry pieces of the OpenView suite. This is just day one down and I will update my blog atleast one time before this training is completed. It seems to be a very powerful product, but I am still not sold on its overall value not to total cost of ownership (TCO) or its return on investment (ROI) but to a geek sitting in front of a console looking at the service maps and messages coming in.Sorry for this detailed and totally geeked out rant. The geek heads back to class in the AMP.S. How come well paid and seemingly intelligent people in the IT industry become total idiots when they are face to face with something they don't know even if there are step-by-step instructions in front of them????