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Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

arstechnica.com

11–20 of 200 posts

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#11

Some key points - 1.) 11 database servers. 1 app server 2.) Not redirecting http to https 3.) not stress tested or apparently tested in any way 4.) users got their first taste of the system the morning of the election.

Sounds like Microsoft was trying to sell a few SQL server licenses.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#12
post #9

Zero training? A single web server? No end users even touching the system till it's time for mission critical use? No frigging redirect of http->https? And it looks like, as has happened more than once in my professional life, people outside of the management structure saw possible risks and were blown off by those in charge. Even if you supported Romney, this has to give you some pause about the man's management ski…

He hired Microsoft and what sounds like a Microsoft Partner. No one gets fired for buying Microsoft.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#13
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Web App is actually the right call. It was for volunteers doing GOTV in the field, not as much for people sitting at a desktop. And you would want to be able to issue updates quickly and carefully control access -- things that are much more difficult with an App Store app.

Using Windows was a mistake, that's for sure. Good thing for Democrats they didn't know about the open source ushahidi platform.

Why do you choose to throw out an insult at Windows? Is there anything about this story that points to Windows being at fault? How about you think before you flame next time, okay?

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Windows was a mistake, that's for sure. Good thing for Democrats they didn't know about the open source ushahidi platform.

How did you determine using Windows was a mistake from the information presented in the article ?

Cause it's a bias of his, likely.

What I get from the article is a classic tale of crappy IT management, the like of which I've seen and heard of several times.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Windows was a mistake, that's for sure. Good thing for Democrats they didn't know about the open source ushahidi platform.

How did you determine using Windows was a mistake from the information presented in the article ?

"Using Windows was a mistake" is a truism.

Also, from the article, project failed. Failure is regularly equated with having made mistakes.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#16
post #12
post #9

Zero training? A single web server? No end users even touching the system till it's time for mission critical use? No frigging redirect of http->https? And it looks like, as has happened more than once in my professional life, people outside of the management structure saw possible risks and were blown off by those in charge. Even if you supported Romney, this has to give you some pause about the man's management ski…

He hired Microsoft and what sounds like a Microsoft Partner. No one gets fired for buying Microsoft.

Oh yes, people do get fired for buying microsoft. Switch industries and you'll see. Or try spending 2 years building your company knowledge base into sharepoint and you'll see.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#18
The assumption that software can work from the first try is proven wrong, time and again. Software is something that needs to grow, mature and stabilize. The Romney campaign had the thing that's usually hardest to get - the human beta test resources. It should have been dry run for months.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#19
post #4
post #2

From Slate back in July: an interesting background piece about the campaign's approach to staffing for data analysis. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/victory_lab/... What the debacle brings to mind is the consequences of putting "idea guys" in charge of software development when there is a hard deadline. "Orca had been conceived by two men—Romney's Director of Voter Contact Dan Centinello and the camp…

A Web App is actually the right call. It was for volunteers doing GOTV in the field, not as much for people sitting at a desktop. And you would want to be able to issue updates quickly and carefully control access -- things that are much more difficult with an App Store app.

"A Web App is actually the right call."

Yes.

Calling it "an app" however was a bad call. From a practical standpoint, that is. From the standpoint of "an idea guy" and a "communications expert" it was of course a requirement.

Re: Inside Team Romney’s whale of an IT meltdown

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using Windows was a mistake, that's for sure. Good thing for Democrats they didn't know about the open source ushahidi platform.

Why do you choose to throw out an insult at Windows? Is there anything about this story that points to Windows being at fault? How about you think before you flame next time, okay?

I have been a professional webmaster since 1995. I have worked for California's largest privately held webhosting company. I am an MCP in Windows server and have been the only guy on staff willing to support customers with IIS.

I base my statement partly on that experience.

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