Re: Re: Small Project Definition

Very good questions. Perhaps I over-generalized the project too much. The task is to alert employees that there are antivirus definition file updates available for Command Software Antivirus (CSAV once know as F-Prot):

I work for a University and we have 3 hospitals as well as the main campus to worry about. There could be daily updates, but since some people work shifts, we should check a couple of times each shift even though different shifts might use the same computer.
All the users have to do, once notified, is open the software and click the "Update Deffiles" button. Sounds easy enough you would think.
We already send out e-mail messages when the updates are ready, but then there are the limitations of e-mail: not everyone has it; if they have it they don't ask to be put on our mailing list; they receive the email and promptly delete and/or ignore it since it is an automated message. Of our roughly 5800 employees, only 2100 even have e-mail accounts.

I imagine that the thinking is: if we tell the user there is an update available, and I suppose we could go the extra step and open the program for them. The least they could do is click one stinking button. Our department is made up of 6 full time people and two student workers. As you can imagine the SirCam and Nimda viruses pretty much ate our lunches.

"Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so." -- Bertrand Russell

Comment on Re: Re: Small Project Definition

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Re: Small Project Definition by mandog (Curate) on Sep 30, 2001 at 05:48 UTC
It sounds like the goal is making sure that all your (hundreds?) of PCs have up to date virus definitions. This feels like longer than an 8 hour project and it feels like you won't accomplish your goal, if user's don't update with email notification, they aren't going to update with a popup box.... You might be better off using the your vendor's shrink wrapped central console . or switching to a vender like Norton that allows PCs to be configured to reach out and pull down anti-virus definitions directly from Norton's website. If you are talking about hospitals and people’s lives (?!!), money shouldn't be an object. If you recently got nailed, your upper management should be open to spending some money to fix this problem. If not leak the story to your local newspaper In a small setup, 5-10 PCS a home brewed script can work pretty well. –I’ve done it. In a larger setup configuration management by hand can get ugly. (I’ve seen it done) Hope this helps --mandog	[reply]
Re: Re: Small Project Definition by jlongino (Parson) on Sep 30, 2001 at 07:54 UTC
Close, but I think more accurate is that the goal is to show that our department has bent over backwards to make the process as easy for the enduser as we possibly can without having to invest any additional funds (my time isn't equated directly to funds, it's already budgeted). I'll have our antivirus person check into the CSS option. Although from what I can tell from their white pages (which isn't much), I'm betting that it would be more cost effective to go with NAV mass licensing so we don't incur the added costs/headaches that go along with installing/maintaining multiple servers necessary to handle the administrative tasks ourselves. As for the hospitals, nearly all of the critical administrative functions are done via dummy terminals to an IBM mainframe. But the "less essential" computing functions will still fall in Academic Computing's realm. Also, this is a University which is currently under proration and is being throttled by the foundation established to nurture it. As for upper management, I really really like my job and want to keep it. My boss is great and will always try to do the right thing. Unfortunately, the final decisions are not always his alone and I'll probably end up doing this project anyway for political reasons. "University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." -- Henry Kissinger	[reply]