[Cadre-politics] 100 org questions & answers

[Dan MacNeil]

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MOVING TO 100 ORGANIZATIONS

CAN WE MAINTAIN CONTACT INFO FOR 100 ORGANIZATIONS WITH A SPREADSHEET
AND LISTSERV?

yes, the slightly tricky part is being sure to update both.

Q: WHAT LEVEL OF TECH SKILL ARE WE EXPECTING FROM OUR NEW CUSTOMERS?

Probably about the same as the old customers. Some know the difference 
between a dir and a driver some won't. All will be focused on getting 
their work done and spending as little time as possible dealing with 
those pesky computers.

WHAT STEPS CAN WE TAKE TO ATTEMPT TO DEAL WITH THIS LEVEL OF SKILL?

We can fix some of our obvious usibility problems. Examples:

	a. 	/home/sites/utec-lowell/doc_root
	should be:
		~/web/utec-lowell/doc_root

	b. control panel, control panel, control panel	

WHAT ARE OTHER GOALS THAT ARE MAYBE BETTER THAN GROWING TO SUPPORT 100
ORGANIZATIONS?

	a. training/development to get good at software improvement
	b. adding features, (drupel, smtp auth,
	   server side msg filtering calendars)

WHAT ARE SUB GOALS OF THE MAIN GOAL?
	a. bring security to needed levels
	b. bring usbility to needed levels
	c. bring relibility to needed levels
	d. start measuring quality emperically
	e. ticking system
	f. control panel
		--has many sub, sub goals

WHY DO WE WANT TO BE AN ISP?
	a. writing server based software requires understanding servers
	b. the world should be able to use more than verizon.
	c. discipline applies to other areas.

HOW WILL INCREASING OUR NUMBERS SERVED TEND TO REDUCE THE QUALITY OF OUR
SERVICE?

It will be harder to do stuff like dealing with register.com for people.

DO WE NEED A FULL TIME LEADER TO HANDLE 100 ORGANIZATIONS?

	No, probably not.

WHAT PROJECTS DO WE NEED TO FINISH TO BE READY TO SUPPORT 100 ORGANIZATIONS?
	Wait till next week.

	A. WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO HANDLE SERVER LOAD?
		I. MORE HARDWARE ?
		II. BETTER ARCHITECTURE ?

		Server load is definately ok for everything
		but SPAM processing.

	B. WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO HANDLE TECH SUPPORT LOAD?
		I.   HOW DOES EASE OF USE NEED TO BE IMPROVED?
	yes, see above.

		II.  HOW DOES TICKETING NEED TO BE IMPROVED?
	yes, some things are falling through cracks already.

		III. WHAT TASKS NEED TO BE AUTOMATED?
	site creation/deletion
		III. WHAT TASKS NEED TO BE HANDLED BY USERS?
			email & account creation.

C. WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO HANDLE INCREASE IN BILLING ?

	keep spreadsheet up to date.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE MONITORING?
We need to start monitoring the load on the spam filtering boxes.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE TO IMPROVE SECURITY?
	see complete project list. (next week)
		
DO WE NEED TO BE COMPLETELY SCALABLE?

	no, but it will be very, very tough to change interfaces after this 
next bump up.

WHAT ARE SOME DEADLINES ?
	Friday August 25, summer workers stop working
	Friday December 29, new year.
	Tues May 01,  presure to finish stuff for mvhub gets intense.

WHERE DO WE DRAW THE LINE BETWEEN TIME AND FEATURES?
	I don't know if we have enough info to make that decision.
	We might when we have a draft project list.

DO WE NEED TO IMPROVE MEASUREMENT AND EVALUATION?
	A. RESPONSE TIME?
	B. DOWNTIME?
		I. DURATION ?
		II. CAUSES ?
	C. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION?
	D. ABANDONED PROJECTS ?

A-C yes, D maybe not


WHAT PROJECTS ARE IRRELEVANT TO 100 ORGANIZATION GOAL AND SHOULD BE
POSTPONED?
	hard to say now.
	maybe logging, cyrus migration

DO WE NEED ADDITIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE TO ATTRACT 100 ORGANIZATIONS?
	A. DO WE NEED A RESELLER INTERFACE?
	B. DO WE NEED TO OFFER MORE SERVICES THAN WE DO?
	C. PRECISE CALCULATION OF UPTIME?

maybe, but we should worry attracting users after we can support them.

WHAT OTHER COMMITMENTS DO WE HAVE THAT WILL TAKE RESOURCES AWAY FROM GOAL?
	utec
	day to day tech support
	lowelldeeds
	

ARE ALL OUR RESOURCES A GOOD FIT FOR THIS GOAL?

	no, about 1/2 the group has little system admin experience.


WHAT PROBLEMS BECOME STATISTICALLY MORE LIKELY BECAUSE WE WILL BE A
LARGER TARGET?

	somebody will install or write an insecure php script.


DO WE NEED SMTP AUTH?
DO WE NEED TO MONITOR OUR USERS FOR SPAM?
DO WE NEED TO MONITOR OUR USERS FOR VIRUSES?
	probably
	
RIGHT NOW, USERNAMES HAVE TO BE UNIQUE SYSTEM WIDE, DOES THIS NEED TO
CHANGE?

	yes. Perdition seems like a way for this to work.
  http://www.vergenet.net/linux/perdition/perdition_paper/

DOES ANYONE CARE ABOUT HAVING A @THECSL.ORG EMAIL ADDRESS FOR PERSONAL
USE IN ADDITION TO THEIR @DOMAIN.ORG ADDRESS ?

	probably not.

SHOULD WE AUTOMATICALLY CREATE PERSONAL WEBSPACE FOR PEOPLE WHEN THEY
GET AN ORGANIZATIONAL EMAIL ADDRESS?

no, we should stop doing this.

IF WE CHANGE THE WAY THINGS WORK, DO WE HAVE TO SUPPORT THE EXISTING
INTERFACES?

yes, for email, no for shell & ftp

ARE OUR BACKUP AND RESTORE SYSTEMS ADEQUATE TO HANDLE 100 NEW ORGANIZATIONS?

almost, We need to move to virtual servers.
we probably need periodic restore drills.