The
subject of one of the greatest
controversies in
system administration and, more generally, the
management of
computer resources. Are
computers there to do
well-defined things according to someone's
master plan, or are they there to serve the often
random and
perverse needs of
individual human beings?
(Or, as some sysadmins would Taoistically assert, are they there to simply exist and work, with the users representing a test load?)
This controversy is aptly summed up in a single scene in the movie TRON, an exchange between ENCOM engineer Walter Gibbs and executive vice president Ed Dillinger. Gibbs is concerned that the Master Control Program has begun to interfere with real users:
DILLINGER: The MCP is the most efficient way of
handling what we do. I can't sit and
worry about every little user request that --
GIBBS: User requests are what computers are for!
DILLINGER: Doing our business is what computers are for.
On a larger scale, though, any
organization needs to be able to
plan for its uses of computers and
networks -- besides its organizational and
financial purposes, such planning can improve system
reliability,
efficiency and
security. Still, when a user comes up with some
weird request for an
exception to the rules -- which
s/he naturally says is
absolutely essential to
his/her work, comfort, or sanity --
what is to be done?