[LINK] No more human sysadmins??

Robert Brockway robert at timetraveller.org
Mon Aug 12 14:38:47 AEST 2013


On Mon, 12 Aug 2013, Johann Kruse wrote:

> In fact this is already the case *now* in many large environments, and 
> probably most cloud providers (I define cloud in this case as the large 
> public SaaS/IaaS/PaaS providers like Google, Microsoft and Amazon).
>
>
> Services run in layers - facilities, hardware, Hypervisor, OS, 
> Application, Data, etc.  Each layer has its own admin (team that is, not 
> individual) with no permissions to other layers.

I think that people who are informed on this subject will agree in general 
terms on how one would go about limiting the damage using current 
techniques.  In my view many organisations are paying lipservice to these 
principles.  Few are doing it well.

The problem is siloing well is both complex and expensive and you only 
need to get it a little bit wrong for it to fail catastrophically.  This 
is the problem - attempting to contain information using current 
techniques is an unstable equilibrium point.  Month after month, year 
after year the systems get more complex and they interact in ever more 
complex ways.  As a result the information gets harder and harder to 
contain with each passing year.  I'm not surprised with the leaks we're 
seeing.  This is why I advocate a fundamental rethink of how information 
is contained.

Note the last line of my sig.  That is in my sig all the time - it isn't 
specific to this thread.

Cheers,

Rob

-- 
Email: robert at timetraveller.org		Linux counter ID #16440
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Director, Software in the Public Interest (http://spi-inc.org/)
Information is a gas



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