The Service Management Soapbox

The Domain Name System (DNS) is one of the most fundamental mechanisms of distributed systems. It is so basic and so widespread that it has become nearly invisible. As a service so obscured from view, it may seem inconsequential. Nothing can be further from the truth. It is, in fact, one of the main underpinnings of everything we do so it can wreak havoc when it malfunctions.

We just take it for granted that our DNS is functioning flawlessly behind the scenes, but is it? Many performance and availability issues are misdiagnosed because of our blind faith in DNS. It is without doubt one of technology’s great innovations, but nothing in IT should be trusted so blindly. It turns out many DNS installations are misconfigured.

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In early 2004, I published a META Group paper entitled The Expanding Operational Maturity Gap wherein I formally introduced the term punitive outsourcing. It has become one of my favorite wakeup calls to IT because it taps into that visceral paranoia invoked by any phrase containing the word outsourcing. Punitive outsourcing is self explanatory and almost always elicits a sober chuckle of resignation. It seems a lot of people reluctantly concur that their future is in peril unless something changes.

Fear is an effective incentive to improve. While outsourcing is an expletive to some, the only true reason to fear outsourcing is when it is used as an alternative to the internal IT organization’s ineptitude. This is punitive outsourcing. If you can’t deliver, business leaders will seek someone who can.

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