Possible Refresh for Local Firehouse

coliver

@thecreativeone91 said:

Keep in mind doing this personally (especially if you don't have an LLC) you are taking a lot more personal liability than handing it over to @ntg

I just want to quote this for emphasis. It was what I was trying to get at earlier. If something goes wrong you are personally liable...

Not saying you will be negligent... but...

@scottalanmiller said:

@handsofqwerty said:

They usually work out the most common systems issues earlier in development, from what I've seen.

That's what a beta implies. But it also implies that it has not be thoroughly tested yet and you are considering letting a firehouse do that testing. If anything goes wrong you could be in legal trouble as this would easily constitute professional negligence. The beta label is there for a reason. Don't ignore it.

There are places where it's okay to test beta's in production.. Backups is not one of them. That's worse than using a beta version of the actual server.

scottalanmiller

@coliver said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

Keep in mind doing this personally (especially if you don't have an LLC) you are taking a lot more personal liability than handing it over to @ntg

I just want to quote this for emphasis. It was what I was trying to get at earlier. If something goes wrong you are personally liable...

Not saying you will be negligent... but...

Well he is representing a company. So he has more than an LLC in this case.

scottalanmiller

@thecreativeone91 said:

There are places where it's okay to test beta's in production.. Backups is not one of them. That's worse than using a beta version of the actual server.

It's fine even in production if the business understands the risk and knows that the backups don't matter than much or whatever. But what are the chances that a firehouse is going to understand that? And if they did, what are the chances that they would be happy to find out that they were being recommended that they use something that even the vendor doesn't think is a good idea?

coliver

@scottalanmiller said:

@coliver said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

Keep in mind doing this personally (especially if you don't have an LLC) you are taking a lot more personal liability than handing it over to @ntg

I just want to quote this for emphasis. It was what I was trying to get at earlier. If something goes wrong you are personally liable...

Not saying you will be negligent... but...

Well he is representing a company. So he has more than an LLC in this case.

He is? I know he will be for the printer installation, but what about for the actual hardware/software refresh? Is he representing himself or the company he works for at that point, has his company approved this labor?

@scottalanmiller said:

@coliver said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

Keep in mind doing this personally (especially if you don't have an LLC) you are taking a lot more personal liability than handing it over to @ntg

I just want to quote this for emphasis. It was what I was trying to get at earlier. If something goes wrong you are personally liable...

Not saying you will be negligent... but...

Well he is representing a company. So he has more than an LLC in this case.

Isn't he doing this one himself on his own then handing over to NTG?

@coliver said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@coliver said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

Keep in mind doing this personally (especially if you don't have an LLC) you are taking a lot more personal liability than handing it over to @ntg

I just want to quote this for emphasis. It was what I was trying to get at earlier. If something goes wrong you are personally liable...

Not saying you will be negligent... but...

Well he is representing a company. So he has more than an LLC in this case.

He is? I know he will be for the printer installation, but what about for the actual hardware/software refresh? Is he representing himself or the company he works for at that point, has his company approved this labor?

Yeah, I don't think said retailer is involved in that portion of the work. That's out of their scope.

scottalanmiller

@thecreativeone91 said:

Yeah, I don't think said retailer is involved in that portion of the work. That's out of their scope.

I've heard of them doing stuff way out of their depth before. This sounds normal to me. But I could easily be wrong.

@scottalanmiller said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

Yeah, I don't think said retailer is involved in that portion of the work. That's out of their scope.

I've heard of them doing stuff way out of their depth before. This sounds normal to me. But I could easily be wrong.

They don't around here I know, I'm friends with the GM of said retailer. It's bench tech, home networking with SOHO routers and printers only.

scottalanmiller

@thecreativeone91 said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

Yeah, I don't think said retailer is involved in that portion of the work. That's out of their scope.

I've heard of them doing stuff way out of their depth before. This sounds normal to me. But I could easily be wrong.

They don't around here I know, I'm friends with the GM of said retailer. It's bench tech, home networking with SOHO routers and printers only.

I know that in the area where he is they used to do business stuff that was outside of that scope.

@handsofqwerty said:

They have the system running their doors on a legacy XP desktop that, if it died, they'd be unable to unlock/open doors. Their desktops are >all pretty old as well.
For the door system, initally P2V the machine to get it off the legacy hardware and move it to something like an HP Proliant Microserver with a RAID1

You are likely going to run into licensing issues with this.

handsofqwerty

@coliver said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@coliver said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

Keep in mind doing this personally (especially if you don't have an LLC) you are taking a lot more personal liability than handing it over to @ntg

I just want to quote this for emphasis. It was what I was trying to get at earlier. If something goes wrong you are personally liable...

Not saying you will be negligent... but...

Well he is representing a company. So he has more than an LLC in this case.

He is? I know he will be for the printer installation, but what about for the actual hardware/software refresh? Is he representing himself or the company he works for at that point, has his company approved this labor?

My retailer would be well-compensated, I assure you.

handsofqwerty

@scottalanmiller said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

Yeah, I don't think said retailer is involved in that portion of the work. That's out of their scope.

I've heard of them doing stuff way out of their depth before. This sounds normal to me. But I could easily be wrong.

They don't around here I know, I'm friends with the GM of said retailer. It's bench tech, home networking with SOHO routers and printers only.

I know that in the area where he is they used to do business stuff that was outside of that scope.

Yeah, the official scope has never limited our store. If it's in the realm of my abilities, I'll do it. Besides, from what I'm aware, nothing limits me to just SOHO equipment. Maybe somewhere something does, but that's never been how we worked, and I can do onsites for businesses, so it's not like I'm only allowed to do it for home users.

handsofqwerty

@thecreativeone91 said:

@coliver said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@coliver said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

Keep in mind doing this personally (especially if you don't have an LLC) you are taking a lot more personal liability than handing it over to @ntg

I just want to quote this for emphasis. It was what I was trying to get at earlier. If something goes wrong you are personally liable...

Not saying you will be negligent... but...

Well he is representing a company. So he has more than an LLC in this case.

He is? I know he will be for the printer installation, but what about for the actual hardware/software refresh? Is he representing himself or the company he works for at that point, has his company approved this labor?

Yeah, I don't think said retailer is involved in that portion of the work. That's out of their scope.

No, this would be through the retailer. But the ongoing support would not be. It'd be both too costly and not sufficient for them to have me do the ongoing support. I was discussing this with @Minion-Queen before. I can do the refresh cheaper than she would have to charge for, but the actual ongoing support would be cheaper through her.

handsofqwerty

@thecreativeone91 said:

@handsofqwerty said:

They have the system running their doors on a legacy XP desktop that, if it died, they'd be unable to unlock/open doors. Their desktops are >all pretty old as well.
For the door system, initally P2V the machine to get it off the legacy hardware and move it to something like an HP Proliant Microserver with a RAID1

You are likely going to run into licensing issues with this.

It wouldn't be a permanent solution. It'd just be to get it off the legacy hardware. Once it was, I could find a way to migrate it off to another OS, whatever that might have to be.

@handsofqwerty said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

@handsofqwerty said:

They have the system running their doors on a legacy XP desktop that, if it died, they'd be unable to unlock/open doors. Their desktops are >all pretty old as well.
For the door system, initally P2V the machine to get it off the legacy hardware and move it to something like an HP Proliant Microserver with a RAID1

You are likely going to run into licensing issues with this.

It wouldn't be a permanent solution. It'd just be to get it off the legacy hardware. Once it was, I could find a way to migrate it off to another OS, whatever that might have to be.

Migrating from a licensed to an unlicensed setup is never okay.

coliver

@handsofqwerty said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

@handsofqwerty said:

They have the system running their doors on a legacy XP desktop that, if it died, they'd be unable to unlock/open doors. Their desktops are >all pretty old as well.
For the door system, initally P2V the machine to get it off the legacy hardware and move it to something like an HP Proliant Microserver with a RAID1

You are likely going to run into licensing issues with this.

It wouldn't be a permanent solution. It'd just be to get it off the legacy hardware. Once it was, I could find a way to migrate it off to another OS, whatever that might have to be.

Permanent or not, you should still be properly licensed. If I remember correctly there is no way to properly license a virtual instance of XP. When you start it may be worth having a conversation with the vendor to see where else that software is supported, before any hardware/software is ordered.

scottalanmiller

@coliver said:

@handsofqwerty said:

@thecreativeone91 said:

@handsofqwerty said:

They have the system running their doors on a legacy XP desktop that, if it died, they'd be unable to unlock/open doors. Their desktops are >all pretty old as well.
For the door system, initally P2V the machine to get it off the legacy hardware and move it to something like an HP Proliant Microserver with a RAID1

You are likely going to run into licensing issues with this.

It wouldn't be a permanent solution. It'd just be to get it off the legacy hardware. Once it was, I could find a way to migrate it off to another OS, whatever that might have to be.

Permanent or not, you should still be properly licensed. If I remember correctly there is no way to properly license a virtual instance of XP. When you start it may be worth having a conversation with the vendor to see where else that software is supported, before any hardware/software is ordered.

There is some complex way to do it, I believe. I remember having this discussion with Microsoft and I thought that they came up with something, but very expensive.

scottalanmiller

Remember when it comes to licensing - this is not your money and not your problem. All you have to worry about is sticking to the proper licensing. If the firehouse has opted to do things in an expensive way, it is in no way your problem to fix. They made those decisions and those decisions are primarily around cost. They decided to save some money in the past in exchange for having to spend more in the future. That future is here and the problem is no one's but theirs.

Never skip licensing requirements because you don't want someone to have to pay them. You leave the realm of IT and there is no reason to do that. This doesn't impact you personally, don't take it on like it does. It's unfortunate that what they want to do isn't free, but it's not unfortunate for you.

scottalanmiller

If they cared about the money they would not be running Windows XP still today. That's just silly. There has to be free options for this. Do the best job you can within the rules, but don't bend the rules on behalf of a client - this not only cheats the vendors who are supplying the parts (like MS) but also cheats other IT shops that are seen as more expensive because they follow the rules.