I work for a software company, and someone asked me one day why it seemed that the developer oriented tools are so much easier to sell than administrative ones. I thought about it a bit, and I have my own answer, but I thought this would make a good poll question.
So this being Friday, I wanted to see what others thought out there.
Is it easier to get money for developer help or administrative help?
This is a bit of market research, but I wonder how it varies at companies. I'm curious if you think that tools, staffing, etc. is easier to come by for the development groups or the administrative (production/operations) groups.
I tend to think that in a larger company, where you have more instances, and more risk of issues, and then more issues, that you can justify spending money on tools that help operations, but in smaller companies, development tools show their value more quickly.
It's always been easier for me in small environments to manage servers, keep an eye on performance, and troubleshoot servers than in large companies. In a large environment there might be too many servers to actually check each one for issues on a regular basis and respond proactively to potential performance issues. You really need tools to help you do this effectively. In a small environment they just expect you to work a little harder.
But perhaps time have changed, or your company views things differently. Let us know this Friday if you find it easier to get funding for development or operational projects. And do you have any tricks for getting funding.
Steve Jones
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