"And then some!"

When I worked as an installer for an ISV, our Engineering Department was
responsible for initial system setup, but the Installations Team was
responsible for documenting it and training the back office staff on how to
maintain it going forward.  When I wrote the manual we used to standardize
that training process, I included a section on the Gold Book and what we
recommended be documented and maintained within it.

Part of what we taught was that an HP CE would be more than happy to
document what they are doing, but that it is up to the client to ask them to
make an entry in the Gold Book for the work they were performing.  The
mindset of maintaining standard documentation of the system and its
configuration and maintenance history, in a single known location for the
3000, probably gave way at some point to "do whatever the client wants, or
nothing if the client doesn't ask."

Is it because so many shops DON'T maintain their Gold Books, that HP CE's
tend not to do so either?  I have yet to meet a CE (or third party support
vendor, for that matter) who didn't know what the Gold Book was and wasn't
happy to make the entries though.  I guess most of them just assume that the
norm of not documenting is what will greet them at each site they visit, and
why rock the boat?

I maintain Gold Books for all four of the 3000s for which I have
responsibility.  I would rather fill my brain with trivia and programming
language code comparisons than have to remember all the details I can
quickly and more accurately retrieve from those pretty colored binders.  And
of course, having a paper copy already printed of various configuration
information makes disaster recovery SO much easier.  Like when I the 939-020
at one of my sites fried its mother board last Monday.

Rs~

Russ Smith
Systems Analyst, Cal State 9 Credit Union, Concord CA, rsmith AT
calstate9.comm
Programmer/Analyst, Problem Solved, Vacaville CA, rsmith AT cu-help.comm
3000L/SU-Talk participant, work AT rsmith.orgg

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