[wplug] OT: Gold-Disk system administration and its pittfalls (was Re: suggestions on Unix/Linux machines at Pitt labs?)

[Michael A. Smith]

Juan Zuluaga's post about the Pitt Solaris labs made me think about my
company, which (in the finest traditions of management) is thinking
about applying a gold-disk model to system administration.

What I mean by "gold-disk" is that:

    * Everyone gets the same exact computer specs
    * Everyone gets the same WinXP disk image
    * Everyone gets the same local privileges (Windows' "power user" for
      those who know)
    * Everyone gets treated exactly the same by the HelpDesk, regardless
      of job description

I've told the system administrators why I think this is far too general
a solution for the variety of users we have, but I'm guessing their
input will only be one of several factors in the decision that will
finally be made by management.

*Pitt*
Pitt has a similar problem: I'd be willing to wager that some people at
Pitt use close to 0% of their 10MB of disk space. (Those who forward
their email to hotmail.com and don't know what UNIX is, for example.)

Given the large number of people at Pitt (everyone gets at least 10MB,
profs and staff may get more), I'm guessing there are a few gigs of
space that some non-users will never miss. Would it be so hard to
dynamically allocate space based on usage? Couldn't it be set up so that
until a user logs into UNIX he has 5MB of space, a user who forwards his
email off-campus and never logs in has 1MB of space, and a user who uses
the UNIX system regularly has a percentage quota of the remainder?

*My Company
*Back at my company we have far fewer people with whom to deal than
Pitt. We just recently spun off from an enormous parent, and some of our
management are still stuck in the "everything must be an
uber-generalized procedure" mentality that large companies often spawn.

I think this sort of thing could be solved with use cases, where the
actors represent the different kinds of users. Does anyone have an
success stories about turning management away from the "all users are
the same" mentality?

Thanks,
Mike