Why can’t LOB vendors stop and ask for directions when they are lost?

Have you ever had that call from a client… you know the one that starts off with “Well we’ve got that new LOB application being installed today, and the guy from their company just installed it and rebooted our server… now we can’t get on to anything”…

You know the call – it send chills down your spine.

So you drop everything to take a look at what the guy has done.  You talk to “the expert” from the LOB vendor and he tells you that he only installed his app on the SQL server that is already on SBS…

You check out what the application problem is and find out it’s something other than the SBS server that is playing up – you get that server rebooted and the client is running with their existing LOB app.

You call the “expert” back and say to him “ What would you say if I told you the clients data is all gone…”… and wait a minute while there is dead silence on the phone… then you let him know you’ve gotten the customer up but you need him to tell you EXACTLY what he’s done to the server so you can assess the damage.  Strangely the “expert” immediately becomes VERY co-operative.

The problem is that “the expert” has installed or done something to the clients SBS server – so exactly WHAT has he done and how bad is the damage is my next thought?

After some digging you find out that he’s says he’s “upgraded the existing SQL instance on SBS and installed his app to it but can’t make it work”.  Given that you know there is no “default instance” on SBS, you begin to wonder what he’s done.

You check services and see only the instances below – and knowing SBS, you know that this is not going to go well.  The instances below show a standard SBSMONITORING and SCANMAIL (for TrendMicro WFBS Exchange scanning) instances – both of which are NOT to be used for vendor applications.

Ok – so you ask “which instance did you install it onto”

He says “oh I don’t remember – they are all the same right…”

Digging deeper you find that somehow he’s managed to upgrade the SCANMAIL instance and install his database into that instance… not good.  He has as a result compromised the clients antispam and antivirus for Exchange server.  Why oh why do application developers not STOP AND ASK for directions when they are lost???

Due to this guys errors, we’ve now got to remove and reinstall SCANMAIL to ensure that it’s in a supported state and functions correctly.  Had he or the client asked in the first place we would have gladly given them directions on what needed to be done or in fact install the SQL instance for them ourselves.

After fixing the issues above, we also installed a new instance of SQL Express for him so he can use that for his applications.  We recommend to the client that they talk to us a bit more about these things in future