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How Google Handles IT for Its Workers

98 points by sytelus 12y ago

spindritf 12y ago
Most businesses don't hire googlers and they will have a bad time if they implement Google's policies. It's not "cultural." There's quite a difference between someone who had been programming since they were 15 spending nights reinstalling linux and someone who "can use technology" where that means MSO and facebook. How many people here serve as tech support for their families? And how many of your relatives are otherwise successful professionals?
- gedrap 12y ago
  Exactly. It works at Google because their engineers know their shit. Meanwhile, at your average corporation... That might not be the case, and you might spend loads of time trying to figure something out because your colleague uses some semi-random tool 'because hey it's cool!'.
  - VLM 12y ago
    "because your colleague uses some semi-random tool" For extra fun combine that with not invented here syndrome and retired in place. "Git? whats git? never heard of it. Besides don't you know RCS is the industry standard for version control?" (which was actually pretty much true in 1985) And no this wasn't in '06 this was last year. I'm glad I don't work in that particular team! And add some inter group politics for extra extra fun.
    - RollAHardSix 12y ago
      Not to hijack the thread but here's a fun story, the place I'm working at now actually considered 'version control', to be making a copy of the file before you started making changes. There was no version control. This is a software company that has been in business for ~20 years. I guess that's just part of what happens when you land these big contracts, and hire the least common denominator.
      - jpindar 12y ago
        I think many HN readers would be amazed at how often this is still true.
  - psaintla 12y ago
    I do not work at Google myself but I have friends and family who do work there. I don't think Google employees are immune from irrationally using random tools, but that's just my anecdotal observation.
- enneff 12y ago
  Remember that more than half of Google are not Engineers.
  - skj 12y ago
    The non-engineers don't get the linux desktops. They get mac laptops (or at least 98% of them do, some finance/business folks need excel/windows) and some hardware to dock it at their desks.
    - raverbashing 12y ago
      Excel runs on Mac OS, that's not a problem.
      - sheetjs 12y ago
        Excel for OSX is far behind Excel for Windows. Given that Excel 2008 didn't even have support for VBA, I daresay that Excel for Mac is neglected.
- DanBC 12y ago
  The tiny bit of tech support I did: people who had no clue were easy to support. The kids who had installed Linux and thus thought they were proficient enough to manage their machines were a problem. This was 2001 and everythig was relaxed and pretty open. It wasn't hard to get the software you needed. But that one guy installed Kazaa - bamn, that machine got wiped and re-installed. Another guy brought in a game on 3.5" floppies to play on the pick and place machine - bamn, that machine got wiped by them trying to cover it up, leaving a gently tricky recovery procdure for me to recover all the unbacked up P&P program data. People who don't know anything about computers might take a few extra clicks to get to what they need but they tend not to break things too badly.
- raverbashing 12y ago
  Sure If you're "can use technology" (secretary) you get a completely locked down machine, preferably Linux or FreeBSD with a Web Browser and Google Office or OpenOffice (or whatever it's called now) and that's it.
- netcan 12y ago
  There's a cause and effect loop here. Windows is built to a large degree for median IT departments. They want to lock it down and give it to employees to use, but not manage. Obviously this is anecdotal but, Mac users are usually more likely to go into system preferences and try to find out how to arrange their screens or add a printer. Windows users treat control panel as forbidden territory, which IT departments agree with. Installing and installing programs on Windows is more daunting than on OSX, Android, or iOS. Basically, it's a UX problem. There is no real reason why a PC should not be manageable by a computer literate professional.
  - vonmoltke 12y ago
    It isn't a UX problem, it's a political problem. It departments are responsible for, among other things securing their company's computing resources and ensuring their availability to support the business. The most expedient way, in their view, to accomplish this mission is to keep as much direct control over those resources as they can, even if it means the users are "inconvenienced". Add to this the human tendency to inflate the importance of your own problems and deflate the importance of other people's problems and you end up with a situation where everyone outside of IT runs crippled machines or thin clients and has to call on IT for every change or update of substance. There is a happy medium, but IT (largely) is not interested in it. The current system meets their needs very well, but they have lost sight of the needs of their users.
    - daigoba66 12y ago
      I've done "corporate IT" for a 150 person company in the past. All "knowledge workers", all with a desktop, most over the age of 40-50 with varying degrees of tech savviness. Support was a big deal for this group, and it becomes a lot a easier when every workstation is configured exactly the same way and has the exact same software.
      - vonmoltke 12y ago
        I agree, it is much easier. The problem comes when "every workstation is configured exactly the same way and has the exact same software" hurts the productivity of certain parts of the organization because certain groups need a different configuration to do their jobs properly.
patio11 12y ago
I know 4 years is ages in Internet time, but didn't it make international news when they changed the policy from "Use whatever platform you want" to "Use whatever platform you want as long as it isn't the one that corporate IT is basically built to manage." http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2f3f04e-6ccf-11df-91c8-00144feab49a.html#axzz3GrMQOfkU http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2f3f04e-6ccf-11df-91c8-00144feab4...
- Already__Taken 12y ago
  I don't understand how you can say that and turn around to use another american company you still can view the source code for. I assume that's the reason anyway.
  - deleted 12y ago
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- melling 12y ago
  I was hoping that Google will be able to push Linux into the mainstream. One of the big problems with Linux is getting commercial software. For example, getting Photoshop and Illustrator working natively on Linux would be a big win.
  - Igglyboo 12y ago
    Google actually maintains their own fork of Ubuntu for internal use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu
- VikingCoder 12y ago
  > the one that corporate IT is basically built to manage Hah! The Venn diagram depicting people who WANT to do corporate IT at Google, and the people who WANT to use Windows in corporate IT has a pretty small overlap, I think. I mean, step one, "corporate IT" wants everyone to use Office, and Sharepoint, and then SAP... Yeah, that's just NOT going to happen at Google.
Tepix 12y ago
I hope my boss reads this.
- mcherm 12y ago
  Print it out. Leave it on her desk. Better yet, schedule a "brown bag lunch discussion" around the article, and invite your boss as well as several of your colleagues. Your corporate culture is something you must work within, but it is also something you can change -- or at least affect.
  - duncanvailight 12y ago
    Why would you assume Tepix's boss is a woman? That's so sexist! Not all bosses are women, you know!
- melling 12y ago
  Your boss is going to care about a thread on Hacker News. Better start with the Wall Street Journal article with Ben Fried.
bank_to_google 12y ago
It is ironic this chap waxes lyrical about how great it is to let the staff choose their IT equipment when he came from a bank previously, where they make even the Unix SAs use the hideous corporate Windows desktops to try and do their job. Yeah, unless you are Google, IT equipment sucks donkey balls in the big corps. Especially the banks. Still stuck on IE7 at our one. Sigh.
- paulojreis 12y ago
  Yup. IT in big corps really needs to change. I have - beside the Windows Update - the "Your IT department (...)" update, coming daily. Most of the time, it's a new wallpaper, which I have to disable via register tweaks. The example you gave - the pain of sysadmins using the Windows desktop - is perfect. But let me add a different one: the big corp where I work decided that iOS apps were needed. I can't even begin the describe how long and cumbersome the process of acquiring a Mac was! It was so ridiculous that we used personal devices for a time, and then a Hackintosh.
- vince_refiti 12y ago
  I suffer this fate every day. It is made worse by being locked down so hard I can't even use PowerShell. All I have is Notepad++ for development, searching, mass text manipulation...
  - bhaak 12y ago
    How come you are not looking for a new job then? It's one thing having to use Windows for development. I've done it, you can work around lots of issues with Cygwin and other separate tools that enhances the development unfriendliness of Windows. If you are developping in Java, it's even less of an issue as Java itself and most of its IDEs are cross-platform. But being so locked down that the only thing to do development with is Notepad++ (you can't even run vim or emacs?), that's actually so far beyond that even a complete non-tech person should be able to see that this is harmful to your productivity.
    - vince_refiti 12y ago
lmedinas 12y ago
"Letting Employees Choose Their Own Technology Is Beneficial, Says CIO Ben Fried" -> This! This means that people are more productive when they have the hardware and software they are used to.
- yitchelle 12y ago
  But this would mean that the majority of folks in the company are like minded. Imagine, if I choose to use a Mac (because I am hipster), and my colleague on my right choose to use a ChromeBook (because he is a cutting edge geek) , and my colleague on my left choose to use a WinXP (because he doesn't want to change.) Interoperability would surely take a hit, and imagine the IT support required. /sorry for the sarcastic stereotyping...
  - lmedinas 12y ago
    People are responsible for the actions they take :) If they want to use OpenBSD and play 3D Games it got to be difficult but if they manage to do it and be productive with it, it's ok. Also you are going to get Linux if you are doing i.e iOS development. See the point ?
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    What interoperability? It's all in the web today
    - ghaff 12y ago
      While there is some truth to that, there are still lots of software and data exchange dependencies within the average large corporation.
      - raverbashing 12y ago
        " still lots of software and data exchange dependencies within the average large corporation" That's what Google threw into the trash and solved their problem.
  - 12y ago
deleted 12y ago
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davidw 12y ago
> Now, what we do here at Google is really different. > We can’t afford to have technology support where there are cookbooks and rules and every possible change is documented in advance There's something ironic in that...
enneff 12y ago
When I started at Google I was immediately impressed by the way IT is managed. Need a new mouse or keyboard? Go and grab one from a nearby tech stop. No need to ask, just swipe your badge and take it. Need something more esoteric? File a ticket and they'll make it happen. I've never had an equipment request denied at Google. The worst that's happened is I've had to wait a few weeks for a particular item to come in stock.
- johnward 12y ago
  In contrast I've never had an equipment request approved at my current company.
- opendais 12y ago
  Why is this impressive in 2014? This seems normal to me and I never worked for a company like Google.
  - existencebox 12y ago
    As an employee at another one of your generic bigCOs who at one time was a googler, it is very difficult to get e.g. another monitor in a reasonable size, or new hardware on short notice or without manager buy-in. You typically have to "steal one" from another employee who is moving/leaving. The process at G was a breath of fresh air.
    - johnward 12y ago
      Yep as soon as someone announces they are leaving the vultures come in. We are actually not even "approved" to have an external monitor based on my title.
  - imrehg 12y ago
    I work at a tech company, and we get absolutely nothing but hand-me-down desktops, EOL operating system, encrypted & MAC blocked network so nothing else can connect, and filtered Internet. If you really need something for your work to be done, better buy it yourself from your own pocket. And it's the usual thing around here in other companies too.
pibefision 12y ago
I'm starting to see a trend in Google PR. I've read the latest book from Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg, where the main argument is "we are the best because we have the smartest people on the planet working for us". That's the main point to explain many of the things that they do. This article seems on the same line.
- petervandijck 12y ago
  Exactly, been like that for years. Also, it works because it's true to a significant degree.
- awakeasleep 12y ago
  I'm an IT lead at a much smaller company, and I run the same kind of setup. We're not the smartest people on the planet either. But I do hold every hire to the standard of "will this person increase our average capability?" And I think smartness or motivation does have something to do with that. (We also have system administrator level people as our first level support) However, most companies don't put that level of effort into their IT org. This article is worth reading because it says that your company can benefit by holding the front-line support to a high standard, and paying to attract talented people to that position. That is a radical proposition to most companies. The only thing that could shake up the industry more is if they said they required IT leadership to have technical ability and insight.
  - dethstar 12y ago
    >it says that your company can benefit by holding the front-line support to a high standard, and paying to attract talented people to that position. Doesn't that just apply to any position?
deleted 12y ago
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madengr 12y ago
Asshole IT staff at my employer have banned Linux workstations from the network, even though we need it for running Cadence and other intensive simulation tools. The solution is for them to run a Linux server into which one will VNC to do graphic intensive IC layout. We all get a sanitized windows 7 shitbox, because a IC deign engineers needs are the same as a secretary (not that we have secretaries anymore).
- mqsiuser 12y ago
  > not that we have secretaries anymore Saving on them, or are they managers now ?
- iamthepieman 12y ago
  I have a good friend who is a simulation engineer for integrated circuits (don't know his official job title, we work in different fields at different companies). He has the exact same setup as you and I've never once heard him complain about it. It's really interesting because even though we both work at desks on computers and both do system design and programming, he is so much less in tune with trends in his field. He VNC's to his graphic intensive simulation program on his crappy Win 7 laptop and gets stuff done. I complain if I can't run several VM's on my developer PC without noticing that they are there.
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  > The solution is for them to run a Linux server into which one will VNC to do graphic intensive IC layout. Why VNC? NX or just plain x11 window forwarding. Maybe they want all their IC data on a server that gets backed up, etc as opposed to littered on a bunch of random desktops that might or might not be backed up.
  - madengr 12y ago
    I forgot to add, it's actually worse, in that it's Cadence running on Linux under a VM on some Windows server, which itself is probably a VM. Remote Desktop is allowed to the host running the VM, but not into the VM itself. We had a centralized Linux server and tape system backing up all the Linux workstations, but they fired the guy who ran that server due to stack ranking; i.e. firing 10-15% of you staff yearly, even though he was a really sharp guy. IT rules the roost around here, even though we are an engineering company that produces physical items; not software. It's supposed to be the other way around; IT is supposed to provide a service.
cilantro1994 12y ago
Does google allow their employees installing any software they want. For Instance Dropbox or use Slack. Just curious.
johngalt 12y ago
In advance of the inevitable and one sided 'IT is crap' comments. Consider that your company may have different goals and expectations of IT. If a google engineer screws up or can't get his BYOD kit to work, it's not on google IT to explain themselves. In <bigco IT> the expectation is different. Where anything that is permitted to run must work provably and IT must explain any deficiences.
nanoscopic 12y ago
To chime in with contrasting experiences at other companies: Where I used to work RHEL was used on all of the servers. I was part of a team developing some new software using Mongrel2, MongoDB, ZeroMQ, Perl, and Imagemagick ( among a whole collection of other esoteric small pieces ). The plan for the project was approved and development underway. We encountered problems getting everything to work properly with modern versions of the various parts in the distribution of RHEL provided. The company was mirroring RHEL, but only the core. They were not mirroring the updates, nor were they mirroring the latest released version of RHEL. Outside access was forbidden on the servers, so we could not fix the problem ourselves without going around network policy. We requested virtual machines; specifically to use Virtualbox on our desktops to do development until the policy people could figure out how to give us a server with the software needed. We were denied and told we had to requisition a server to run VMs, that VMs on desktop were forbidden. A $13k server was purchased for this purpose, and root access was denied to it. We couldn't configure it as needed, and IT refused to help. It was basically useless. The main department head approved going ahead with VMs regardless of the network admin and head of software development saying we couldn't. In the end the project flopped; ultimately due to inability for any of IT to get along or provide what was needed.
- eitally 12y ago
  We are currently facing a situation where our data center guys only allow us to use RHEL in production but since we standardized on PostgreSQL (moving off MSSQL) we've been devving on 9.2/9.3. RHEL's officially supported version of PostgreSQL is still 8.3/8.4. The devs are up in arms about being "forced" to use a major version behind just because the DC team won't let them install and self-support the latest stable version. Ridiculous.
  - nanoscopic 12y ago
    RHEL, CentOS, and Fedora are all basically the same thing. The difference is which package versions are approved for use. For the most part, you can add the yum configuration for CentOS or Fedora to RHEL machines, and install newer packages without breaking it. Note that some packages will end up pulling in a ton of other dependent packages. By adding a Fedora repo to a RHEL machine, the following things will happen: 1. You will likely lose official support from RHEL. Anything that goes wrong is your fault. 2. Your OS install will start becoming Fedora; as you install more and more stuff. 3. Your setup could break entirely because RHEL packages are not tested to be compatible with Fedora ones. The core configuration is different in places, and generally you should not start updating the core components as this will break things. My recommendation is to setup the CentOS/Fedora yum repos on your RHEL box. Run yum install for new PostgreSQL and see what yum wants to install. Eyeball the results intelligently and take some guesses as to whether it will break things. Cross your fingers and approve it, then disable the CentOS/Fedora repos you added. Carry on with your life and don't tell IT what you did. If you can't connect your RHEL machine to outside network, repeat the process somewhere else to figure out what RPMs are needed. Download them elsewhere, and stick them on the RHEL machine and install manually. As an additional note; I have setup a Fedora repo on a RHEL machine and changed the flag in the system to change the distribution ( there is a core package everything depends on... ). We then updated all, and the resulting system still functioned. Very evil, but it didn't explode. Also; it took quite a while to install all the packages. It essentially is converting the whole system from RHEL to Fedora in place...
wldcordeiro 12y ago
The IT at the company I work for is odd. I work for a smaller subsidiary that manages most things for itself but we're still required to have a parent company approved workstation alongside our main development computers. So I have this dinky little HP with a 15" monitor just to do the HR computer "training" stuff related to our industry and then I have a full size workstation with dual 24" monitors that I develop on. They're connected to different networks, my workstation is on a Comcast business line and then the other is on an internal network that has the strictest security policies on the planet. It's like having a weird cross between IT as it should be (as described in this article) and IT hell you expect in large corporations.
philip1209 12y ago
They're able to be flexible with IT because no Google code lives on the laptops - they are basically SSH clients with a Yubikey in the USB port and an encrypted SSH key. All of the data that needs securing never makes it down to the laptop.

98 points by sytelus 12y ago

Most businesses don't hire googlers and they will have a bad time if they implement Google's policies. It's not "cultural." There's quite a difference between someone who had been programming since they were 15 spending nights reinstalling linux and someone who "can use technology" where that means MSO and facebook. How many people here serve as tech support for their families? And how many of your relatives are otherwise successful professionals?

gedrap 12y ago
Exactly. It works at Google because their engineers know their shit. Meanwhile, at your average corporation... That might not be the case, and you might spend loads of time trying to figure something out because your colleague uses some semi-random tool 'because hey it's cool!'.
- VLM 12y ago
  "because your colleague uses some semi-random tool" For extra fun combine that with not invented here syndrome and retired in place. "Git? whats git? never heard of it. Besides don't you know RCS is the industry standard for version control?" (which was actually pretty much true in 1985) And no this wasn't in '06 this was last year. I'm glad I don't work in that particular team! And add some inter group politics for extra extra fun.
  - RollAHardSix 12y ago
    Not to hijack the thread but here's a fun story, the place I'm working at now actually considered 'version control', to be making a copy of the file before you started making changes. There was no version control. This is a software company that has been in business for ~20 years. I guess that's just part of what happens when you land these big contracts, and hire the least common denominator.
    - jpindar 12y ago
      I think many HN readers would be amazed at how often this is still true.
- psaintla 12y ago
  I do not work at Google myself but I have friends and family who do work there. I don't think Google employees are immune from irrationally using random tools, but that's just my anecdotal observation.
enneff 12y ago
Remember that more than half of Google are not Engineers.
- skj 12y ago
  The non-engineers don't get the linux desktops. They get mac laptops (or at least 98% of them do, some finance/business folks need excel/windows) and some hardware to dock it at their desks.
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    Excel runs on Mac OS, that's not a problem.
    - sheetjs 12y ago
      Excel for OSX is far behind Excel for Windows. Given that Excel 2008 didn't even have support for VBA, I daresay that Excel for Mac is neglected.
DanBC 12y ago
The tiny bit of tech support I did: people who had no clue were easy to support. The kids who had installed Linux and thus thought they were proficient enough to manage their machines were a problem. This was 2001 and everythig was relaxed and pretty open. It wasn't hard to get the software you needed. But that one guy installed Kazaa - bamn, that machine got wiped and re-installed. Another guy brought in a game on 3.5" floppies to play on the pick and place machine - bamn, that machine got wiped by them trying to cover it up, leaving a gently tricky recovery procdure for me to recover all the unbacked up P&P program data. People who don't know anything about computers might take a few extra clicks to get to what they need but they tend not to break things too badly.
raverbashing 12y ago
Sure If you're "can use technology" (secretary) you get a completely locked down machine, preferably Linux or FreeBSD with a Web Browser and Google Office or OpenOffice (or whatever it's called now) and that's it.
netcan 12y ago
There's a cause and effect loop here. Windows is built to a large degree for median IT departments. They want to lock it down and give it to employees to use, but not manage. Obviously this is anecdotal but, Mac users are usually more likely to go into system preferences and try to find out how to arrange their screens or add a printer. Windows users treat control panel as forbidden territory, which IT departments agree with. Installing and installing programs on Windows is more daunting than on OSX, Android, or iOS. Basically, it's a UX problem. There is no real reason why a PC should not be manageable by a computer literate professional.
- vonmoltke 12y ago
  It isn't a UX problem, it's a political problem. It departments are responsible for, among other things securing their company's computing resources and ensuring their availability to support the business. The most expedient way, in their view, to accomplish this mission is to keep as much direct control over those resources as they can, even if it means the users are "inconvenienced". Add to this the human tendency to inflate the importance of your own problems and deflate the importance of other people's problems and you end up with a situation where everyone outside of IT runs crippled machines or thin clients and has to call on IT for every change or update of substance. There is a happy medium, but IT (largely) is not interested in it. The current system meets their needs very well, but they have lost sight of the needs of their users.
  - daigoba66 12y ago
    I've done "corporate IT" for a 150 person company in the past. All "knowledge workers", all with a desktop, most over the age of 40-50 with varying degrees of tech savviness. Support was a big deal for this group, and it becomes a lot a easier when every workstation is configured exactly the same way and has the exact same software.
    - vonmoltke 12y ago
      I agree, it is much easier. The problem comes when "every workstation is configured exactly the same way and has the exact same software" hurts the productivity of certain parts of the organization because certain groups need a different configuration to do their jobs properly.

patio11 12y ago

I know 4 years is ages in Internet time, but didn't it make international news when they changed the policy from "Use whatever platform you want" to "Use whatever platform you want as long as it isn't the one that corporate IT is basically built to manage." http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2f3f04e-6ccf-11df-91c8-00144feab49a.html#axzz3GrMQOfkU http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2f3f04e-6ccf-11df-91c8-00144feab4...

Already__Taken 12y ago
I don't understand how you can say that and turn around to use another american company you still can view the source code for. I assume that's the reason anyway.
- deleted 12y ago
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melling 12y ago
I was hoping that Google will be able to push Linux into the mainstream. One of the big problems with Linux is getting commercial software. For example, getting Photoshop and Illustrator working natively on Linux would be a big win.
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  Google actually maintains their own fork of Ubuntu for internal use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu
VikingCoder 12y ago
> the one that corporate IT is basically built to manage Hah! The Venn diagram depicting people who WANT to do corporate IT at Google, and the people who WANT to use Windows in corporate IT has a pretty small overlap, I think. I mean, step one, "corporate IT" wants everyone to use Office, and Sharepoint, and then SAP... Yeah, that's just NOT going to happen at Google.

Tepix 12y ago

I hope my boss reads this.

mcherm 12y ago
Print it out. Leave it on her desk. Better yet, schedule a "brown bag lunch discussion" around the article, and invite your boss as well as several of your colleagues. Your corporate culture is something you must work within, but it is also something you can change -- or at least affect.
- duncanvailight 12y ago
  Why would you assume Tepix's boss is a woman? That's so sexist! Not all bosses are women, you know!
melling 12y ago
Your boss is going to care about a thread on Hacker News. Better start with the Wall Street Journal article with Ben Fried.

bank_to_google 12y ago

It is ironic this chap waxes lyrical about how great it is to let the staff choose their IT equipment when he came from a bank previously, where they make even the Unix SAs use the hideous corporate Windows desktops to try and do their job. Yeah, unless you are Google, IT equipment sucks donkey balls in the big corps. Especially the banks. Still stuck on IE7 at our one. Sigh.

paulojreis 12y ago
Yup. IT in big corps really needs to change. I have - beside the Windows Update - the "Your IT department (...)" update, coming daily. Most of the time, it's a new wallpaper, which I have to disable via register tweaks. The example you gave - the pain of sysadmins using the Windows desktop - is perfect. But let me add a different one: the big corp where I work decided that iOS apps were needed. I can't even begin the describe how long and cumbersome the process of acquiring a Mac was! It was so ridiculous that we used personal devices for a time, and then a Hackintosh.
vince_refiti 12y ago
I suffer this fate every day. It is made worse by being locked down so hard I can't even use PowerShell. All I have is Notepad++ for development, searching, mass text manipulation...
- bhaak 12y ago
  How come you are not looking for a new job then? It's one thing having to use Windows for development. I've done it, you can work around lots of issues with Cygwin and other separate tools that enhances the development unfriendliness of Windows. If you are developping in Java, it's even less of an issue as Java itself and most of its IDEs are cross-platform. But being so locked down that the only thing to do development with is Notepad++ (you can't even run vim or emacs?), that's actually so far beyond that even a complete non-tech person should be able to see that this is harmful to your productivity.
  - vince_refiti 12y ago

lmedinas 12y ago

"Letting Employees Choose Their Own Technology Is Beneficial, Says CIO Ben Fried" -> This! This means that people are more productive when they have the hardware and software they are used to.

yitchelle 12y ago
But this would mean that the majority of folks in the company are like minded. Imagine, if I choose to use a Mac (because I am hipster), and my colleague on my right choose to use a ChromeBook (because he is a cutting edge geek) , and my colleague on my left choose to use a WinXP (because he doesn't want to change.) Interoperability would surely take a hit, and imagine the IT support required. /sorry for the sarcastic stereotyping...
- lmedinas 12y ago
  People are responsible for the actions they take :) If they want to use OpenBSD and play 3D Games it got to be difficult but if they manage to do it and be productive with it, it's ok. Also you are going to get Linux if you are doing i.e iOS development. See the point ?
- raverbashing 12y ago
  What interoperability? It's all in the web today
  - ghaff 12y ago
    While there is some truth to that, there are still lots of software and data exchange dependencies within the average large corporation.
    - raverbashing 12y ago
      " still lots of software and data exchange dependencies within the average large corporation" That's what Google threw into the trash and solved their problem.
- 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

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davidw 12y ago

> Now, what we do here at Google is really different. > We can’t afford to have technology support where there are cookbooks and rules and every possible change is documented in advance There's something ironic in that...

enneff 12y ago

When I started at Google I was immediately impressed by the way IT is managed. Need a new mouse or keyboard? Go and grab one from a nearby tech stop. No need to ask, just swipe your badge and take it. Need something more esoteric? File a ticket and they'll make it happen. I've never had an equipment request denied at Google. The worst that's happened is I've had to wait a few weeks for a particular item to come in stock.

johnward 12y ago
In contrast I've never had an equipment request approved at my current company.
opendais 12y ago
Why is this impressive in 2014? This seems normal to me and I never worked for a company like Google.
- existencebox 12y ago
  As an employee at another one of your generic bigCOs who at one time was a googler, it is very difficult to get e.g. another monitor in a reasonable size, or new hardware on short notice or without manager buy-in. You typically have to "steal one" from another employee who is moving/leaving. The process at G was a breath of fresh air.
  - johnward 12y ago
    Yep as soon as someone announces they are leaving the vultures come in. We are actually not even "approved" to have an external monitor based on my title.
- imrehg 12y ago
  I work at a tech company, and we get absolutely nothing but hand-me-down desktops, EOL operating system, encrypted & MAC blocked network so nothing else can connect, and filtered Internet. If you really need something for your work to be done, better buy it yourself from your own pocket. And it's the usual thing around here in other companies too.

pibefision 12y ago

I'm starting to see a trend in Google PR. I've read the latest book from Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg, where the main argument is "we are the best because we have the smartest people on the planet working for us". That's the main point to explain many of the things that they do. This article seems on the same line.

petervandijck 12y ago
Exactly, been like that for years. Also, it works because it's true to a significant degree.
awakeasleep 12y ago
I'm an IT lead at a much smaller company, and I run the same kind of setup. We're not the smartest people on the planet either. But I do hold every hire to the standard of "will this person increase our average capability?" And I think smartness or motivation does have something to do with that. (We also have system administrator level people as our first level support) However, most companies don't put that level of effort into their IT org. This article is worth reading because it says that your company can benefit by holding the front-line support to a high standard, and paying to attract talented people to that position. That is a radical proposition to most companies. The only thing that could shake up the industry more is if they said they required IT leadership to have technical ability and insight.
- dethstar 12y ago
  >it says that your company can benefit by holding the front-line support to a high standard, and paying to attract talented people to that position. Doesn't that just apply to any position?

deleted 12y ago

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madengr 12y ago

Asshole IT staff at my employer have banned Linux workstations from the network, even though we need it for running Cadence and other intensive simulation tools. The solution is for them to run a Linux server into which one will VNC to do graphic intensive IC layout. We all get a sanitized windows 7 shitbox, because a IC deign engineers needs are the same as a secretary (not that we have secretaries anymore).

mqsiuser 12y ago
> not that we have secretaries anymore Saving on them, or are they managers now ?
iamthepieman 12y ago
I have a good friend who is a simulation engineer for integrated circuits (don't know his official job title, we work in different fields at different companies). He has the exact same setup as you and I've never once heard him complain about it. It's really interesting because even though we both work at desks on computers and both do system design and programming, he is so much less in tune with trends in his field. He VNC's to his graphic intensive simulation program on his crappy Win 7 laptop and gets stuff done. I complain if I can't run several VM's on my developer PC without noticing that they are there.
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
> The solution is for them to run a Linux server into which one will VNC to do graphic intensive IC layout. Why VNC? NX or just plain x11 window forwarding. Maybe they want all their IC data on a server that gets backed up, etc as opposed to littered on a bunch of random desktops that might or might not be backed up.
- madengr 12y ago
  I forgot to add, it's actually worse, in that it's Cadence running on Linux under a VM on some Windows server, which itself is probably a VM. Remote Desktop is allowed to the host running the VM, but not into the VM itself. We had a centralized Linux server and tape system backing up all the Linux workstations, but they fired the guy who ran that server due to stack ranking; i.e. firing 10-15% of you staff yearly, even though he was a really sharp guy. IT rules the roost around here, even though we are an engineering company that produces physical items; not software. It's supposed to be the other way around; IT is supposed to provide a service.

cilantro1994 12y ago

Does google allow their employees installing any software they want. For Instance Dropbox or use Slack. Just curious.

johngalt 12y ago

In advance of the inevitable and one sided 'IT is crap' comments. Consider that your company may have different goals and expectations of IT. If a google engineer screws up or can't get his BYOD kit to work, it's not on google IT to explain themselves. In <bigco IT> the expectation is different. Where anything that is permitted to run must work provably and IT must explain any deficiences.

nanoscopic 12y ago

To chime in with contrasting experiences at other companies: Where I used to work RHEL was used on all of the servers. I was part of a team developing some new software using Mongrel2, MongoDB, ZeroMQ, Perl, and Imagemagick ( among a whole collection of other esoteric small pieces ). The plan for the project was approved and development underway. We encountered problems getting everything to work properly with modern versions of the various parts in the distribution of RHEL provided. The company was mirroring RHEL, but only the core. They were not mirroring the updates, nor were they mirroring the latest released version of RHEL. Outside access was forbidden on the servers, so we could not fix the problem ourselves without going around network policy. We requested virtual machines; specifically to use Virtualbox on our desktops to do development until the policy people could figure out how to give us a server with the software needed. We were denied and told we had to requisition a server to run VMs, that VMs on desktop were forbidden. A $13k server was purchased for this purpose, and root access was denied to it. We couldn't configure it as needed, and IT refused to help. It was basically useless. The main department head approved going ahead with VMs regardless of the network admin and head of software development saying we couldn't. In the end the project flopped; ultimately due to inability for any of IT to get along or provide what was needed.

eitally 12y ago
We are currently facing a situation where our data center guys only allow us to use RHEL in production but since we standardized on PostgreSQL (moving off MSSQL) we've been devving on 9.2/9.3. RHEL's officially supported version of PostgreSQL is still 8.3/8.4. The devs are up in arms about being "forced" to use a major version behind just because the DC team won't let them install and self-support the latest stable version. Ridiculous.
- nanoscopic 12y ago
  RHEL, CentOS, and Fedora are all basically the same thing. The difference is which package versions are approved for use. For the most part, you can add the yum configuration for CentOS or Fedora to RHEL machines, and install newer packages without breaking it. Note that some packages will end up pulling in a ton of other dependent packages. By adding a Fedora repo to a RHEL machine, the following things will happen: 1. You will likely lose official support from RHEL. Anything that goes wrong is your fault. 2. Your OS install will start becoming Fedora; as you install more and more stuff. 3. Your setup could break entirely because RHEL packages are not tested to be compatible with Fedora ones. The core configuration is different in places, and generally you should not start updating the core components as this will break things. My recommendation is to setup the CentOS/Fedora yum repos on your RHEL box. Run yum install for new PostgreSQL and see what yum wants to install. Eyeball the results intelligently and take some guesses as to whether it will break things. Cross your fingers and approve it, then disable the CentOS/Fedora repos you added. Carry on with your life and don't tell IT what you did. If you can't connect your RHEL machine to outside network, repeat the process somewhere else to figure out what RPMs are needed. Download them elsewhere, and stick them on the RHEL machine and install manually. As an additional note; I have setup a Fedora repo on a RHEL machine and changed the flag in the system to change the distribution ( there is a core package everything depends on... ). We then updated all, and the resulting system still functioned. Very evil, but it didn't explode. Also; it took quite a while to install all the packages. It essentially is converting the whole system from RHEL to Fedora in place...

wldcordeiro 12y ago

The IT at the company I work for is odd. I work for a smaller subsidiary that manages most things for itself but we're still required to have a parent company approved workstation alongside our main development computers. So I have this dinky little HP with a 15" monitor just to do the HR computer "training" stuff related to our industry and then I have a full size workstation with dual 24" monitors that I develop on. They're connected to different networks, my workstation is on a Comcast business line and then the other is on an internal network that has the strictest security policies on the planet. It's like having a weird cross between IT as it should be (as described in this article) and IT hell you expect in large corporations.

philip1209 12y ago

They're able to be flexible with IT because no Google code lives on the laptops - they are basically SSH clients with a Yubikey in the USB port and an encrypted SSH key. All of the data that needs securing never makes it down to the laptop.