Outsourcing.

[Darren Reed <darrenr () reed wattle id au>]

There appears to be some sort of "outsourcing fad" progressing its way
through organisations, involving business units which are not deemed to
be "core" given to third parties to supply - one of these, of course is
IT (desktop, network, etc).  Whilst many of us may not be in a position
to do anything about it (or are a part of an organisation which is on
the receiving end), the mode of operation that these outsourcing companies
need to operate under for profit making to be a reality would seem to be
at odds with that required for good network integrity.  That is, they need
to economise in some way, such as managing several customers from one set
of "consoles".  This introduces an obvious risk: the agent can become an
interconnecting "ISP" between their clients, to each of whom they require
network connectivity for "proper network management".  Amongst the problems
with this is the resistance of the company providing the outsourcing to
spend any more money than they have to on silly things like firewalls
between them and their clients.  ("groan" I hear you say)

Have others here had dealings with outsourcing companies and managed to get
them to act responsibly with regard to protecting the integrity of their
clients' networks or have any stories about such a setup being exploited ?
(names need not be mentioned).

Cheers,
Darren