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May 15, 2006

System Names

Interesting thing about names and more importantly system names. Suppose during the business requirements phase of a major project we decide to name the new customer management system SIMSYS or Simple Information Management System. When the requirements come to the IT and our infinite wisdom we decide that the system should be called SYMSYS since that sounds much cooler. We in IT like to think of ourselves as creative geniuses and you can see that in all of the dancing bunnies on our slide decks. Once the SYMSYS makes it into design, we need to break it up into four different system names: SYMSYS, SYMSYSWeb, SYMSYSView and SYSSYSDb. Of course, development, test and operations adds the different environments for SYMSYSDb-Production, SYMSYSDb-Test, SYMSYSDb-UAT, SYMSYSDb-Development (Multiplied four times). The different releases then come into play as we add updates and modivications: SYMSYSWeb v2.1, Production. Not to mention the mired assets that will need to be placed into the repositories and registries.

Look out, here comes the business user in a panic; the SIMSYS application is down? The what? Let me look that up in the system registry, Hmmmmm. How do you spell that? Is that production or test? Crap, I cant find SIMSYS anywhere. Frustration with IT follows.

The key here is recognize that multiple names are used depending on the context of the environment. System registries should have synonym structures in place.

Posted by Todd at May 15, 2006 11:40 AM