Do you feel you have done the right thing, when it comes to setting up a working from home (WFH) architecture? Incredibly, most of us are now thinking about the second generation of devices and network layout to support a workforce who could be at home, at work, on the road, or indeed in the middle of a war zone. That first-try lash-up from the early days of lockdown in 2020 was just about the worst nightmare for a well-disciplined, business-aligned IT department: a bodge that had to be put together out of the stuff you could see or touch on the day the news broke. No sooner had Boris’s chilling “This is not a request. This is an instruction” hit home, nerds’ phones all across the world rang.
Even though vital supply services were exempt from economic shutdown, the sheer scale of a species-wide emergency with IT as its main fix meant that supplies of the “right kit for the job” were plainly going to be unavailable on a scale of months, not weeks. It didn’t matter how big or small you were: that was the ultimate bodge job scenario.
Few IT professionals will feel happy about bodges, but for me the situation was wonderful. I have learned to admit that I am a crisis person. My reputation for producing exceptionally long-lived machines, networks and software was
