Beta Rollout

Eyes bleeding.... Head pounding... Going to explode any second now... AHHHHHH!

I'm in the middle of a beta rollout of a new release.

It always astounds me just how easily end-users can break an installation no matter how much testing you do before hand. A subtle difference in their OS installation that you didn't account for and BOOM, a nightmare ensues.

What gets me is that I added even more layers of testing for this release. By using VMWare we were able to set up 25 different operating systems in varying configurations and patch levels. We figured that testing each install on this setup, we would catch most (if not all) of the major installation issues. Well, 1st install.... 1st nightmare.

I'm starting to see why most companies employ an instillation engineer. Installations have become so complex that it is almost an application unto itself.

I'm think I'll go find a corner and cut myself for a few hours.