Finally, David reached the request. “What we’re asking you to do is bring down all the email servers. Then have the designated IT group responsible for the servers re-image those servers with a known good version of the software.” David continued to watch their reactions. “This is a normal action we take when a server has a problem with it. It’s just like reinstalling the operating system and software on your PC, if you’ve ever done that.”
“David, I hear what you’re asking for, and I want to help. I really do.” Linda fiddled absently with her touchscreen pad on the table. “I’m very uncomfortable making a decision of this magnitude. I’d much rather wait for Gary to return.” Linda leaned back in her chair, and looked up at David. “What you’re asking for, it would cause an email outage, wouldn’t it? How long would the outage last, and how many customers would be affected?”
“Yes, it would cause an outage. The good news is that Avogadro has a process to re-image servers quite quickly. It takes just fifteen minutes or so. The bad news is that we don’t normally re-image all the servers at once, and the backup system that contains the images can only serve up images to a few thousand servers at a time. The result is that the first servers would come back up in fifteen minutes, but it would be approximately three hours before we could have every server back online.”
“Wait a second,” Linda said, leaning forward. “Are you saying we’d have a full service outage? I thought you were talking about a rolling outage. No, we absolutely can’t have a full service outage right now. We’re about to close some major new partnership deals in the next couple of days. I can’t discuss it until the press release comes out, it’s so sensitive.” She shook her head. “It’s a major coup for Avogadro. We’re talking about a billion dollar revenue opportunity. We can’t put that at risk.” Linda looked to Tim for confirmation.
“That’s true Linda. These are highly sensitive customers. An outage right now would almost certainly cause us to lose the contracts,” Tim added, in support. “These customers have service level agreements that guarantee a minimum level of uptime. To have an outage right now would create doubt about our ability to meet the service level agreement.”
“Now wait a minute.” Linda snapped her fingers. “The rolling maintenance windows. Why don’t you just do that? Bring down some of the servers, in small groups, and gradually fix them?”
“We wish we could,” Mike jumped in, “but we’re afraid that the existing systems would reinfect the new systems as they come up. We will need to bring every email server down simultaneously.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to say no.” She waggled one pointed finger at them. “Now, if you had come to me, and you had some very specific, hard evidence that the email servers were causing problems for our customers, I might be influenced to make the decision to rebuild those servers. But that’s not what you have. You have a very strange story about a handful of emails being manipulated. It seems to me that it would be far more likely that your particular email accounts have been compromised, than that the entire email system is flawed. I think you need to talk to Security.” She shook her head sadly again.
“This isn’t a Security problem,” David said. “This is—”
“Look,” Linda said. “I can’t make a business decision that will almost certainly cause the loss of billions based on a few mangled emails. I’m sorry. You are free to talk to Gary when he gets back, of course.” She tapped her manicured nails on the table. “Anything else?” she said dismissively.
Chapter 11
PORTLAND, Oregon — January 6th, 2010 UTC — Avogadro Inc. today announced it is providing a secure, hosted version of Avogadro Applications with AvoMail for Governments.
The demand for secure, hosted Avogadro Applications with AvoMail came from various country level governments who were spending excessive amounts on IT services, while receiving inferior products and services, said Linda Fletcher, Marketing Manager for Avogadro’s Communication Products Division. Avogadro Secure Applications with AvoMail will reduce IT spending by governments by up to 80%, while providing feature-rich, easy to use communication applications, according to Fletcher.
The hosted platform is being adopted immediately by Germany, Canada, and Taiwan, with other countries to follow.
For more information, please visit AvogadroCorp.com
“Holy shit, did you see this press release?” Mike ran back from the bathroom with his AvoOS smartphone in hand. “We, I mean, Avogadro, that is, I think, ELOPe has…”
“Slow down Mike. What is it?” David asked, holding his hands up. It was two days after the conversation with Linda Fletcher, and David, Mike, and Gene were chaffing in a holding pattern, ineffectually waiting for Gary Mitchell to return from a vacation, from which they suspected he should have returned a week earlier.
“Jeez, Avogadro just put out a press release that we have the first government customers for AvoMail. David, governments using AvoMail,” Mike repeated, practically sputtering. “Do you realize what this means?”
“I think so,” said David with dread. “ELOPe has just expanded its sphere of influence. Now every government official who sends or receives an email via AvoMail will have it filtered, altered, or impersonated by it.”
“This service must be what Linda Fletcher was talking about in the meeting the other day when she rejected our proposal to bring the servers down. She must have known this was in the works.”
“I wonder who really initiated this secure applications platform,” David said, half to himself. “Could it have been Avogadro employees, or was it ELOPe? It certainly is convenient for ELOPe.”
The day after the Avogadro press release of the secure cloud services for governmental organizations, David, Mike and Gene met up again. At Mike’s urging, they met at Extracto coffee in Northeast Portland.
“Why here?” David asked when he arrived. Mike and Gene were already sitting at a table nursing their coffee.
“Best coffee in Portland, bar none. Perhaps best coffee on the entire West Coast,” Mike answered.
Gene nodded his assent.
“See, Gene hasn’t even had it before, and he’s already convinced,” Mike went on. “Get the Flores Island coffee. It’s the one on the left.”
David looked over at the counter, and there were two insulated coffee dispensers next to the chromed bulk of the industrial espresso machine. Walking over, he read the labels. The dispenser on the left was labeled “Flores Island” and contained descriptive text so flowery that David thought he was reading a wine review. “Subtle hints of carmel, chocolate, and cannabis?” David read out loud. “For real?” he called out doubtfully to Mike.
Mike just nodded and smiled.
So David got a cup. Out of the corner of his eye he couldn’t help but notice the disapproving stares from the other two as he loaded up his coffee with sugar and milk. He sighed.
On the way back to the table he noticed a large bag at Mike’s feet. “What’s in the bag?” he asked.