So, I have a good Friend, who works for an NGO.
And of course we talk. And of course, we chat through IM.
And funnily enough, my friend's connection drops more often than mine, even when I'm using a simple EVDO modem.

Since all good geek is curious, and since I tend to try being one, I asked whether the source of the problem was known.
This lead to that, and I got to know more about the standard policies of that organization.
I have, in the past, been an ardent defender of NGOs, especially the smaller ones, but what I heard left me pretty nonplussed.
Here is why:

Local: bad.

There are, where I live, various local ISP offering diverse professional solutions and, as long as we forget about wireless broadband, offering broadband under USD 500 per month.
Of course they are using one of these solutions, but it doesn't seem to be good enough for them, and they are using a secondary secure connection, from all the way to Europe, costing them more than USD 3000 per month.

That's pretty expensive for a VPN if you ask me. Yes, the data are precious, but I wonder why a standard VPN implementation is not enough to protect it? Is Wikileaks after them?
To add some spice to the sauce, their technical support is located abroad and the operations in case of trouble are monitored...by phone.

Standards are better, it's a fact. By why don't they let local organizations implement their  procedures, when they can actually do it well, is still a mystery to me.

Expensive: good.

Oracle. Less than 1000 simultaneous for a database. A million dollars project costs. When Facebook still uses MySQL.
And yes, before you ask me, it does crash every now and then.

The office computers are of course loaded with Windows.
I know, Linux is know to be complex. Ubuntu is also know to be pretty user friendly.

Nevermind.

Result: Mess

Since no local consultant is there to support full time their IT structure, their bandwidth is very badly distributed.
Their secure connection got recently hacked, by a local.
A virus infection recently cost them several month of shutting down their operations, plus the cost of outsourcing the cleaning up.

I won't pretend to offer an immediate solution, but I'm sad to see that so much money wasted because "they have better at home".
I know where my next donation won't go though.

Posted via email from @Danny_Fr