Face Book for Systems Administrators?

Imagine a social networking site where system and network administrators, database administrators and other IT "plumbers" could share not their latest book pix or movie reviews, but specific workflows and even configuration scripts for managing virtual servers, complying with security policies, or linking Oracle databases to popular ERP systems.

That's the vision -- or at least part of the vision -- for Tideway Systems, a six-year-old startup in the system and network management space.  Tideway competes against specific components within system management frameworks from vendors such as IBM Tivoli and HP.  It gathers and correlates information from OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) levels two through seven and identifies actionable information such as which databases are supporting which applications, and which application servers or storage systems are supporting specific business workflows.

The aim, of course, is to help organizations manage their IT functions more effectively and less expensively.  To promote their products, Tideway is taking a page from the social networking (and open source development) models by creating an on-line community called Configipedia. It hoping system administrators will share at least some of their best practices to spare each other time and trouble – and maybe become Tideway customers at the same time.

If any vendor has successfully used the open-source, community-development model to build critical mass for their products, I missed it. With the Linux operating system, the process was the opposite: Years of onesie-twosie adoption by enthusiasts eventually convinced larger customers to pay for “official” versions complete with paid support, which convinced for-profit vendors like Novell and Red Hat to jump into the market.

Will big company lawyers let their sys admins to turn over “best practices” (even those as lowly as system configuration tips) to their competitors via a vendor-owned Web site? Will those sys admins be scared off for fear of being locked into using Tideway’s tool in order to keep accessing its best practices Web site? Or is thus just another twist on every vendor’s online customer forums? Time will tell.