UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook, 5th Edition

31	Methodology, Policy, and Politics

During the past four decades, the role of information technology in business and daily life has changed dramatically. It’s hard to imagine a world without the instant gratification of Internet search.

For most of this period, the predominant philosophy of IT management was to increase stability by minimizing change. In many cases, hundreds or thousands of users depended on a single system. If a failure occurred, hardware often had to be express shipped for repair, or hours of downtime were needed to reinstall software and restore state. IT teams lived in fear that something would break and ...