Pilot fish is a data center manager at a large and growing multinational company that announces with much fanfare the appointment of a new CIO. The guy has a military background and great leadership experience. And being a veteran, he’s on his way to meet the troops.

The day arrives and fish gives the new CIO a tour of the data center, describing all the equipment as they go along. He explains everything: the UPS, the monitoring system, the server systems, the hardware selection, the management consoles, the fire suppression systems, the raised floors, the backups, the documentation, the procedures, the networking, the redundant links, and even security models such as using a DMZ for public web server isolation.

The CIO is mostly quiet throughout, apparently soaking it all in. Finally, fish asks if he has any questions. Yes, says the CIO: “What is a DMZ?”

“I ensured that all reports after that included definitions of common industry acronyms,” fish tells us.

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