« Designer Bugs III | Main | Cross Linking Offer »
August 28, 2003
BOFH
The latest BOFH has just been posted. As always, Simon has picked one of those really annoying points of contention between the users and the operations staff. In this case it is a test server with production data (of course) but the same thing happens with disaster recovery:
Project Planning Meeting
Admin: OK, you need a Sun V480 with 8 Gb of RAM for the production server, mirrored internal disk, dual connections to the SAN. That's about $AU120,000 plus SAN costs. Will you need any DR?
Client: What's DR?
Admin: Disaster Recovery. Your box falls over, we get it up and running on another one.
Client: Sounds good, better have that.
Admin: That will take the cost up to $AU240,000 but the recovery box will also be available for testing changes and patches.
Client: Oh no, we can't spend that much. Scratch the DR.
Admin: Are you sure?
Client: Absolutely.
Admin: That means if your box falls over it may be up to a week before service is restored.
Client: Not a problem, we can use pencil and paper for up to two weeks if necessary.
Six months later
Client: Help, the server has falled over.
Admin: No worries. Power supplies are both blown. Should have new ones some time tomorrow.
Client: That's too long, we need the server up NOW. It's urgent. Do something ...
Right!
If you remind them about not needing DR, they will complain to your manager about (1) your attitude and (2) your uncooperative nature. Don't laugh. It really happened although some details may have been subtly altered to make the case less recognizable!
Posted by Ozguru at August 28, 2003 11:08 PM
