Be Prepared
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I wasn't terribly active on the site yesterday. Actually as I write this around noon on Wednesday, I haven't been on the site at all so far today. Part of it is not being prepared, something that I've tried to avoid for most of my life. As a Boy Scout I learned the value of thinking ahead and being ready for anything as we camped out in the woods, bringing in all the supplies we might need. As an adult, I've tried to plan for problems at my job, which is probably one thing that has helped me be a successful DBA.
As a writer, I probably need some work 🙁
The forecast for Tuesday morning was wind, 30-40mph, and rain. After living in Colorado for 10 years, I probably should know better, but they've been pretty good, so I went with that. After taking my son to get his braces off, we got him to school in a light, slushy snow. I got home, worked for about an hour and then got my daughter ready for school. We got ready a few minutes early because the power had gone out, ending her morning on NickJr.com and any chance for me to work until she was gone. As we drove to school, the roads weren't too bad, but it was definitely snowing harder, and coming down almost horizontally in the wind. But with no power at home and power at school, we thought that was a good choice.
I got home and started writing the editorial for yesterday. Luckily the laptop was charged, so I could work. But with no power, I couldn't upload things. I also didn't have the VPN software I needed on my laptop to manage the newsletter process. I was looking out the window at a blizzard, barely able to see my neighbor's house and trying to decide what to do. I wasn't prepared and was about ready to pack up my desktop and drive to the old SQLServerCentral.com collocation center to get power and connectivity, not to mention software. Fortunately around this time the power came up and allowed me to boot the desktop, grab the connectivity info off it, and get it to a USB key before it died. Unfortunately I didn't have the Cisco software.
Luckily my wife came to the rescue with her Sprint air card. She gets Internet access through the Sprint network, and uses Cisco VPN software, so I borrowed her laptop for 15 minutes to upload the newsletter and get it ready to send. I had to hurry because we couldn't charge the batteries and she needed to do some work as well.
So here I am, noon, sitting at McDonalds trying to get some work done, charge the laptop and phone while the kids play. I'll have to hit Starbucks soon to get this sent out the door and then go home to prep for the night. Keeping warm isn't a problem and the kids occupy themselves pretty well, but i sure would be nice to have a shower.
Being prepared makes a huge difference. I've copied around the passwords, IPs, and other information I need into my Password Safe and I have copies of it my laptop, my wife's, as well as 2USB keys. I'm also planning on uploading copies of my editorials to a 2nd location every day. I need to build an automated way to do this and the Red Gate FTP site might be the best way to get that done.
We also realize that a generator is really an important part of our DR strategy at the office, which is also the home. We had been waiting for the snow to melt this winter to pour a pad and I've been putting it off, but I think that should be a May project for sure after this week. I'd recommend everyone look at their personal and work situations and be sure you're prepared for whatever problems might befall you. Hurricane season on the East Coast will be here soon enough.
Getting a foot of snow in late April isn't usual, but it's far from unheard of. I'm just glad I had filled the diesel fuel can so I could fire up the tractor get dig myself out this morning.
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Honestly, I think it is time to re-evaluate your priorities. If the power's out, the batteries are dead, the weather's formidable - it's time to just sit play with the kids and enjoy the spectacle. Other things can wait.
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That's true some of the time, but many people, including myself, still have work responsibilities that cannot easily be put off to anyone else.
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I tend to agree with Doug on this one Steve. No power and inclement weather ... well missing one editorial or newsletter seems acceptable. Maybe you have even fallen victim to the 'single resource point of failure' paradigm - any manager or business owner not having the foresight to plan for staffing issues with no backup (I'm not speaking of you but rather the site owners). As DBAs we are almost always in that situation. However a global firm now has a substantial stake in things now. I would have hoped that they had had better insight and planned better into situations such as this. You know a posting somewhere stating that there are 'difficulties' ...
To put things in another perspective, imagine yourself as the local bank in this situation. People would just have to deal with the situation until things are restored. The difference is in handling of the situation. A bank would not apologize or give you real information about the issue, whereas you are able to give an honest and frank explanation. That's the difference. I'll bet that there is not one member in our community that will begrudge anyone involved in the commmunity for having an occasional issue to deal with that is totally out of their control.
I do applaud you on a daily basis for your work every time I open the newsletter. Maybe chat with the site owners about contingencies - after all it's their site and their responsibility.
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
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There are other options to short-lived power outages out there, especially for those of us not fortunate enough to have a country home with no neighbors to complain. (I for one suspect my apartment management would have an issue with me putting in my own generator.)
One is a backup battery. There's dedicated UPS systems available, but a cheaper alternative is the type of emergency battery for your car with jumper cables. They often have either a 120v outlet, a 12v cigarrette lighter socket, or both. As long as your laptop has a car adapter you're good to go for potentially hours. I wouldn't recommend relying on one to power a desktop for more than a few minutes, though.
And, they typically use older technology lead acid or NiCad batteries, wihch have a "memory," so they need discharging and recharging occasionally or they'll become just a 15+ pound doorstop. Even the nicest ones with Lithium Ion batteries will become useless if left for too long without a charge, or if allowed to discharge completely for a long period of time.
Still, cheaper than a generator and far more portable if your needs and other choices are limited.
--Al--
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Al has a good idea. As a teen, before cell phones and when dinosaurs roamed N. America, I lived in rural Illinois. I had a VHF ham radio setup so that when we were snowed in I still could communicate with the outside world. It was based on what third-world developers call "appropriate technology", meaning a high enough level of technology to get the job done, but no more. This consisted of a car battery, timer, and trickle charger from K-Mart. I set this up in the garage so that the trickle charger would come on for several hours a day, just enough to keep the battery at full charge. Since my room shared a wall with the garage, it was simple enough to run the wiring through the wall, provided you drilled the hole near the baseboard, behind the desk, when Mom and Dad weren't home. I never had to run off the battery more than 8 or 10 hours at a time, and it seemed to work very well. The cost at the time was pretty cheap, and today would probably be cheaper though less sophisticated than the backup battery Al mentions. Although now that I think about it, I don't know the current drain on a laptop vs. what a car battery could feed it. Just a thought.
There is no "i" in team, but idiot has two. -
Thanks for the notes and I'd hope things are ok if I miss a newsletter. It's happened before, so I'd like to think so.
I definitely wasn't prepared for work, and I'm working on that. This week will be a lot of getting more organized in case I can't get to the site for some reason.
We're getting a generator, mainly for livestock and water reasons, but also to keep the house minimally going (1 room, fridge, etc.). I'd like to charge batteries off the wind or sun for short term outages, but that requires a pretty good sized investment to tie into the house. If I can find something that's expandable, we may even go that route.
The biggest thing I wanted to point out from this editorial is that you want to think ahead of time about problems and at least have an idea of what you want to do. I didn't mean that every thing is an emergency and you need to react quickly. However there will be times you do need to keep working or handling something and it pays to have just thought about it a bit.
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