October 8, 2019 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Very Hot Patches
October 8, 2019 at 12:04 pm
From the perspective of about 42 years in IT, I always have to ask so what's the big deal if I have to stop a machine to make some patches. I never in my whole career saw a company go down, or even falter, if a server had the hiccups. Sure, somebody will be in the middle of creating an order or looking up an address. In my last position as a DBA we have about 50 SQL Server instances and it was always a big deal if something was missing for a few minutes.
So, what do you do if this web site is down for a bit? You take breaks or do something else, don't you? Go to lunch? The world is too full of overblown egos that get all bent out of shape if they are inconvenienced for a few minutes. We need to get over it and get real. I can remember well the days when we had none of this in the first place.
If folks and companies can't survive for a bit without their computers they are already too far gone and a few minutes isn't going to do more damage.
As long as we have good backups and well-designed systems, as a good friend said, 'It's all good'.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
October 8, 2019 at 2:59 pm
That's the view of someone that sees these systems serving a few humans. These days systems serve other systems, humans around the world, and they can be live 24x7 for many businesses. More businesses bill at smaller increments and they need their systems up and running.
In this case, Microsoft isn't dictating when the systems are in use. I can run an instance in Europe or Asia, which might need to be up for the humans here working on it when the humans in Asia aren't. And vice versa.
October 8, 2019 at 10:29 pm
Well, it's a realistic view. Just like calling someone on the phone, if a system is down, another system should be smart enough to 'call back' and retry a process until it succeeds. Each system should handle its situation gracefully for its users.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
October 9, 2019 at 1:19 am
Well, Steve, as Bill O'Reilly says, I can see you drank the Koolaid too. I'll give you a current example. My credit union, two states away and in a different time zone with my checking account, debit card, and credit card just did a complete system change. They were off-line for three days. And guess what. The world didn't end.
The only downside is that their 'new' system has some features that really suck. The design is pathetic. Data presentation is horrible.
As usual, we need to focus more on quality of service over quantity. I'd far rather have a good system that works most of the time than a bad system that works all the time. If we need patches, take the freakin' thing down and fix it.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
October 9, 2019 at 1:58 pm
Everybody can shift work around if a system is down, and they have. However, there's a cost. The reason we try to build systems that can run with hot patches isn't that our business die with a little downtime, it's to prevent a cost of them being down, or a loss of revenue from the downtime.
Your credit union may take a loss or charge from the downtime. Doesn't impact you, but that doens't mean it is without impact.
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