What am I missing?

From: Christopher Smith <csmith_at_amdocs.com>
Date: Mon Feb 11 11:02:53 2002

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jerome Fine [mailto:jhfine_at_postoffice.idirect.com]

> I have a problem - am I the one at fault?

I'm not sure there's a "fault" here. I certainly wouldn't blame you
for wanting to do a proper backup.

> (a) The firmware/software for the "RAID 1" controller seems to
> NOT have anything that will alert the user to be able to identify
> which disk drive might be bad even after a drive failure, let alone
> intermittent errors.

Well, if a drive fails completely, just unplug one, and if the
system still boots, you've unplugged the failed unit ;)

> (b) Even though my current files are (seemingly) all correct and
> I have two duplicate copies, when I said that I was was going to
> restore from my initial back-up from CD (I currently have no
> data files, just the installed software), I was looked at as if
> I was a bit crazy - why would I do a recovery if there is nothing
> wrong? Even though I attempted to explain that a full back-up

Personally, I'd recover to a "spare" disk, and try that disk out
afterwards. No reason to possibly trash a more-or-less working
installation if the recovery fails the first time.

Otherwise it sounds reasonable.

> includes the total recovery from scratch - at least a few times
> at the beginning to establish that the procedure works, that attitude
> is considered overcautious to say the least - at the worst it is:

> "So what if you loose all you files, you can always rebuild the
> system from scratch if you have to?" These individuals seem
> to have never heard of data files - like in a legal office, the
> client records don't need to be kept since everything in published
> law books is how to start all over again after a fire.

I think this is the windows mindset. "We can always re-build the
entire system, data files and all (since our data files will all be
corrupt by then) once a month or so." Some people tell me that they've
had better luck with windows than this, of course, YMMV.

The point is that after losing so much data to poor practices -- on the
part of the user, and the people who wrote the o/s -- what's there to
be afraid of? Taken a step further, what's the point in a backup at
all?

That's not my attitude, but I've seen it. It also seems that most
"new" system management types consider backups to simply be an
annoyance, and more often than not will do anything possible to get
out of having to restore anything...

> Is this attitude common in industry? Am I wrong? I know that
> my wife has a cousin who works for an accountant who
> NEVER makes a back-up of the client files.

I try not to do business with people who have such poor data management
practices... Had you given the name of the business, this would have
probably kept me away from them for life.

> If I am correct, is there any way to get my point across or is
> this a Catch-22 situation?

Wait until there is a failure and they actually need a backup.
Announce that you have a backup, indeed, but it only contains 9000
copies of a file called README. :)

Chris

Christopher Smith, Perl Developer
Amdocs - Champaign, IL

/usr/bin/perl -e '
print((~"\x95\xc4\xe3"^"Just Another Perl Hacker.")."\x08!\n");
'
 
Received on Mon Feb 11 2002 - 11:02:53 GMT