REAL Interesting? Or, what happened?

[ECA]

I dont know what it is about companies that want to setup server farms, and DONT take precautions.
MSN, dont have a second layer backup of there servers, when hit with a Virus last year they were DOWN for 3 days, and LOST alot of data.
Im on a site thats bring out a NEW online space sim, waiting for the end of beta test, and the Pwoer went out at there site, in LONDON, and there servers go down(2 days). WHAT IS THIS? Ever hear of a UPS, or battery backup, Power generators???
For $3000 I can get them a 6KV backup which should keep them going for at least as long as the GAS holds out.
On the OLD servers, you NEVEr let them go down for CHEAP reasons like these. You have secondary systems that can be turned on with the MOST import information, and a POWER backup.
I cant wait for a Lightning strike to HIT near a server array, and BLOW them all to He77. Because someone was to cheap to use a power conditioner, spike arrestor. This stuff is ONLY expensive if you DONT have an electronics person around. Its about $1 worth of parts can do a WHOLE house, if you know what you are doing, of PAY $50 for the arrestor to install yourself.

HOW stupid are these people, to think that ALL they have to do is install a bunch of computers, and LET them run, with OUT protection. EVEN Yahoo runs Virus protection on all email and postings.
And thinking that Just beacuse they get an OFFICE, they have spike protection is ludicris(sp). You protect yourself, NO MATTER what the owner of the property says. Its like RENTERS insurance or a burgler alarm, if you dont get it, IM SORRY.
A secondary system for your system is GREAT, as it should only take 1/2 as many comps to keep the system running, if you need it. It just keeps the data flowing and you dont loose stuff. Say you are in an ONLINE server and it goes down. Someone hacked a virus into it, and the company WIPES every thing, because they DIDNT backup the MAIN data for all the charactors. POOR YOU.. START over.. Your 100th level wizard is NOW a peon.
And all these companies have to say "sorry". I have better words for THEM when they say that.
WE as private Person take better care of our systems, then MOST companies do latly, esp those of us that have GONE thru it(mostly more then 1 time). We backup, we use Virus software, and a good UPS(uninterruptable power supply) with voltage conditioner if you can afford it. Think about it, is it worth 1 Burnt computer, 100 virus, 1 recovery, to spend $300 for protection of your system. THINK of what we LOOSE. Emails, addresses, site listings, Just from windows, and then there is Artwork, 3d models, music, reloading all those games, reloading drivers, and just a FULL restart.
Last Full restart took me 1 week to recover all my updates, for Windows, office, new drivers, reinstalling all my games and updating them, trying to find the software I had installed.
I lost my address book info, and 2000 contacts. I lost all my save emails. And then I reloaded Yahoo, MSN, and ICQ.... ONLY yahoo keeps a copy of my contacts on THERE site. MSN didnt and ICQ didnt.
I remeber backing up my OLD computer took, 30 floppy disks... NOT to bad considering....WHAt do you backup on windows, to KEEP it all there.

Sorry for the rant, but I REALLY thing alot of these companies are getting STUPID.

[Entropy]

And who are you to complain about losing a free service or two temporarily? (this includes web pages, and free net mail)

By your same ethic stated above you should go as far as to have 5 seperate e-mail accounts that each copy and forward every message recieved to the others so that when one goes down (or 4 of them) you have at least 1 backup.

Honeslty...

[ECA]

Have you ever been in a PAY game and LOST your charactor... Because THEY didnt have backups.
yahoo is free and they keep a backup on there server. Why dont MSN, ICQ, and most the rest. Do they ENJOY screwing people.
HOw about your comp, what precautions do you have??
WILL a backup of windows, REALLY backup ALL your needed data you WANT.

[Ioman]

I do not beleive that these companies do not have back-ups. I do beleive that they would rather delete some character profiles that were taking up space and call it an accident rather than spend more money on bandwidth and storage space.

I used to work for Lockheed Martin doing IT support for Nike (they outsource to Lockheed Martin business solutions) and they had a lot of back-ups in place. So I would only imagine a dot.com company would as well.

I just fail to beleive they would run a business without them. I am also positive they use e-mail virus protection too.

[ECA]

MSN didnt, thats why they went down because a Virus Screwed up there network address locator. And they didnt have a backup system to recover to. Which lost them 3 days to recover.
And as for a FREE service, what FREE? As they do tend to advertize, and if there product SUCKS no-one will use it. And if it goes down, even Fewer will use it.. Remember AIM when iot first started, and NO-boby liked it...
Alot of these Game servers, and upcoming companies that are setting up Servers, are forgetting about what is needed. And its getting REAL tiresome.

[dang]

As for backing up your personal system... One thing:
DVD Burner.

[ECA]

Try to tell companies that.. They still like TAPE.
If you have a Linux server, you can put your HARD(unchangeable) data on a CD/DVD. That way when it needs a restart, you KNOW its there and cant be tampered with.

Under WINDOWS, you CANT. Windows augments alot of programs when it starts and as its running... It would be GREAT to have the kernal and major progs on CD/DVD, for protection, but you cant do it.
Iv asked MS about this and techs.

[flashfire]

In really large installations, It could COST more and take more time to maintain the tape libraries/silos and to do the restore then to just say opps and move on. I've found very few engineers in large companies who feel they don't need backups, usually it s a cost/risk factor decision made by management.

[Ioman]

Originally posted by flashfire
In really large installations, It could COST more and take more time to maintain the tape libraries/silos and to do the restore then to just say opps and move on. I've found very few engineers in large companies who feel they don't need backups, usually it s a cost/risk factor decision made by management.

Flashfire, I think you hit it on the head. When I worked at Lockheed Martin, they had a whole depatment dedicated to backing up the systems etc..

[ECA]

Cost/risk
The problem with that? Is so many companies dont know whats out there that could solve there problems in an easy way. Most companies are 5-7 years or MORE behind in tech knowledge(because of cost to UPGRADE). Most companies, listen to the Computer installer they have, that wants to install proprietary hardware that costs 3x-4x as much.
Go look at some of the systems out there. Resturants are still using 386, and 486's with Hercules B&W displays on 5 inch monitors, and the system and software costs $10,000 +$1000 per year to keep the updates(PS, thats each machine).
Banks like to have 'protection' so every thing is Generally scrambled in there main systems, the software is TOTALLY outragious in price. But these companies wont go and find someone Cheaper to do the work that could STILL do the job, at about 1/10th the price.
I know a company, that backs up there data DAILY, on floppy.. Takes about 60 each day, and then a weekly backup, on floppy, thats about 120. And they are STILL using a 486, because the software is designed under DOS. You wouldnt believe me if I told you the NAME of the company.
This is like the Priuce of a wheel chair.. Every look at the cost to build one? Its cheap, but you are going to PAY $400-$1000 for one.

[ECA]

Lockheed/Martin has been in the busness ALONG time, they know the pitfalls VERY well.
Im mostly talking about the NEWER companies that are setting up. they are forgetting the basics, and slaming up server arrays, without any PRECAUTIONS to there systems.
Who knows about WON.net... they have there own sites, and they run GAME servers. They have hackers sitting in there servers, watching people come in and out, and try to hack into your system. How do I know... Iv played games that USEd there servers, and at 56k, you can tell REAL quick when people are trying to get on your comp.

[dang]

Again, for your personal system, if you want to actually back up windows, use Norton Ghost. It rocks. You can backup a whole partition or drive to another drive/partition fairly quickly, and compress it.

You can then, if the image is small enough, back it up onto CD (make a bootable cd that will automatically restore the image.)

Simple as that. I use it at work every day to restore dirty machines to clean images. I have used it for w95, w98, ME, NT4, W2K and XP.

Very good tool.

[ECA]

But do these BIG companies know this...
Or do they listen to anybody that has an Idea, because the Big Guys at the top, NO NOTHING.

[dang]

The only thing people see at the top is the bottom dollar. Its obvious that someone below them is not doing their job by showing the execs that they actually lose money if they dont spend the money to keep their systems protected

Something like ghost is not what you want to use on server farms. Its useful for home use or in a "test" setting.

[flashfire]

In response,

Someone at the top is making the decision. There are very valid situations where big tape libraries aren't needed. In today's shared/distributed networks, its all together possible that a node can be lost w/o an detriment to the overall system. Format a new node, drop it in place, and you're done. The entire system becomes almost organic in natural at this level. Something along a RAID type concept except at the workstation or server level.

[ECA]

Oh yess! I love the idea of a Hot swappable set up. Its nice when a small part of the system fails and you just take it out, and replace it, or any part of 1 of the systems. with a good server setup, 1 part does not affect the rest of the system, to badly.

[Entropy]

An automatic backup system would be fairly easy to set up in a server farm, I'd think.

Just set every sytem, at the end of the day, to one at a time send their changed data to a pair of file servs. Over a gigabit network this would be easy as pie.

(the script for this kind of thing is as easy as running a case tool like Embarcadero Describe, or the like)

[ECA]

A remote system, on the network, with a Disk array(generally SCSI raid) could tap the systems ANY time. It wouldnt really bother the system, and would have storage for ALMOST anything. Iv seen Disk arrays that held over 24 Disk drives, and at 100 gig a piece. WOW.

Power conditioning is easy, as you set 1 curcuit in the business to be fully conditioned from the Electrical box. And that SAME curcuit can be set up with a backup Power source. for a server array, at LEAST 5k-15k(1k per machine) should keep it up for 1 hour for each machine(no monitor, printer, just the Case unit), Unless you want a Gas powered unit that would LASt as long as you got gas.

[llbbl]

I gots lots of gas