Re: First new figure skating results coverage

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Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 16:34:28 -0600

In article <ZKqdneF45PhRRp7fRVn-jQ@comcast.com>, Charles Newman wrote:
>
>"Moe Trin" <ibuprofin@painkiller.example.tld> wrote in message
>news:slrncuoe3e.rgh.ibuprofin@compton.phx.az.us...

>> Yes, we go one step further - our systems don't even _have_ floppies.
>> Our workstations don't have CD or DVD drives either. The maintenance
>> staff like that, because it's a couple of failure mechanisms eliminated.
>
> One problem though with that. If you had to do any specific maintenance
>on a machine, you would have some trouble. Better to do it the way I
>do it. Keep the floppy and/or CD in the machine, but simply unhook them
>and remove them from the BIOS configuration.

Maintenance on our systems _rarely_ involves a floppy - if the system is
that fscked that it won't boot and get the network up, it's brought into
the lab. We do have some floppies and CDs that we can install if needed,
but not having them installed means not having to buy them - and thirty
bucks a system times over several hundred systems a year adds up.

>If you have to do something like install or uninstall a program, you can
>simply hook it back up and then unhook it when you are done.

Installation of new apps, and upgrading existing ones is done over the
network. Remember, our users don't have the r00t or admin password, and
they know we tend to take a hammer to the hands of those who want to
"improve" the system by installing something. Why do you need a floppy
or CD to _uninstall_ a program?

>The BIOS can be password protected so that a user could not re-activate
>the drives.

We go one better - the cases are locked closed, and the CPU and monitor are
secured via security cables.

>If you have to re-install the operating system for any reason, you would
>need a floppy and/or CD. Even restoring from Norton Ghost, you need to
>boot from a floppy.

First, a reinstall is _very_ rare - and when done is done by ITS in the
lab where a floppy and/or CD drive is available. If a productions system
goes down, we don't want to waste time repairing it in the server room or
user's office if it can't be fixed in a couple of minutes. I guess you are
not noticing that we don't use windoze. To install, we boot from a floppy,
configure the network setup, and then connect to the server where we
download something very similar to a Ghost image - been doing it that
way for probably 15 years. There are images for two varieties of workstation,
and two base varieties of server. When finished loading, the configuration
files are checked, and the floppy is removed.. New systems do get to sit
in the burn-in area for two days running test applications to exercise
everything, but that's about it. Having standardized setups also simplifies
maintenance. Lest you forget, our user 'home' directories are on file
servers, and are network mounted on whatever workstation the user logs in
on. That allows central backup (nightly), and makes the hardware even more
interchangeable. The only thing users can write to the local disk is /tmp/
and anything in that directory gets deleted when the user logs out. We
even have a couple of spare systems that can be reconfigured in a couple
of minutes in case one of the production systems goes down, though that is
pretty infrequent. We have one guy whose job is to swap systems for the
routine maintenance every night. He drops off a "new" system and drags
the old one back into the maintenance area for cleaning. Afterwards, that
system gets installed as someone else's "new" system.

        Old guy

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