Re: What will Save Film?

Roger wrote: 
On Sun, 09 Oct 2005 02:36:23 GMT, kashe@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Sat, 08 Oct 2005 08:28:29 -0700, Bill Funk
<BigBill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

That person gets fired. :-) 

I can't find the post containing the above statement, but although it
might be true in some instances, it's not in many cases.

I may have said this earlier in this thread.
I know of many instances where there were data losses in a number of
corporations but, I can cite a specific case. I received a phone call
from a very worried person (a sys admin).  They had been working in
the root directory of one of those systems where you can type del
*.*[...] which means delete every thing in the current directory and
all sub directories.

The system had been stopped almost immediately, but this system for a
very large corporation was last backed up at midnight. It was now 2:00
PM.  They were able to restore the system to the last backup point,
but all data entered after that had to be re-entered *by hand* by the
lab people who were not at all thrilled. However they knew enough
about computers to realize that does happen.

How big a problem was this.  I said it was a large corporation.  I
figure it took close to 120 man hours to re-enter that data for 14
hours of operation.  The admin did not even get their paddies slapped.

No matter how good the system, sooner of later some important data is
going to be lost.  If this had been one of those places foolish enough
to even attempt a paperless operation the testing would have to have
been redone and literally millions of dollars worth of material would
have been held up until it had been retested and we'd have had to pay
penalties for late delivery.
I had to have one system FDA validated. We started with an inch thick
stack of tests. When we finished the stack was well over 3 feet tall.
In operation, *everything* had to be backed up on paper. However the
computer system allowed them to retrieve information in seconds that
could have taken hours prior to the system.

It depends on how knowledgeable the people above and just how bad they
need you.  Our salaries were indirectly based on how expensive a
mistake we could make and how many people at what level we had working
for us.

I had my retirement points for some time and they were still helping
me with career advancement.  I enjoyed the job (project manager), had
unbelievable autonomy, came in at 10:00 AM, and went home at 4:30 or
5:00 PM.  (The bottom line was, I got the job done and most times I
knew what they were going to ask for so I was already prepared when
they asked)

I once received a nasty note about my hours from the plant manager's
secretary.  I made a few calls, said I'd be glad to come in at 7:00 if
they really wanted me to, but the work done from home was going to
stop if I didn't get my sleep. (I was basically putting in 12 to 16
hour days)  Next morning I got a nice smile from her on the way by his
office on the way to mine at 10:00 AM.  No one ever questioned my odd
hours again.

No method of storage is without flaws, no medial is permanent, and no
method of backup is failsafe.  The more data, the more secure, the
better the data integrity the more people it takes. The more people
involved and the more elaborate the backup the more places for errors
to creep in.

Some where there is a point where loss of data integrity beomces more
likely than loss of data.  Now days, either one is more likely to be
caused by human error than mechanical or software failure.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

All very true. I have seen servers lose a HD and then it was found that the backups weren't correctly set up and some essential files (OS files) hadn't been backed up so when restored, the system didn't work. That one took several people a couple of weeks to fix....
Stuff happens. People make mistakes, hardware fails, software become corrupt, hackers attack. Nothing is perfect. You do what you can with the facilities at your disposal, and when it hits the fan, you clean up, and go on.


--
Ron Hunter  rphunter@xxxxxxxxxxx
.

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