[H-GEN] Exchange Woes

[Adrian Sutton]

> It's funny.  The MS world really has trailed Unix in terms of easy
> disaster recovery.  To me it is almost like they haven't thought DR
> through properly.  I've seen these sorts of problems on MS systems as
> well.  I simply don't stand for it.

Agreed wholeheartedly.  I believe the crucial difference is the fact 
that UNIX systems tend to use text files where ever possible and also 
just files in general.  The "everything is a file" philosophy really 
pays off when it comes to back up and recovery.  Windows on the other 
hand tends to use a lot of proprietary, binary file formats and 
overuses the registry.  Windows also uses unique, auto-generated IDs 
for pretty much everything whereas UNIX tends to use host names, paths 
and other user-settable things.

>> Our windows systems don't break for the most part, but every so often
>> every system goes bad, I'd like something that comes good again 
>> easier.
>
> This is really what I was getting at.  Again, not sure you've seen 
> Unix in
> action in a serious environment but this "going bad for no reason" 
> stuff
> is rubbish.  If I see a tool or OS acting that way in the bin it goes.
>
> The older I get the less tolerance I have for rubbish software :)

Software won't help when the hard drive dies (as was the case here).  
Actually it appears the motherboard and IDE controller have gone at the 
same time, probably indicating that the UPS isn't much good anymore 
either.

> Bearing in mind that RAID will only help with some failure modes.  If
> someone blows a large portion of your filesystem away RAID will 
> dutifully
> carry out the operation on all mirrors.

True, but we don't have the resources to deal with stupidity - we have 
enough trouble dealing with hardware faults.

> If you are using Unix servers there is no need for them to visit
> physically except in the case of a serious problem.  A Unix sysadmin 
> will
> use the command line to manage & fix the system so location becomes
> relatively unimportant.

Very true, assuming that the problem isn't that the internet connection 
has gone down (our most common problem).

> I didn't :)  I just like to mention it, partly so you can go back to 
> your
> company and say "see, other people point this stuff out too!".  Too 
> many
> companies ignore the need for a good backup/DR plan.  Sometimes it is 
> to
> their detriment.
>
> Humbug members have some great stories about large organisations that 
> did
> not do good backups.  My favourite the bank story.  'nuff said.

Noted.  Experienced.  I'm sure I'll laugh about it when I get to sleep 
again. :)

> Cheers,
> 	Rob

Regards,

Adrian Sutton
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