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Software Upgrade Crashes UK Air Traffic Control System
pitpe writes "Earlier today the computer system controlling most of the UK's airspace failed, after tests in preparation for an upgrade failed. The original failure occurred at the West Drayton centre, which is an old (70's) system, as opposed to the new system at Swanage, which has had its own problems. A system wide reboot to fix the system resulted in the entire system being taken down temporarily."
"which is an old (70's) system". As long as it's not 30-year-old hardware then the software should still be fine. Why does everyone think that simply because software was written in the past it is bad?
Perhaps a person experienced in ATC software or hardware could enlighten us on the specific system in use, its OS and other trivial bits.
It would help to reduce the coming surge of Microsoft jokes, which is very likely not relevant here.
Vos teneo officium eram periculosus ut vos recipero is.
There are redundant systems in place. Analog radar, humans with brains.
At least there should be. Computers crash, break, have bugs, etc. They're a tool - a more efficient and convenient tool to be sure.
But when they break, there are contingencies so that planes can still take off and land, and wont just fall out of the sky.
This is also why Y2K was such a bunch of stupidity. We really aren't as reliant on computers as people think. We know they crash and are prepared to handle it when they do.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This wouldn't have happened had they been using Linux.
This might have happened even if they were running linux. If the software that is used for the air traffic controlling was written badly it still could have crashed.
Evolution or ID?
Congratulations for getting modded up by pasting the link that was in the story. Great.
<rant>
I blame Margaret fucking Thatcher, who let the hospitals fall apart and flogged off the viable bits of the infrastructure to her friends (at well below market value). [We're still feeling the effects of this on the railways, which the private sector has run into the ground] Corrupt old bitch.
Funny, I noticed this about the U.S. system. But I figured it out. It has to do with the fact that civil maintenance is done by civil-service people with a union and a contract, while new equipment and construction contracts with companies are awarded to either the lowest bidder or some politically well connected company. So, the disposable roads/bridges and possibly airports system is a result of trying to contain socialist laborism. And I don't know how I feel about that.
Just a thought - if the problems are since it was privatized in 2001, and the Swanwick centre opened five years late in 2002 then the problems must have begun before privatisation.
Never just test software upgrades on Live systems
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
That's not the way I understand it. From their report, I understand the events went something like this:
- Overnight while it is quiet, new FDP software is brought online for testing.
- Testing was successful, and they brought the old FDP system back online (probably before 5:30 in time for the first arrivals at Heathrow).
- At 6:03 they noticed "errors in the distribution of flight data between Centres." I don't know what exactly this means, but if I had to guess, I'd say that the other Centre was not taken offline during the tests, and some test data leaked onto their live system as a result.
So the problem is most likely not due to a bug in either the new or current software, more likely a bug in the testing procedure they were using.My dad is helping the FAA and the US military design and roll out the next gen ATC software here in the US. He comes home and tells stories that make my skin crawl.
The first version of the software was built using standard current interface guidelines and widgets and the testing group that had no experience with older ATC systems were wowed at how simple and yet powerful it was. Pretty much any random person off the street could look at the screen and easily figure out what was going on and how to do various basic tasks. When that version was demoed to the ATC union the union freaked out at how different it was and thus began a cycle of making it more and more backwards.
So, nowadays the next gen ATC software almost exactly replicates the UI of the old non-computerized and semi-computerized systems. On-screen toggle switches and dials, that sort of thing. The FAA and the ATC union have decided that retraining all of their ATCs to use modern computer interfaces would be a Bad Thing. When the computer screen doesn't exactly replicate the interface of the 50+-year-old systems, they freak out and scream bloody murder. On the flip side, kids coming into the field today that have been using computers most of their lives are finding the interface to be counterintuitive to the point of being almost unusable. Middle-aged workers who are both highly proficient ATCs and home computer users report that switching between the two types of interfaces each night when they go home requires conscious effort on their part, since they are so orthogonal.
So who wins? Historical inertia, of course. Why fix the problem today when you can wait for your successors to fix it in 25 years?