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Secret Service Runs At "Six Sixes" Availability
PCM2 writes "ABC News is reporting that the US Secret Service is in dire need of server upgrades. 'Currently, 42 mission-oriented applications run on a 1980s IBM mainframe with a 68 percent performance reliability rating,' says one leaked memo. That finding was the result of an NSA study commissioned by the Secret Service to evaluate the severity of their computer problems. Curiously, upgrades to the Service's computers are being championed by Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who says he's had 'concern for a while' about the issue."
They should just flip the availability numbers over and get rid of the decimal. "Sir, its not 66.. its 99! You have it upside down!" -- Fixed.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
To windows, and get 73% uptime!
Or.. that other OS that you don't have to license per seat, and get in the solid 90+% uptime.
Support FSF: Stop thinking with your wallet, and think with your imagination. (cc/non-commercial)
Once I sucked sixty-six dicks in a row.
I sucked sixty-six in a row.
One time I hung out with Joe.
I sucked his dick and sixty-five more in a row.
... I have several old P4 1.6Ghz w/ 256MB RAM & 100Mhz FSB in a store room at a client site. They originally shipped with Win 98 but they've since been upgraded to XP. The Secret Service can have them fro free if they just come and pick them up. I would have put them on Craig's List but I don't trust a web site where they let just anybody post things.
Mainframes of yore had a hell of a lot of moving parts: a large system might have dozens of tape drives and disk drives. Tape drives in particular broke down all the time and were taken offline until the maintenance guy came for his weekly or monthly visit and tightened the belts or whatever the hell they did. Knuth remarked on that situation in his magnum opus TAOCP vol 3 on sorting and searching. In the part about sorting with tape drives, he remarked that he'd never seen a large computer installation where all the tape drives were working. You'd have a computer with ten tape drives, two of them would be down pending repairs, and you'd use the other eight. In other words your computer was operational but not FULLY operational.
There is a similar situation in today's data centers. Even at the wimpy little shop I worked in last year (about 2000 computers) some were always down. We were doing pretty good if the number down at any moment was less than a few dozen. I don't think we ever had a single day of being fully operational (every single computer up at the same time). That was fine, it wasn't a requirement, it was a distributed system and the data and functions were all sufficiently replicated that we kept running, by design, even with parts of the system unavailable.
Oynk, oynk.
Liberman wants pork money, that's obvious, he probably wants a few hundred million dollars to go to his state for this 'program'. Question is, is this complete BS or is there something there about the 60% nonsense and all that jazz? I bet there is very little truth to any of these statements, that the secret service runs on these old computers and that they really need any upgrade.
Sounds to me exactly like that F22 BS, where the military says "we don't need it" and politicians say "yes, we need it, let's spend money".
It's about the money.
Oh, and Joe Lieberman - I cannot believe he is still alive, I mean better people in history died for less transgressions against their countrymen, and this piece of shit still walks the earth. Unimaginable.
You can't handle the truth.
The even more shocking reality is that there is no secret service IBM mainframe, only a non-working mock up on a sound stage. The actual performance reliability rating is 0%. And over the years a series of system administrators have been been hired only to die in mysterious bullet-related circumstances.
I mean why settle for five nines when you can have... NINE FIVES! :D
Wow, 6 sixes, that is like running at two satans... That's a lot
It makes more sense that this is intentional misinformation. It would explain away a considerable budget request while simultaneously --if believed for a moment-- would lull groups opposed to the SS a false sense of security. If the capabilities of the SS is underestimated, their job will be easier.
To think that the previous administration didn't sink as much money as could possibly cram into the SS in the interests of their own security is absurd. While it doesn't have the same bunker/man-sized-safe reputation for paranoid security, the same goes for the current one. Both the current and the previous administrations were faced with a very large number of openly hostile people who were not shy about voicing threats.
There's something about this whole thing that simply doesn't ring true. I believe parts, I believe they have a 1980's main frame, I believe it's not terribly reliable but something about the whole: leaked memo according to Joe Leiberman, we need more money, they won't give us more money' spiel sounds off. I suspect they have huge chunks of computing that's much newer and reliable, I'd be shocked if that IBM serves any significant purpose.
If nothing else I predict a large percentage of the umpteen million dollar final cost somehow going to Connecticut, but I'm probably just incredibly jaded.
Obama - people follow him blindly without question
Hitler - people follow him blindly without question
Obama - political rallies are held in stadiums
Hitler - political rallies are held in stadiums
Obama - changes the American Flag to the ancient symbol of Horus Sun worship
Hitler - changes the German Flag to the ancient symbol of Black Sun worship
Obama - political rally held in Berlin Germany
Hitler - political rally held in Berlin Germany
Obama - Writes a Biography; Barack Obama: What He Believes In
Hitler - Writes a Biography; Mein Kampf: My Struggle
Obama - Writes another Biography; The Audacity of Hope
Hitler - Writes his 2nd Biography; A New World Order
Obama - his Father leaves baby Barry for a professional career (divorces mother)
Hitler - his Father leaves baby Adolph for a professional career (mother dies)
Obama - his real family identity and his name Soetoro gets buried in the media
Hitler - his real family identity and his Jewish name Schickelgruber gets buried in the media
Obama - has a chain gang Youth Group singing Alpha Omega blindly praising Hussein on Youtube
Hitler - had a Youth Group singing songs of nationalism praising Adolph (Pope Ratzinger was a member)
Obama - was part of the Chicago slumlord regime
Hitler - was part of the Nazi regime
Obama - has Soros and Rothschild as financial backers
Hiteler - had Prescott Bush and Rothschild as financial backers
Obama - tries to conceal his Muslim Faith and Foreign Citizenship by manipulating his Birth Certificate
Hitler - tries to conceal his Jewish roots by entering Austria and chasing down his Birth Certificate
Obama - could have another false flag burning of 911
Hitler - had the false flag burning of the Reichstag
Obama - has a half-brother, George of Nigeria, he disassociates from
Hitler - had a half-brother William Patrick lived in the USA died 1987, a half-sister named Angela
Obama - probably hates either or both parents
Hitler - probably hated either or both parents
Obama - vote fraud and poll manipulation - ACORN, Propaganda; Obama Girl
Hitler - vote fraud and poll manipulation - Minister Joseph Goebbels control of all News Media
Obama - economy is in a Recession
Hitler - economy was in a Recession
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't one small consumer grade server have the same power? Isn't this an easy fix?
1980's mainframes did not use reel-to-reel tape. They used tape cartridges, often managed by automatic tape libraries.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
The story uses a stock photo captioned "Obsolete mainframe super computers in [Computer History] museum". I don't think the Secret Service uses IBM 2401 magnetic tape units
Nine fives? I think they just work nine TO five!
what more is there to be said aboutit?
At last a computer that can be safe even in a cyberwar, no modern hacker would be able to enter there, or at least, do anything dangerous. Even the Morris worm would scream and run facing that technology. Leave that multivac running enough time and will eventually make light.
Oh sorry, you mean Secret Service. I keep thinking Schutzstaffel.
Curiously, upgrades to the Service's computers are being championed by Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut
Its not curious. Don't confuse his desire to censor, restrict, or otherwise hinder the people's access to free information(the internet).
Doesn't mean he won't allow every resource into that same tech if security/administration needs it...especially if it achieves the former.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
If nothing else I predict a large percentage of the umpteen million dollar final cost somehow going to Connecticut, but I'm probably just incredibly jaded.
What's a few million? Connecticut is one of the top haulers, thanks to Electric Boat, where many nuclear subs (and a number of other ships) are made.
Every time the Pentagon tries to cut its budget, congrescritters get all up in arms about "jobs", so the Pentagon has all these useless projects (congress forces the programs it wants.) It's the primary reason US military spending has risen so sharply over the years.
Please help metamoderate.
That's better than our goal of Nine 5's...up a little over half the time!
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Sounds like they could have my spare dual core desktop and it would be an improvement.
If you are only getting 90% from any OS you really should be shopping for a new OS. I've got flaky machines in my garage running Linux that regularly are up for 6 months or more at a time, and that includes dodgy power in my area.
That is silly, it would quickly discover the only way to win is not to play.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
They're claiming it will cost $187 million to replace. Bullshit. If the hardware is more than 15 years old, which it sounds like it is, it's impossible to conceive how they could spend more than $100k on hardware to replace it and still give 100x the performance and capacity. OK, let's splurge - spend 5 million on hardware.
These jackoffs would have us believe it's going to cost $180 million to replace some bullshit law enforcement database software that's 20 years old? Complete bullshit. Instead of the mythical $500 government hammer, now we've got the $180 million dollar software package that should cost
Doesn't this constitute a sampling bias? (from netcraft)
Why do you not report uptimes for Linux 2.6 or FreeBSD 6 ?
We only report uptimes for systems where the operating system's timer runs at 100Hz or less. Because the TCP code only uses the low 32 bits of the timer, if the timer runs at say 1000Hz, the value wraps around every 49.7 days (whereas at 100Hz it wraps after 497 days). As there are large numbers of systems which have a higher uptime than this, it is not possible to report accurate uptimes for these systems.
The Linux kernel switched to a higher internal timer rate at kernel version 2.5.26. Linux 2.4 used a rate of 100Hz. Linux 2.6 used a timer at 1000Hz (some architectures were using 1000Hz before this), until the default was changed back to 250Hz in May 2006. (An explanation of the HZ setting in Linux.)
FreeBSD versions 4 and 5 used a 100Hz timer, but FreeBSD 6 has moved to a customisable timer with a default setting of 1000Hz.
So unfortunately this means that we cannot give reliable uptime figures for many Linux and FreeBSD servers.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
The media uses stock photos whenever they don't have real photos of something. This is normal. I've even seen stock photos of Bumble Bee tuna used in contamination stories for another brand. (I forget which one.) Talk about misleading...
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Never ascribe to malice or incompetence what can be explained by incompetent malice. I'm proud of myself, that sounded witty, but honestly I'd guess the original system "just worked" and slowly the needs outgrew it so that fewer people could use it at any given time than would like to use it. So slowly that the people who would have to explain the purchase could say "but its not that much worse than last year" instead of filling out enough forms to account for the mass of a sequoia, in order to do the requisition.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
"Curiously, upgrades to the Service's computers are being championed by Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut "
What's curious about that? It's not like the guy is a Luddite or something. The Secret Service, at the forefront of protecting POTUS, is a national security issue, and Lieberman is very involved in those issues. If the author threw that in because he doesn't like Lieberman's politics, then that's kind of lame. One would think that issues like keeping government IT systems up to date would transcend party politics.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Availability often comes at the cost of reliability.
If you put 2 drives in a RAID-1 mirror, the odds of a drive failure goes up. After all, you now have twice as many drives that might fail. However, a single drive failure no longer makes the data unavailable.
RAID-1 lowers reliability with the goal of raising availability. Paying sysadmins to swap drives is way cheaper than paying people to sit around waiting for their critical data to be restored from tape.
Low reliability is probably just a sign that their systems are highly redundant. Not really surprising.
These stories tend to be B.S. ploys in order to get pity funding from Congress for some modernization effort or some other project. The agency I used to work at had similar things said about it, and I can guarantee they were inaccurate, but that funding was received.
Mainframe support costs are generally ratcheted up as IBM pushes you towards mandatory upgrades. I can only imagine how expensive it is for support on a "1980s era mainframe" with parts that you just can't get anymore.
The article is bogus, but the problem is real. Computer support systems for investigators are hard to build. The FBI has struggled with this, taking about a decade to deploy their "Field Office Automation" system. They're hard for many of the same reasons medical systems are hard - much of the incoming data is unstructured, and many people enter data relevant to the same case. It's even harder than in the medical world, because links between various individuals and events are important, but unreliable. The "customers" aren't cooperative, they usually don't have unique identifiers, and a sizable fraction of the information is bogus. The security problems are tough to even define - exactly who's allowed to see what is a big issue.
The older law enforcement systems didn't offer much searchability. Unless you had a hard search key, like a driver's license number or a full name, you couldn't retrieve much. Now, everybody expects Google-like searchability, and the older systems just didn't have the machinery for that.
The IT systems lack appropriate bandwidth to run multiple applications to effectively support USSS offices and operational missions around the world
For a moment I thought it said USSR, and I nodded.
Funny how the brain works, isn't it?
Somehow I feel let down. What happened to the classic IBM sales organization that used Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt to coerce their clients into endless expansion and upgrades, needed or not? To make matters worse, it's a Federal system! When other vendors used to bid against IBM for a US government contract, everyone else always started in last place. When other vendors won it seemed like a mistake.
If IBM can't suck endless amounts of money out of the US government then there is something seriously wrong with America. We've lost our competitive spirit. How the mighty have fallen.
Why is Snark Required?
They should make an effort to get at least NINE sixes. Or more.
Layoff your data center and software staff. Cancel the contractors & consultants. Get rid of the hardware. Setup a remote data center in India or China. Hire a couple thousand locals to rewrite the legacy apps. You'll be fine.
Security problem? Loss of jobs?!? In your mind senator.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
There's only 4,400 agents, buying them all a $1,000 pc each is only $4.4 million. There's about 100 offices, an incredibly decent server for each of them would be about 100k each ($10 mill). So where does the $187 mill come in? And where do I bid for the contract?
Now I know how companies like EDS take truckloads of cash home...
I can see an upgrade to WFW3.11 in their future just as soon as we can locate some 80286 machines.
That had 99.9999% uptime. I will do the upgrade for them for just 100 million dollars.
In other words their data is completely useless. The Linux 2.6 kernel has been around since 2003. So yes, if you sample all the computers in the world, and then factor out all of those whose system administrators actually have a clue, use a recent kernel less than 7 years old, and apply updates regularly, then Windows servers do start to filter to the top of the list. Who'd have thought it? Don't you just hate it when you call someone a fool, and the fool turns out to be you?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I call bullshit. I maintained large IBM sites for 20 years. I never had 20 percent of my drives down at any time (2401, 2420, 3420, 3480). If you are seeing that sort of service level, change service providers.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32(King James Version)
WTF does "six sixes" mean? Is that anything like "six sigma"?