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Computer Crashed New Orleans Real Estate Market
sustik writes "For a month now the New Orleans real estate market has been crippled by a computer crash that caused the loss of online data from the late 1980s that should be researched prior to the closing of any real estate transactions. 'The clerk of Orleans Parish Civil District Court said Tuesday that her office continues to make progress in resolving the computer problems that have been holding up real estate transactions in New Orleans for the past month, but there still was no indication of how soon the crisis might end.'"
It's not necessarily that simple. Backup tends to get no respect or funding. A horrifying number of sites don't include backup solutions as a part of the cost of funding new machines. And if it was there that long it's entirely possible that whatever backup solutions were available and used then aren't going to be useful now.
Unfortunately just because the volume of data increases doesn't mean that the systems used to back it up are so easily scaled, the increased need doesn't guarantee extra funding either.
Or it could be an incompetent admin. Wouldn't be the first, however it's more likely that the problem is higher up in the chain.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink, no matter how long you hold its head under water.
I find the use of phrases like "educate the higher-ups" charmingly naive. They're higher-ups. They don't need anything from you but compliance and endless status reports. And GOD FORBID if you somehow get the idea that you know something they don't.
In other words, your statistical sample of exactly one is not useful. The singular of "data" is not "anecdote". Dilbert is non-fiction.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
You still guys live in the wealthiest country on earth, enjoying the highest standard of living that any human being who has ever lived has had. The crime rate is the lowest it has ever been, and is getting lower every single year. The tax rate is lower now than it has been since the early 1900's and for the pittance you pay you get a social system that is actually run extremely well. Still, you imbecile objectivists ignore any evidence that disproves your dumbass ideology and trump up any news story that can be twisted to support it. You are no less than modern mirror-image Bolsheviks, looking to fundamentally destroy the system in order to build a bullshit utopian fantasy world that could never work.
Doesn't work that way. I remember at a previous job needing extra batteries for the radios. The radios which were our only line of communication if we needed help. But they couldn't find the money for that even as they were pushing for more aggressive means of dealing with trespassers.
IT is a lot like that as well, just because there's a pressing need doesn't mean that there's somebody to convince that cares about anything more than the bottom line. A job like that is going to fill, somebody is always that desperate, but suggesting that the admin has any responsibility for that is pretty ignorant. You can't convince somebody that isn't listening.
Things that are running fine don't make the news.
In general, if you want to find things that are good and not horriblescarryrazyonfiredyouregonnadie, pay less attention to the news.
It is part of the job of the admin to have them listen. If you are any good, in my experience, they will listen. The resoning why the extra expense is warranted and needed requires research, total knowledge of the factors and good communications. If have dealt with many admins who could/would not do that. A valid presentation as to why the expense is needed will, usually, get you the approval.
Uh, dude, if they had a backup, they wouldn't be coming to the computer shop for data recovery. But good on you for treating people like shit and assuming they know as much as you do about computers. Administering a backup system is a non-trivial task for novices. I'm sure people enjoyed hearing it was their own damn fault though. The little human touches are what makes being a computer technician all worthwhile.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
+1
Backups are one of the most misunderstood and neglected concepts of computing as we know it. Between laziness and vendors selling their appliances and gadgets, there are a lot of misconceptions about proper backups.
Horror story #1: The guy with the term paper on the laptop which gets backed up to a USB flash drive. Roommate gets kicked out of the university, and grabs laptop + drive as a consolation prize. Result: Retaking a course. Moral: Backups to another drive are good, but don't address the problem.
Horror story #2: Business had two machine which rsynced with each other for offsites. One of the sysadmins was disgruntled, rm -rf-ed the files on one end, rsynced that, then rsynced some large blobs so the deleted files would be overwritten.
Backups are easily forgotten about... until they are needed. I have seen a lot of deer-in-the-headlights looks from people who thought they had working backup systems, but in reality, they backed up the wrong data, overwrote the wrong items, had great encryption and no recovery keys, or the tapes were safe at Iron Mountain... but nobody had an account to access there.
Like security, PHBs consider backups pointless because they have no obvious ROI. Of course, this comes to kill businesses if something does fail. Here in Austin, there was a textbook seller for the University of Texas called Texas Textbooks. They were on top of the market. Then they had HDD problems and lost all their data with no ability to recover. End result, a few months later, their doors were shuttered.
Backups are not rocket science. You have a way to copy data to an onsite repository, then a second way to copy it offsite (be it to a cloud, to tapes or other media that you move offsite) This applies to everyone from a SOHO business to the big guys. You then validate that the data is readable, and every link in the chain is present, from having the license keys for the backup software, to having the software somewhere, to the right hardware for reading the media, etc.
I wish New Orleans could catch a break, just one time.
It is difficult to catch a break when most of your problems are self inflicted. Even with Katrina, the problem was the hurricane as much as the levys. Oh, and the whole "Yes, the city is sinking, and yes this land is already below sea level, but it is still a great place to build houses!". Then, I don't feel all that sorry for people who bought houses with and 3 years later the APR jumped up to 15%, while the values dropped. At some point, people have to take a *little* personal responsibility for their actions. And stupidity.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!