One reason to use exactly one name per machine is that it simplifies things in terms of configuration - at least for a small organization where departments have separate IT budgets.
For instance, you've got three departments: HR, business, production. For organizational (and security) reasons, each dept needs its own separate network, and only has one server each. A user having to remember multiple hostnames complicates things for the user, and being able to say "the HR file server isn't working" when it's the "hr" server doesn't detract any from function when you can file.hr and web.hr (or hr-web, etc.)
When it's a small/medium organization, I don't think it matters all that much, and your configurations should be geared towards how the users work.
Of course, if the machine only does one thing, there's no point in having duplicate names, either.:)
I think it's a bad idea, especially with a small company, to name servers anything but functional names. If you have a single server providing (say) web, file, and print services, make an NS record with the duplicate service name or something.
That way it's much more difficult for someone to do something stupid to "lothar" (HR file/print) when they meant to do it to "legolas" (exchange server) and totally futz things up - say, a visiting contractor, your replacement (should you leave the company), or your boss (in the event that something "needs fixed" and you're out of town/$boss does not ask before touching).
Actually, it's disadvantageous to have version-specific domain names for anything which multiple systems have to access, IE such as file servers with the OS version in the hostname. It makes any version changes/upgrades a real pain in the ass for support, and makes IT services look generally incompetent, such as when the HR manager has created a file shortcut to \\03fileserver\user\filename.doc and they have to call someone to "fix" the problem for them when the "document is gone!"
I agree, though I'd tend to suggest names which are more readily applicable to people's work vs. the cartoon names which are popular with most sysadmins.
For instance, a server which serves up a web service for HR might be called hr-web-1, and if a second one is needed, it gets hr-web-2. The record department file server would get records-files, and so on and so forth. The name of a system users need to access should relate to the role or work association of said server so the user knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that they're accessing the correct data.
Names like "daffy" don't do a damn thing for the user but make them feel out of the loop and possibly make them view you as somewhat amateur. That's not good on any level, and even obscure acronyms are preferable.
One place I worked would use names of the format "OperatingSystemDeptAbbrevRole", IE, W2KBUSFD for a w2k business office front desk system, and for servers they'd use the OS, role, and year of purchase (to keep easy track of assets w/o much documentation - IMO, not a good idea if it's the exclusive means, but it was the way things were when I got there, so...)
Naming user workstations in that fashion can be very useful if you need to perform on-site desktop/user support and can't do it all remotely, because you don't need to search an organization chart (or what have you) to determine where a system is before you run off to fix it.
That's just ignorant on your part, friend. Not only did he say he's got a CS degree (or will shortly), verifying that he does not, in fact "fail at CS", but CS is not programming. Such an assertion is not only a fairly pompous statement, but a complete lack of understanding of what "computer science" is.
While most fields do not "require" a specific degree - as in, regulated - most employers do require a degree. And you haven't a chance in hell of getting a job listing "4 year degree in CS/IT/EE field" as a requirement, even if you've got years of experience in said field already.
Things like physical troubleshooting is something you have to largely learn on your own - like debugging - because there are so many potential problems with various causes and different solutions.
However, a lot of the theory/principles learned and read about do tend to be useful. For the most part, I'd say that most of the theories, principles, and general knowledge useful for physical PC fixing are closer to the EE discipline (understanding things like brown current, voltage, amperage, 'clean' power, Newtonian disk physics, wiring, etc.) but it's nothing that can't be picked up with a couple years of hands-on experience and research.
For instance, I ran into a situation a while back where there was a smaller installation of workstations that all started to have disks fail at roughly the same time, fairly suddenly. These systems were about a year old, and the tech person didn't have a clue why the disks were dying (there was no recall from the vendor or anything like that).
Turns out they'd moved locations recently from a smaller office to a larger one and got new desks in the process, and in doing so they changed the physical orientation of the workstations (HP desktop systems) from vertical (next to the monitor) to horizontal (underneath the monitor). Oops: the disk cyclic orientation changed resulting in mechanical/wear failure.
I had another instance where the workstations where dying after about 2 years. Power supplies and motherboards both. They knew what the problem was - the capacitors were popping - but they'd already gotten replacements from the OEMs shortly after the problem became known. They didn't know why it kept happening, and to the newer systems. Simple: the replacement parts still had capacitor problems, albeit to a lesser degree, and these systems were typically in a very warm room during the summer. These were P4 HTs, small chassis Dells with relatively weak fans.
"Ironically", the problem (as initially understood) had been noticed in July - big surprise there!
* Programming is kinda like in that movie Hackers, but with more human-readable stuff. * Computer security people tend to patrol data centers with guns an' shit. * Systems administration is a lot of reinstalling windows and playing with cutting edge hardware, and installing linux! * Project management is what the people who stand around building construction sites with the orange hardhats and clipboards do. * Database administration is a lot like systems administration, but with things like phpnuke and similar software.
You're mistaken. People who do not understand basic concepts are poor programmers. Not all poor programmers are unfamiliar with the basics.
Good programmers and good sys/network admins (or DBAs) all require the same basic familiarity with the CS domain to be good at their jobs. But each discipline requires a fairly extensive specialized knowledge base. A shit programmer, in all likelihood, is just a shit programmer and not a good candidate for sysadmin.
For instance, I'm not a good programmer. Why? A great deal of the reason is simply because I don't enjoy it. The other half of the equation is that it has never substantially interested me, and I've never taken the (personal) time to invest in learning the standard libraries of any language in depth. But I am at least a mediocre sysadmin, because I take substantial time in both honing my skills through application and researching what others view as best practice, forming my own opinions on such matters, and reapplying.
If he had studied Bridge Building, got his degree and yet considered himself a poor engineer, would we want this person to be in charge of the good engineers ?
I don't think so.
Wait a second: why not?
He's apparently pretty good at assessing ability and schlock work. I'd think that'd be one of the primary requirements of someone managing others -he's not there primarily to do the work, but to make sure others do the work in a satisfactory manner.
I went into CS because I like sysadmin type work - planning, projecting, documenting, and generally making things run well. I'm by no means a "good" programmer, and I don't particularly enjoy it (one is likely causative of the other). However, I am undoubtedly a better programmer than most of my peers.
Just because the guy considers himself a poor programmer does not mean that he necessarily is a poor programmer, or even mediocre. It likely just means he doesn't particularly enjoy it, I'd think.
I lol'd @ this description of subsets of CS. Programmers, skilled in computer science, wrote a bunch of cool technologies that come together to do what people need, and you as a network admin get to watch (apt-get install cool-technology).
And what, exactly, does "apt-get install cool-technology" (or similar) do for "the customer" (or employer)? Not a hell of a lot, without configuration, documentation, and maintenance which is pertinent to the operating environment.
And when that cool-technology fails, you don't exactly apt-get install fix-cool-technology. (And calling Redhat to say, "Hey, my server died and I lost all my files; what now?" isn't exactly going to get the response the customer is looking for.)
Your contempt for IT people - all too common with programmers, it seems - is based on lack of knowledge, not some theoretically superior grasp on and performance with technology.
As someone in in a similar situation to your's (albeit, with about 5 years of sysadmin/db admin experience for smaller companies), I can relate. I'm not entirely fond of coding, particularly in the languages which people are hiring for (.NET and Java with a preponderance of those both being focused towards "Web 2.0").
Part of the problem is that you're going to be competing for non-collegate level "computer people" for most non-programming jobs you'll be realistically looking for, as they'll be "1-2 years computer tech experience required" or similar.
Realistically, you've only got a handful of options:
Call center work (such as for a bank), which anyone can do if they can talk on the phone and are willing to do tedious, repetitive work.
GeekSquad or similar "computer shop" work. It's what you've got experience doing.
Apply for a large hosting company, like Rackspace, for an entry level position and, while continually improving your skills in a manner targeted for higher-level jobs, seek said jobs. Should take a couple years to get past the "stare at the blinky lights and report failures" stage.
Luck out/search for half a year or so and find a small company which will employ you as their "computer guy". I'd figure about 10-20 full-time computer users, or 10 full-time "professional" computer users (CAD, publishing, animation, etc.) would be a realistic expectation for company size.
Go back to school and get a management degree.
Find a very small, remote-area hospital with an "IT Manager", "IT Coordinator" or similar position opening, and apply. If you can stand living in the county seat of a county with only a couple thousand people, this would be the route to get a large amount of "experience" quickly, allowing you to get better jobs in the more populated areas, but it's going to suck huge monkey balls and not pay all that well (for IT - it'll probably be a good two+ times as much as the area pay average) while you're at it.
Unfortunately, it seems that there's little advancement opportunity (or even employment opportunity) in IT for CS/IT majors unless you're a programmer or go back to school to get a management degree. Most network/system administrator jobs seem to want 5+ years experience in a similar environment (completely ignoring the fact that similar skills and abilities can be learned outside of such fringe markets, and that general skillset and approach to admin work is more important than the specific technologies a person can pick up in a month or three). Add to the fact that there are very few organizations big enough to have a "tiered" sysadmin structure (jr admin, sr. admin, etc.) on a whole, and your options decrease even further...
Side note: just a BS in CS and desktop support will not technically qualify you to be a competent sysadmin. Only a small subset of sysadmin skills are taught or easily obtained through the rigorous pursuit of a CS degree, from what I've seen.
It is astounding how many people call themselves as such and yet do not have a basic understanding of the kind of work a sysadmin does, instead seemingly taking cues for what to do from the BOFH. DO NOT DO THAT. Well-performed sysadmin work is every bit as technically rigorous as (say) programming, requiring hundreds of hours each of research, regression testing, debugging/error tracing, planning, programming/automation and extensive documentation.
And if you're the sole tech guy, count on several hundred hours a year of tech support and crawling on your belly pulling/pushing cables and components, too.
Too many people (both inside and outside the field) assume computing "administrators" just have to make sure everything is up to proper patch levels and that the backup is set properly, having no idea how complex and time consuming a proper, rigorous sysadmin role is.
The only thing I'd consider a NAS for is backup backup. For instance, using Symantec NetBackup to temporarily cache the backup locally, then to NAS, then to tape: limited, if high volume access from a single point over an exclusive connection.
For everything else, I'll stick with an actual server, thanks.
Re:If those are your requirements..
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Agree 100%.
For $550 (roughly the cost of a low-end NAS) you can get four largish disks and a low-power processor/motherboard/RAM ATX combo (either Via or AMD). Throw it in the old case and you're good to go.
They work well, but they're somewhat limited in capabilities. Great for an individual, but anything beyond (say) a half dozen users and you'll want some sort of comprehensive directory authentication method.
The NV+s are also very slow. Forget about multiple people opening large files on the things at once: most I was able to retrieve from one over GigE was about 6M/s over SMB.
Re:RAID5 is stupid, RAID 10 or no RAID
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Yep. People always forget this.
Personally, what I like is a setup as follows (for a small data storage requirement): a RAID10 array, which mirrored over a crossover network (though something over greater distance would work, too) to another host with another array (using differently branded/different age disks) via ChironFS + NFS.
This second host is then made available as a "hot spare" to the first through Heartbeat - so not only do you have data redundancy, you've also got service redundancy. This hot spare would also have mechanisms for off-site and/or tape/detatched storage backup - though realistically, you could use ChironFS to perform the remote backup, too, though there'd be substantially more configuration necessary.
Re:RAID5 is stupid, RAID 10 or no RAID
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Only problem with a hot spare on RAID5 is that it assumes that the hot spare won't fail. Remember, the hot spare has been powered on for the entire age of the array (more than likely). It's got a similar amount of use.
Granted, the disk heads haven't been moving, and it's possible the disk has been spun down, but it has still been on. What if the cause of failure is tin whiskers and not mechanical (something I've seen several times)?
I stated several times it still exists. It's just not as common, or exclusively white, issue as the media portrays it.
I'd be willing to wager that there is just as much, and probably significantly more, black racism than white racism.
Can you imagine the riots which would occur if a prominent white musician put half the racist content into his music which is found in your average rap album? (Doesn't even matter which genre.) How is it that rap music gets a popular society "OK" for being acceptable, but "those dumb country music hicks" still get the "racist" label applied with regularity, when there's nary a bit of any racism in the music?
How is it in America that we have major corporations investing billions of dollars in building up data centers in places from the phillipines to india and you don't as much as even a server placed in an inner city?
Probably has something to do with the fact that it'll be easier to find skilled - and if not skilled, willing determination to learn skils - people in those areas than inner cities. Or maybe the fact that the massive security measures to keep their infrastructure safe would be less substantial in India. Or maybe because they can't get come to drive to work at night when the data center is located "behind enemy lines" - ie, where there's a better than 1:1 chance they'll be raped, mugged, carjacked, etc. within a period of several weeks?
I'm just concerned about it ending, that's all. I don't particularly care about the material wealth so much - I'm confident I'd be able to make it with farming and animal husbandry. I'm just concerned about the interim: ie, the period of time when things go to shit and the country falls apart into little regional despotic regimes, or a large national despotic government.
This very well may be true, but as far as it being endemic, it does not compare to black racism - or maybe I should say "anti-white racism", which is strongly present in Mexican/latino and black ghettos.
When was the lsat time you heard of a black person getting beaten because they were black? I know that the last time I heard about it, it was on the TV for months on end. Black-on-white violence for the sole sake of color is common, intentionally understated, and commonly ignored... and yet, it happens fairly often.
And if they know you consider yourself to proudly be non-racist, why would they reveal that to you?
You missed my point entirely.
I'm not proudly non-racist. I simply don't understand racism beyond the conceptual level, and don't see skin color.
Yes, I appreciate "nigger" jokes. But I also appreciate "white trash", "redneck", and "trailerpark" jokes. I don't see any of those to be overtly racist.
Or, maybe, you just don't know the right subset of the population, don't live in the right areas. Is where you live mono-cultural? As in nobody says anything bad about blacks because there aren't any around to bother them?
It seems like it's mostly in the conflict areas, white-dominated areas facing a minority 'incursion', where this happens...
And you think that's "racism"?
This isn't the 1960s. I highly doubt there are all that many "exclusionary" neighborhoods in America today. Black family move in down the block? "Cool, new neighbors!" is the most likely response.
No, the reason people get pissed off by "incursions" is because, in those scenarios, they are incursions - of domestic abuse, lower sanitation standards, robbery and burglary, and whatever else you can think of as falling under the category of "crime".
This isn't targeted towards "brown people" or "black people", more often than not, but towards "black|brown people, demonstrating these specific cultural and social standards". There's a huge difference between racism and seeing one small ethnic group destroying your community - and more often than not, there are black|brown people in said community who are just as pissed off by the brigands as the whites, if not more so.
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One reason to use exactly one name per machine is that it simplifies things in terms of configuration - at least for a small organization where departments have separate IT budgets.
For instance, you've got three departments: HR, business, production. For organizational (and security) reasons, each dept needs its own separate network, and only has one server each. A user having to remember multiple hostnames complicates things for the user, and being able to say "the HR file server isn't working" when it's the "hr" server doesn't detract any from function when you can file.hr and web.hr (or hr-web, etc.)
When it's a small/medium organization, I don't think it matters all that much, and your configurations should be geared towards how the users work.
Of course, if the machine only does one thing, there's no point in having duplicate names, either. :)
I think it's a bad idea, especially with a small company, to name servers anything but functional names. If you have a single server providing (say) web, file, and print services, make an NS record with the duplicate service name or something.
That way it's much more difficult for someone to do something stupid to "lothar" (HR file/print) when they meant to do it to "legolas" (exchange server) and totally futz things up - say, a visiting contractor, your replacement (should you leave the company), or your boss (in the event that something "needs fixed" and you're out of town/$boss does not ask before touching).
Actually, it's disadvantageous to have version-specific domain names for anything which multiple systems have to access, IE such as file servers with the OS version in the hostname. It makes any version changes/upgrades a real pain in the ass for support, and makes IT services look generally incompetent, such as when the HR manager has created a file shortcut to \\03fileserver\user\filename.doc and they have to call someone to "fix" the problem for them when the "document is gone!"
I agree, though I'd tend to suggest names which are more readily applicable to people's work vs. the cartoon names which are popular with most sysadmins.
For instance, a server which serves up a web service for HR might be called hr-web-1, and if a second one is needed, it gets hr-web-2. The record department file server would get records-files, and so on and so forth. The name of a system users need to access should relate to the role or work association of said server so the user knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that they're accessing the correct data.
Names like "daffy" don't do a damn thing for the user but make them feel out of the loop and possibly make them view you as somewhat amateur. That's not good on any level, and even obscure acronyms are preferable.
One place I worked would use names of the format "OperatingSystemDeptAbbrevRole", IE, W2KBUSFD for a w2k business office front desk system, and for servers they'd use the OS, role, and year of purchase (to keep easy track of assets w/o much documentation - IMO, not a good idea if it's the exclusive means, but it was the way things were when I got there, so...)
Naming user workstations in that fashion can be very useful if you need to perform on-site desktop/user support and can't do it all remotely, because you don't need to search an organization chart (or what have you) to determine where a system is before you run off to fix it.
I thought Control was located somewhat further south.
I'd guess it has something to do with the fact that programmers take shortcuts and poor decisions to save time in the long run. :)
Make those kind of decisions as a sysadmin, and you end up fucking yourself (and your company) over.
"Fails at CS"?
That's just ignorant on your part, friend. Not only did he say he's got a CS degree (or will shortly), verifying that he does not, in fact "fail at CS", but CS is not programming. Such an assertion is not only a fairly pompous statement, but a complete lack of understanding of what "computer science" is.
While most fields do not "require" a specific degree - as in, regulated - most employers do require a degree. And you haven't a chance in hell of getting a job listing "4 year degree in CS/IT/EE field" as a requirement, even if you've got years of experience in said field already.
Things like physical troubleshooting is something you have to largely learn on your own - like debugging - because there are so many potential problems with various causes and different solutions.
However, a lot of the theory/principles learned and read about do tend to be useful. For the most part, I'd say that most of the theories, principles, and general knowledge useful for physical PC fixing are closer to the EE discipline (understanding things like brown current, voltage, amperage, 'clean' power, Newtonian disk physics, wiring, etc.) but it's nothing that can't be picked up with a couple years of hands-on experience and research.
For instance, I ran into a situation a while back where there was a smaller installation of workstations that all started to have disks fail at roughly the same time, fairly suddenly. These systems were about a year old, and the tech person didn't have a clue why the disks were dying (there was no recall from the vendor or anything like that).
Turns out they'd moved locations recently from a smaller office to a larger one and got new desks in the process, and in doing so they changed the physical orientation of the workstations (HP desktop systems) from vertical (next to the monitor) to horizontal (underneath the monitor). Oops: the disk cyclic orientation changed resulting in mechanical/wear failure.
I had another instance where the workstations where dying after about 2 years. Power supplies and motherboards both. They knew what the problem was - the capacitors were popping - but they'd already gotten replacements from the OEMs shortly after the problem became known. They didn't know why it kept happening, and to the newer systems. Simple: the replacement parts still had capacitor problems, albeit to a lesser degree, and these systems were typically in a very warm room during the summer. These were P4 HTs, small chassis Dells with relatively weak fans.
"Ironically", the problem (as initially understood) had been noticed in July - big surprise there!
What do are you talking about?
* Programming is kinda like in that movie Hackers, but with more human-readable stuff.
* Computer security people tend to patrol data centers with guns an' shit.
* Systems administration is a lot of reinstalling windows and playing with cutting edge hardware, and installing linux!
* Project management is what the people who stand around building construction sites with the orange hardhats and clipboards do.
* Database administration is a lot like systems administration, but with things like phpnuke and similar software.
I mean, like, duh.
You're mistaken. People who do not understand basic concepts are poor programmers. Not all poor programmers are unfamiliar with the basics.
Good programmers and good sys/network admins (or DBAs) all require the same basic familiarity with the CS domain to be good at their jobs. But each discipline requires a fairly extensive specialized knowledge base. A shit programmer, in all likelihood, is just a shit programmer and not a good candidate for sysadmin.
For instance, I'm not a good programmer. Why? A great deal of the reason is simply because I don't enjoy it. The other half of the equation is that it has never substantially interested me, and I've never taken the (personal) time to invest in learning the standard libraries of any language in depth. But I am at least a mediocre sysadmin, because I take substantial time in both honing my skills through application and researching what others view as best practice, forming my own opinions on such matters, and reapplying.
If he had studied Bridge Building, got his degree and yet considered himself a poor engineer, would we want this person to be in charge of the good engineers ?
I don't think so.
Wait a second: why not?
He's apparently pretty good at assessing ability and schlock work. I'd think that'd be one of the primary requirements of someone managing others -he's not there primarily to do the work, but to make sure others do the work in a satisfactory manner.
I went into CS because I like sysadmin type work - planning, projecting, documenting, and generally making things run well. I'm by no means a "good" programmer, and I don't particularly enjoy it (one is likely causative of the other). However, I am undoubtedly a better programmer than most of my peers.
Just because the guy considers himself a poor programmer does not mean that he necessarily is a poor programmer, or even mediocre. It likely just means he doesn't particularly enjoy it, I'd think.
Oh yeah, and who do you think it is who helps finesse admin tools to "enterprise" levels through use, bug reports - and often, patches?
That's right, admins.
I lol'd @ this description of subsets of CS. Programmers, skilled in computer science, wrote a bunch of cool technologies that come together to do what people need, and you as a network admin get to watch (apt-get install cool-technology).
And what, exactly, does "apt-get install cool-technology" (or similar) do for "the customer" (or employer)? Not a hell of a lot, without configuration, documentation, and maintenance which is pertinent to the operating environment.
And when that cool-technology fails, you don't exactly apt-get install fix-cool-technology. (And calling Redhat to say, "Hey, my server died and I lost all my files; what now?" isn't exactly going to get the response the customer is looking for.)
Your contempt for IT people - all too common with programmers, it seems - is based on lack of knowledge, not some theoretically superior grasp on and performance with technology.
As someone in in a similar situation to your's (albeit, with about 5 years of sysadmin/db admin experience for smaller companies), I can relate. I'm not entirely fond of coding, particularly in the languages which people are hiring for (.NET and Java with a preponderance of those both being focused towards "Web 2.0").
Part of the problem is that you're going to be competing for non-collegate level "computer people" for most non-programming jobs you'll be realistically looking for, as they'll be "1-2 years computer tech experience required" or similar.
Realistically, you've only got a handful of options:
Call center work (such as for a bank), which anyone can do if they can talk on the phone and are willing to do tedious, repetitive work.
GeekSquad or similar "computer shop" work. It's what you've got experience doing.
Apply for a large hosting company, like Rackspace, for an entry level position and, while continually improving your skills in a manner targeted for higher-level jobs, seek said jobs. Should take a couple years to get past the "stare at the blinky lights and report failures" stage.
Luck out/search for half a year or so and find a small company which will employ you as their "computer guy". I'd figure about 10-20 full-time computer users, or 10 full-time "professional" computer users (CAD, publishing, animation, etc.) would be a realistic expectation for company size.
Go back to school and get a management degree.
Find a very small, remote-area hospital with an "IT Manager", "IT Coordinator" or similar position opening, and apply. If you can stand living in the county seat of a county with only a couple thousand people, this would be the route to get a large amount of "experience" quickly, allowing you to get better jobs in the more populated areas, but it's going to suck huge monkey balls and not pay all that well (for IT - it'll probably be a good two+ times as much as the area pay average) while you're at it.
Unfortunately, it seems that there's little advancement opportunity (or even employment opportunity) in IT for CS/IT majors unless you're a programmer or go back to school to get a management degree. Most network/system administrator jobs seem to want 5+ years experience in a similar environment (completely ignoring the fact that similar skills and abilities can be learned outside of such fringe markets, and that general skillset and approach to admin work is more important than the specific technologies a person can pick up in a month or three). Add to the fact that there are very few organizations big enough to have a "tiered" sysadmin structure (jr admin, sr. admin, etc.) on a whole, and your options decrease even further...
Side note: just a BS in CS and desktop support will not technically qualify you to be a competent sysadmin. Only a small subset of sysadmin skills are taught or easily obtained through the rigorous pursuit of a CS degree, from what I've seen.
It is astounding how many people call themselves as such and yet do not have a basic understanding of the kind of work a sysadmin does, instead seemingly taking cues for what to do from the BOFH. DO NOT DO THAT. Well-performed sysadmin work is every bit as technically rigorous as (say) programming, requiring hundreds of hours each of research, regression testing, debugging/error tracing, planning, programming/automation and extensive documentation.
And if you're the sole tech guy, count on several hundred hours a year of tech support and crawling on your belly pulling/pushing cables and components, too.
Too many people (both inside and outside the field) assume computing "administrators" just have to make sure everything is up to proper patch levels and that the backup is set properly, having no idea how complex and time consuming a proper, rigorous sysadmin role is.
The only thing I'd consider a NAS for is backup backup. For instance, using Symantec NetBackup to temporarily cache the backup locally, then to NAS, then to tape: limited, if high volume access from a single point over an exclusive connection.
For everything else, I'll stick with an actual server, thanks.
Agree 100%.
For $550 (roughly the cost of a low-end NAS) you can get four largish disks and a low-power processor/motherboard/RAM ATX combo (either Via or AMD). Throw it in the old case and you're good to go.
They work well, but they're somewhat limited in capabilities. Great for an individual, but anything beyond (say) a half dozen users and you'll want some sort of comprehensive directory authentication method.
The NV+s are also very slow. Forget about multiple people opening large files on the things at once: most I was able to retrieve from one over GigE was about 6M/s over SMB.
Yep. People always forget this.
Personally, what I like is a setup as follows (for a small data storage requirement): a RAID10 array, which mirrored over a crossover network (though something over greater distance would work, too) to another host with another array (using differently branded/different age disks) via ChironFS + NFS.
This second host is then made available as a "hot spare" to the first through Heartbeat - so not only do you have data redundancy, you've also got service redundancy. This hot spare would also have mechanisms for off-site and/or tape/detatched storage backup - though realistically, you could use ChironFS to perform the remote backup, too, though there'd be substantially more configuration necessary.
Only problem with a hot spare on RAID5 is that it assumes that the hot spare won't fail. Remember, the hot spare has been powered on for the entire age of the array (more than likely). It's got a similar amount of use.
Granted, the disk heads haven't been moving, and it's possible the disk has been spun down, but it has still been on. What if the cause of failure is tin whiskers and not mechanical (something I've seen several times)?
I stated several times it still exists. It's just not as common, or exclusively white, issue as the media portrays it.
I'd be willing to wager that there is just as much, and probably significantly more, black racism than white racism.
Can you imagine the riots which would occur if a prominent white musician put half the racist content into his music which is found in your average rap album? (Doesn't even matter which genre.) How is it that rap music gets a popular society "OK" for being acceptable, but "those dumb country music hicks" still get the "racist" label applied with regularity, when there's nary a bit of any racism in the music?
How is it in America that we have major corporations investing billions of dollars in building up data centers in places from the phillipines to india and you don't as much as even a server placed in an inner city?
Probably has something to do with the fact that it'll be easier to find skilled - and if not skilled, willing determination to learn skils - people in those areas than inner cities. Or maybe the fact that the massive security measures to keep their infrastructure safe would be less substantial in India. Or maybe because they can't get come to drive to work at night when the data center is located "behind enemy lines" - ie, where there's a better than 1:1 chance they'll be raped, mugged, carjacked, etc. within a period of several weeks?
I'm just concerned about it ending, that's all. I don't particularly care about the material wealth so much - I'm confident I'd be able to make it with farming and animal husbandry. I'm just concerned about the interim: ie, the period of time when things go to shit and the country falls apart into little regional despotic regimes, or a large national despotic government.
This very well may be true, but as far as it being endemic, it does not compare to black racism - or maybe I should say "anti-white racism", which is strongly present in Mexican/latino and black ghettos.
When was the lsat time you heard of a black person getting beaten because they were black? I know that the last time I heard about it, it was on the TV for months on end. Black-on-white violence for the sole sake of color is common, intentionally understated, and commonly ignored... and yet, it happens fairly often.
And if they know you consider yourself to proudly be non-racist, why would they reveal that to you?
You missed my point entirely.
I'm not proudly non-racist. I simply don't understand racism beyond the conceptual level, and don't see skin color.
Yes, I appreciate "nigger" jokes. But I also appreciate "white trash", "redneck", and "trailerpark" jokes. I don't see any of those to be overtly racist.
Or, maybe, you just don't know the right subset of the population, don't live in the right areas. Is where you live mono-cultural? As in nobody says anything bad about blacks because there aren't any around to bother them?
It seems like it's mostly in the conflict areas, white-dominated areas facing a minority 'incursion', where this happens...
And you think that's "racism"?
This isn't the 1960s. I highly doubt there are all that many "exclusionary" neighborhoods in America today. Black family move in down the block? "Cool, new neighbors!" is the most likely response.
No, the reason people get pissed off by "incursions" is because, in those scenarios, they are incursions - of domestic abuse, lower sanitation standards, robbery and burglary, and whatever else you can think of as falling under the category of "crime".
This isn't targeted towards "brown people" or "black people", more often than not, but towards "black|brown people, demonstrating these specific cultural and social standards". There's a huge difference between racism and seeing one small ethnic group destroying your community - and more often than not, there are black|brown people in said community who are just as pissed off by the brigands as the whites, if not more so.