In my neighborhood (Fort Worth, Texas), all of the new houses are being built with plastic plumbing. My house was the last one built by my builder with copper.
Having seen the new construction, I wish I'd gotten the plastic. All of it is color coded (blue for cold, red for hot) so you immediately know which lines you're looking at. They're flexible so they don't crack or break if the house shifts or there's an earthquake (not that we have many in North Texas). If you puncture one with a nail, etc, it's a simple process to "weld" the hole with an epoxy. Changes/additions can be made with simple hand tools, fittings, and glue. Plastic doesn't interact with the natural metals in water causing scale or rust.
Damn. And I was feeling pretty good about my house. Thanks Slashdot.
The problem is, in many companies, the role of the CIO is pretty nebulous.
It gets further confusing when you have both a CIO and a CTO. When you don't, the CIO has to fill both roles, which are often at odds.
The way I see it...
The CTO is responsible for understanding, predicting, and planning technology.
The CIO is responsible for ensuring that the technology in use by and acquired for the company is in the best interests of the company (and its shareholders, if applicable).
CIOs are typically from a financial background, as at the end of the day their primary responsibility is to the business units that fund the technology. It isn't about the latest, flashiest, or even best gadgets - it's about meeting the needs of the business units while spending the least amount of money to do so. Unfortunately, this often leaves us (the geeks) on the short end of the stick. And perhaps worse, with the financial focus of the average CIO, they often fail to understand where a reasonable investment in technology can save them money over time. Since the typical CIO is only in their position for a few years, they don't have a lot of time for investments to pay off. Cut costs today, and let the next guy fix the mess they've made.
The point of the tool is to allow you build your list, assign resources, time estimates, dependencies, track deadlines, etc.
Start simple:
Task 1: Write outline of application goals (X days)
Task 2: Create block diagram of expected modules and functions (X days)
Task 3: Code skeleton structure (X days)
Task 4: Write code for modules (X months)
No, I'm not a developer - and it's just an example. Once you have that in place, you start doing real work. And you realize, "Hey, I'm going to need to do these 12 things before I can do that one." Perfect, you go back and add those in, making them prerequisites. Little by little, you end up with a useful plan that lets you track your progress and estimate completion dates, etc.
Microsoft Project isn't a project manager. It's a tool for a project manager to use.
The fact is, companies assume that customers don't care because they continue to send in their monthly premiums every month, regardless of how often you screw them over.
Some people (I'm guessing you're one of them) actually have the balls to stop patronizing a company when they get screwed over - but the vast majority of consumers "piss and moan like an impotent jerk, and then bend over and take it up the tailpipe". Sad, but true.
Disagree with my assumptions if you want, but calling them bullshit is disingenuous at best.
You'll note that I might actually have a clue when it comes to matters of enterprise backup - I've made an excellent living off of just that space. I'm the last one to argue against backing up data. My point in the crude ROI analysis was addressing those who said "How could they not back up this data?" It's simple - it isn't cost effective, even when you occasionally goof. It doesn't make it the right thing to do, but it does explain why some companies make the decisions (or fail to make a decision) that they do.
I'd love to see you propose that in an enterprise environment.
So let's assume you're going to use 1TB drives at $240/drive.
For the same rotation I proposed, you'd need 710 drives. That's $170,400 in drives alone.
Now, we'll need some way to connect 71 drives per day. The drives you specified are USB 2.0, which has an observed, best case transfer rate of 40MB/sec. At 40MB/sec, we need approximately 1,775,000 seconds of transfer capacity to move 71TB, or 493 hours. Assuming a 12 hour backup window, your 71 drives should be able keep up. (In fact, they'd probably do it in about half that)
Of course, to get those kinds of transfer rates, we need to get the data to the drives. If we dedicate the onboard USB interface of a 1U server to one drive, and add another dedicated USB bus via PCI/etc, we should be able to get two dives per server. That's 36 servers. To have any kind of reliability, I'll assume a per server cost of $2k. That's $72k in servers. Throw in another $5k for incidentals (rack, KVM, etc), and we're approaching $80k in servers.
Ok, so we've spent $250k so far on hardware. Given the tone of your post, I'm guessing you're assuming that you'll cobble together something based on Linux/rsync/etc.
So, do *you* want to manage 710 USB hard drives? Figure out which ones connect where on what day? Manage them? Transport them?
You've really only managed to reduce the hardware costs - and very likely raised the support and management costs. Not to mention that you've got from proven, enterprise-class hardware and solutions to commodity, intended for home use "throw-away" hardware.
You're still going to need people to manage this monstrosity, and I'd venture a guess that it would be signifcantly more than would be required for a real enterprise solution.
Your idea is a good one - for a small environment. I do something a lot like that for my home backups. But I only have a terabyte or so of data to protect. The problem with solutions like this is they simply don't scale in the enterprise.
Just because I can, I did a couple of bar-napkin type calculations to see what it would take to protect this environment.
I have no idea what Charter's cable modem subscriber base is, so I took some wild ass guesses. According to Charter's website, they have around 5.7 million customers. Assuming that a 12.5% of them are cable modem subscribers, and each of those accounts has an average of two mailboxes, that gives us just under 1.5 million mailboxes to protect. Further assuming an average mailbox size of 50MB (not unreasonable, given the similar environments I've seen), that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 71 terabytes of data - just for email. That's not counting the supporting infrastructure (authentication, transport, etc).
So to protect 71 terabytes of data, we need somewhere to put that. Tape is most likely. Let's assume LTO3 (probably the most commonly deployed tape technology today in the open systems world), so we've got a raw capacity of 400GB per tape (don't believe the compression specs, I rarely see more than 600GB in the wild). Assuming daily backups kept one week, and weekly backups kept for a month, we'd need about 1780 tapes for the month's rotation. At $40/tape, that's $71,200 in media. Figure 10% per year to replace failed media, and we've got a first year consumable cost of $78,320.
Now, to get the data onto our ~$80k worth of tapes.
Let's figure a 12 hour backup window. (We'll assume that this backup infrastructure will be used to protect some other assets in the other 12 hours) To move 71 terabytes of data in 12 hours, we'll need about 28 LTO3 tape drives (I'll spare you the calculations used to get there - but suffice it to say that I included reasonable overhead and observed real-world performance). At $3k a pop (for quality, supportable, maintainable drives), that's $85k in drives. A tape library to contain said drives will be somewhere in the $100k-$150k range depending on options (redundant robotics, etc). The SAN infrastructure required to connect these drives should be in the $30-$40k range.
So just tape hardware, lets call it $250k.
Additionally, we need backup servers to handle all this data. No, cheap 1U Intel boxes aren't going to cut it. You're going to need some serious iron to drive 28 LTO3 tape drives at full capacity. Off the top of my head, I'd say you're looking at 2-3 mid-sized Unix servers (IBM System p, etc) loaded down with 4GB fibre adapters. Easily another $150k.
Right now, we're just under $500k, and we haven't even started talking about software licensing (Tivoli Storage Manager, Veritas Netbackup, ComVault, etc), infrastructure for the systems being backed up (dedicated Ethernet, or depending on volume, dedicated fibre), miscellaneous supporting infrastructure (power, UPS, air conditioning, etc), and so on.
Once you've got all that, who's going to manage that? Probably a senior backup administrator/architect (90-120k yearly), a mid-range systems administrator (60-90k yearly), and one or two operators (media handling, etc, 30-50k yearly). So that's $250k or so in salaries to manage this beast, figure a benefit load of 60%, and we're at $400k to employ these people.
Initial hardware investment : $480k Yearly consumables : $8k Yearly media storage : $60k (no idea - completely made this one up - anyone with knowledge of Iron Mountain, etc, want to comment?) Yearly salaries to manage: $400k.
Completely ignoring data center costs (AC, power, etc) and software, let's call it an up front investment of $1mil, and a yearly ongoing cost of $500k to support.
14,000 customers at $50 service credit (not real cash) = $700,000
So as long as they only do this once every two years or so, they're in the black.
Sorry, but that's how businesses think. (And yes, there's the cost to customer satisfaction, lost customers, etc, but growth will easily outstrip those losses)
Damn, posting on slashdot feels way too much like real work.
For the size of enterprise that Charter is, this is a non-trivial requirement. Having architected, administered, implemented, repaired, and re-engineered backup solutions for many enterprise environments (some in the petabytes-range each), I can tell you that "very little effort" doesn't come anywhere close. I've also worked on the implementation of a mail environment (very much like what Charter has) for a cable modem ISP, so I'm very familiar with the kinds of challenges these environments face.
The backup architecture required to efficiently and safely protect this kind of environment would cost easily several hundred thousand dollars and several full time employees to manage.
Before anyone jumps in with "just buy a bunch of cheap IDE hard drives and rsync, tar, etc...", please don't forget that we're talking about a major server farm, probably in several locations, consisting of likely hundreds (if not thousands) of servers and mail stores.
More than likely, Charter made the business decision that (as other posters have pointed out) email is a volatile storage medium and their internal checks and balances (RAID, etc) were sufficient for protecting against loss. Obviously, they made a mistake and miscalculation. At the end of the day, however, I suspect they'll implement more checks and balances to protect against human error, but I'd be really surprised if IBM/SUN/etc got a big order for a tape library/upgrade. I just can't imagine a company like Charter spending the money (hardware, consumables, people) to back up "Forward this to 10 people in the next 10 minutes and Bill Gates will give you a hand job" messages.
Pardon me if I respond to your comments in a slighty different order than you posted them.
You said it right there, in total ignorance.
Ignorance? How so? I said it in full understanding of the fallacy of stereotypes. As I said in another post, think what you want about the injustice of stereotypes... they exist, and we have to deal with them. Shouting about how they are unfair or untrue does nothing to change them.
If you're laboring under the delusion that Americans are a special case, go to Greece in the summer and see what the locals have to say about Italian tourists. Or what folks in neighboring European states say about visiting Germans. Or what just about anyone says about the French. Etc. It has nothing to do with being American and everything to do with being a foreigner.
I have no delusions that Americans are the only group that get saddled with these stereotypes. I just don't happen to care what the Greeks think of the Italians, or the Brits think of the Germans, or any other group. My concern is for the stereotype associated with MY country. It's up to the Germans to deal with theirs, and the Italians to deal with theirs, and so on. Anyone who isn't concerned with how their country is viewed just boggles my mind.
although typically enough you bought right into the stereotype
I didn't say I bought it, I said I recognized it. As has been mentioned ad nasuem, it's only the loud and obnoxious that get noticed - they're the ones forming the stereotype. You'll note that my original post was directed at an individual who belived that this stereotype somehow came from other country's jealousy at our obvious American superiority. I countered that the stereotype came from loud and obnoxious jackasses - and not because we were so revered.
or perhaps you've decided to join the Euro-trolls on their daily American-bashing parade
What I said wasn't anti-American in the slightest. What I said was anti-moron. I'm opposed to the minority of Americans being loud and crass and giving all Americans a bad name. I love my country and I have a genuine concern with how we're viewed outside our borders. It's called dignity.
(Well, excepting the Japanese. I don't think a people can get any politer than the Japanese and still remain human.)
So after all that, you conclude with a stereotype. Stereotypes are not always negative - this here just happens to be a positive stereotype. I'll admit that yes, by in large, the Japanese tend to be polite - it's built into their culture. But your stereotype doesn't hold true for 100% of the population, nor do any stereotypes.
Nonsense. I've _never_ seen an American act like that, unless he was drunker than a skunk - and I've seen plenty of foreign residents behave badly.
Congratulations on avoiding even the slightest bit of reality. Is it nice in your universe?
The real problem is people like you think you're more civilized, and you somehow absorb this ridiculous view of Americans and are ashamed by it.
More civilized than what? Than morons who do stupid things like spraypaint parked cars in Singapore? Yes... indeed I find myself quite a bit more civilized if that's your comparison. I am also, as you note, ashamed of people who establish these stereotypes of Americans.
This view of the obnoxious American tourist is mostly a fiction, and to the extent it's true it's true of any other tourist from any other country, or it's just heard third hand from someone like you who has also heard it third hand.
Having travelled in Europe, the Scandanavian region, Central America, and throughout North America, I have had the opportunity to witness Americans behaving badly throughout the world first hand.
You seem quite interested in absolving Americans from any possible wrongdoing (attributing it to fiction), while simultaneously pointing the finger at "foreign residents". Sure, every country has their "asses" (as noted in other posts in this thread)... ours just tend to be most vocal and unapologetic about it.
and I resent being lumped into a generalized "ugly American" category simply because of the land of my birth.
Welcome to Stereotypes 101.
I won't get into the whole stereotypes debate here, but the fact is that stereotypes generally exist for a reason - some quantity of the target population (generally the most visible) FITS it. When travelling, people such as yourself who make an effort to adapt themselves to their environment don't really get noticed... so there's not much of a stereotype there. The people who DO get noticed are who the stereotype are based on. That's how it works.
Resent it all you want, it's how the world works. You can wish it wasn't that way, but this is reality.
Citizens of every country think they're superior. (and apparently you think so of yourself too)
How do you figure? I'm advocating respect for one's own country (by not presenting a poor image to others) and respect for other cultures and people - if by that you mean superior in that most people don't do that... I'll go along with you.
Re:Changed the view of the US?
on
Bobby Fischer Found
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I know what you're really saying; the rest of the world thinks we are loud, crass, and uncivil. They think so because we come with more common sense and know-how, and we call things like they are.
Yes, the rest of the word sees us as loud, crass, and uncivil. It's not, however, because we have common sense or know-how.
(FWIW I'm an American, quite proudly)
Travel somewhere else in the world where Americans travel or vacation. Pick a quiet bench somewhere and just watch. It's quite easy to spot the Americans, generally. They're loud, crass, and uncivil. As a stereotype, they tend to expect and demand status in their new locale simply based on their classification as "American". "I'm an American," they boast loudly to anyone who will listen. The fact is, no one really cares. Of course we have a long list of accomplishments to be proud of - but it doesn't give us the right to disregard foriegn cultures or customs - particularly when we're IN that culture.
There's a reason the average American tourist gets treated poorly or at least indifferently in most countries - we don't make the effort to be sensitive to the environment we're in. There's a certain swagger Americans like to put on while travelling and it's quite insulting to the locals. We as a country get branded as loud-mouthed hicks, because those are the people that are most visible. If only more Americans would grab their own kind and say "Shut up, you're in someone else's country, be respectful," Americans would have a better reputation. It all comes down to respect. As Americans we're taught from day one that we're the superior, chosen country - and the weaker minded often try to remind the rest of the world of it too.
All it takes to change this perception is respect - respect your own country enough to make a good impression, and respect your hosts enough to play by their cultural rules. If you don't like their cultural rules, go back home.
For the most part, the rest stops in Texas are well maintained, well lighted, clean, and generally very comfortable places to take a break. I wouldn't have any problem stopping at a Texas rest stop to check my e-mail, etc, any more that I would in ANY reasonably public place. If it's dark and you're alone, you'd be stupid to leave yourself vulnerable - rest area or no.
The fact is, the *majority* of people don't rip at 192K... they rip at whatever their software defaults to, which is usually 128K. Yes, there are a large number (though not *percentage*) of people who can hear the difference between 128K and 192K and care enough to rip at their preferred bitrate. The majority of people will be quite happy at 128K (or lower, I'd imagine).
I've got a decent sized (by normal standards, not geek standards) music collection of over 3500 songs of varying lengths/genres, most of which are ripped at 128k - and that's only 12gb. 40gb is overkill for the *average* consumer who wants to rip their 100-200 CDs.
The practice you described isn't really common at all
Perhaps we need to define some metrics. I consider thousands upon thousands of incidents of this behavior to be "common". Possibly you have a different interpretation.
I'm sorry you don't like being criticised.
I'm all for being reasonably criticised. You just seem unqualified to do so.
In my legal studies, we referred to this attitude as "childish".
I'll note that it was you who decided to degrade into name-calling. I'll also allow you to draw your own conclusions as to who is childish.
Not terribly surprising for a lawyer, however. I say this not as an uninformed stereotype of the legal profession, but rather as a professional who has had dealings with all levels of the legal field - from ambulance chasers (a category that I strongly suspect to which you belong) to high-profile criminal defense attorneys to corporate counsel for Fortune 500 companies. In my experience, most of them are quite unable to handle someone challenging their little isolated worldview.
Have a nice life, BobTheLawyer. (I wonder if this is the second profession of BobTheBuilder)
My comment was directed at the general practice of retaining counsel in order to prevent the same counsel from representing your opponent. This is a common tactic used by countless companies and organizations. The original poster wondered why an entity might employ the services of a firm that traditionally handles the "other" side of this type of dispute. My suggestion was perfectly valid.
Your 'nay-saying' contributes nothing, however. In your legal studies, you might have heard this referred to as "irrelevant". Look it up if you're unfamiliar.
Blah, blah, blah. Sarcasm aside, there's no telling why any particular client picks any particular firm. So, BobTheLawyer, why do you (in your obvious legal expertise) believe they would select this firm?
It's not such a strange move... if you're afraid that a particular firm might get used against you, you engage their services first. You prevent your opponent from being able to use them, as no firm can represent both sides in a dispute (it's just a minor conflict of interest).
Slashdot Mirror
In my neighborhood (Fort Worth, Texas), all of the new houses are being built with plastic plumbing. My house was the last one built by my builder with copper.
Having seen the new construction, I wish I'd gotten the plastic. All of it is color coded (blue for cold, red for hot) so you immediately know which lines you're looking at. They're flexible so they don't crack or break if the house shifts or there's an earthquake (not that we have many in North Texas). If you puncture one with a nail, etc, it's a simple process to "weld" the hole with an epoxy. Changes/additions can be made with simple hand tools, fittings, and glue. Plastic doesn't interact with the natural metals in water causing scale or rust.
Damn. And I was feeling pretty good about my house. Thanks Slashdot.
The problem is, in many companies, the role of the CIO is pretty nebulous.
It gets further confusing when you have both a CIO and a CTO. When you don't, the CIO has to fill both roles, which are often at odds.
The way I see it...
The CTO is responsible for understanding, predicting, and planning technology.
The CIO is responsible for ensuring that the technology in use by and acquired for the company is in the best interests of the company (and its shareholders, if applicable).
CIOs are typically from a financial background, as at the end of the day their primary responsibility is to the business units that fund the technology. It isn't about the latest, flashiest, or even best gadgets - it's about meeting the needs of the business units while spending the least amount of money to do so. Unfortunately, this often leaves us (the geeks) on the short end of the stick. And perhaps worse, with the financial focus of the average CIO, they often fail to understand where a reasonable investment in technology can save them money over time. Since the typical CIO is only in their position for a few years, they don't have a lot of time for investments to pay off. Cut costs today, and let the next guy fix the mess they've made.
You missed the point of the tool.
The point of the tool is to allow you build your list, assign resources, time estimates, dependencies, track deadlines, etc.
Start simple:
Task 1: Write outline of application goals (X days)
Task 2: Create block diagram of expected modules and functions (X days)
Task 3: Code skeleton structure (X days)
Task 4: Write code for modules (X months)
No, I'm not a developer - and it's just an example. Once you have that in place, you start doing real work. And you realize, "Hey, I'm going to need to do these 12 things before I can do that one." Perfect, you go back and add those in, making them prerequisites. Little by little, you end up with a useful plan that lets you track your progress and estimate completion dates, etc.
Microsoft Project isn't a project manager. It's a tool for a project manager to use.
Fletcher: "Your honor, I object!"
Judge Stevens: "Why?"
Fletcher: "Because it's devastating to my case!"
Judge Stevens: "Over-ruled."
Fletcher: "Good call!"
g=c800:5
God, why do I still remember that??
Yes. It does.
You're thinking of Konami's Track & Field. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_&_Field_(arcade_game)
*THAT*'s why they won't let me back in that bar...
Anonymous coward, indeed.
The fact is, companies assume that customers don't care because they continue to send in their monthly premiums every month, regardless of how often you screw them over.
Some people (I'm guessing you're one of them) actually have the balls to stop patronizing a company when they get screwed over - but the vast majority of consumers "piss and moan like an impotent jerk, and then bend over and take it up the tailpipe". Sad, but true.
Disagree with my assumptions if you want, but calling them bullshit is disingenuous at best.
You'll note that I might actually have a clue when it comes to matters of enterprise backup - I've made an excellent living off of just that space. I'm the last one to argue against backing up data. My point in the crude ROI analysis was addressing those who said "How could they not back up this data?" It's simple - it isn't cost effective, even when you occasionally goof. It doesn't make it the right thing to do, but it does explain why some companies make the decisions (or fail to make a decision) that they do.
I'd love to see you propose that in an enterprise environment.
So let's assume you're going to use 1TB drives at $240/drive.
For the same rotation I proposed, you'd need 710 drives. That's $170,400 in drives alone.
Now, we'll need some way to connect 71 drives per day. The drives you specified are USB 2.0, which has an observed, best case transfer rate of 40MB/sec. At 40MB/sec, we need approximately 1,775,000 seconds of transfer capacity to move 71TB, or 493 hours. Assuming a 12 hour backup window, your 71 drives should be able keep up. (In fact, they'd probably do it in about half that)
Of course, to get those kinds of transfer rates, we need to get the data to the drives. If we dedicate the onboard USB interface of a 1U server to one drive, and add another dedicated USB bus via PCI/etc, we should be able to get two dives per server. That's 36 servers. To have any kind of reliability, I'll assume a per server cost of $2k. That's $72k in servers. Throw in another $5k for incidentals (rack, KVM, etc), and we're approaching $80k in servers.
Ok, so we've spent $250k so far on hardware. Given the tone of your post, I'm guessing you're assuming that you'll cobble together something based on Linux/rsync/etc.
So, do *you* want to manage 710 USB hard drives? Figure out which ones connect where on what day? Manage them? Transport them?
You've really only managed to reduce the hardware costs - and very likely raised the support and management costs. Not to mention that you've got from proven, enterprise-class hardware and solutions to commodity, intended for home use "throw-away" hardware.
You're still going to need people to manage this monstrosity, and I'd venture a guess that it would be signifcantly more than would be required for a real enterprise solution.
Your idea is a good one - for a small environment. I do something a lot like that for my home backups. But I only have a terabyte or so of data to protect. The problem with solutions like this is they simply don't scale in the enterprise.
It doesn't - it "saves" Charter $50.
Yes, I'm responding to my own post...
Just because I can, I did a couple of bar-napkin type calculations to see what it would take to protect this environment.
I have no idea what Charter's cable modem subscriber base is, so I took some wild ass guesses. According to Charter's website, they have around 5.7 million customers. Assuming that a 12.5% of them are cable modem subscribers, and each of those accounts has an average of two mailboxes, that gives us just under 1.5 million mailboxes to protect. Further assuming an average mailbox size of 50MB (not unreasonable, given the similar environments I've seen), that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 71 terabytes of data - just for email. That's not counting the supporting infrastructure (authentication, transport, etc).
So to protect 71 terabytes of data, we need somewhere to put that. Tape is most likely. Let's assume LTO3 (probably the most commonly deployed tape technology today in the open systems world), so we've got a raw capacity of 400GB per tape (don't believe the compression specs, I rarely see more than 600GB in the wild). Assuming daily backups kept one week, and weekly backups kept for a month, we'd need about 1780 tapes for the month's rotation. At $40/tape, that's $71,200 in media. Figure 10% per year to replace failed media, and we've got a first year consumable cost of $78,320.
Now, to get the data onto our ~$80k worth of tapes.
Let's figure a 12 hour backup window. (We'll assume that this backup infrastructure will be used to protect some other assets in the other 12 hours) To move 71 terabytes of data in 12 hours, we'll need about 28 LTO3 tape drives (I'll spare you the calculations used to get there - but suffice it to say that I included reasonable overhead and observed real-world performance). At $3k a pop (for quality, supportable, maintainable drives), that's $85k in drives. A tape library to contain said drives will be somewhere in the $100k-$150k range depending on options (redundant robotics, etc). The SAN infrastructure required to connect these drives should be in the $30-$40k range.
So just tape hardware, lets call it $250k.
Additionally, we need backup servers to handle all this data. No, cheap 1U Intel boxes aren't going to cut it. You're going to need some serious iron to drive 28 LTO3 tape drives at full capacity. Off the top of my head, I'd say you're looking at 2-3 mid-sized Unix servers (IBM System p, etc) loaded down with 4GB fibre adapters. Easily another $150k.
Right now, we're just under $500k, and we haven't even started talking about software licensing (Tivoli Storage Manager, Veritas Netbackup, ComVault, etc), infrastructure for the systems being backed up (dedicated Ethernet, or depending on volume, dedicated fibre), miscellaneous supporting infrastructure (power, UPS, air conditioning, etc), and so on.
Once you've got all that, who's going to manage that? Probably a senior backup administrator/architect (90-120k yearly), a mid-range systems administrator (60-90k yearly), and one or two operators (media handling, etc, 30-50k yearly). So that's $250k or so in salaries to manage this beast, figure a benefit load of 60%, and we're at $400k to employ these people.
Initial hardware investment : $480k
Yearly consumables : $8k
Yearly media storage : $60k (no idea - completely made this one up - anyone with knowledge of Iron Mountain, etc, want to comment?)
Yearly salaries to manage: $400k.
Completely ignoring data center costs (AC, power, etc) and software, let's call it an up front investment of $1mil, and a yearly ongoing cost of $500k to support.
14,000 customers at $50 service credit (not real cash) = $700,000
So as long as they only do this once every two years or so, they're in the black.
Sorry, but that's how businesses think. (And yes, there's the cost to customer satisfaction, lost customers, etc, but growth will easily outstrip those losses)
Damn, posting on slashdot feels way too much like real work.
For the size of enterprise that Charter is, this is a non-trivial requirement. Having architected, administered, implemented, repaired, and re-engineered backup solutions for many enterprise environments (some in the petabytes-range each), I can tell you that "very little effort" doesn't come anywhere close. I've also worked on the implementation of a mail environment (very much like what Charter has) for a cable modem ISP, so I'm very familiar with the kinds of challenges these environments face.
The backup architecture required to efficiently and safely protect this kind of environment would cost easily several hundred thousand dollars and several full time employees to manage.
Before anyone jumps in with "just buy a bunch of cheap IDE hard drives and rsync, tar, etc...", please don't forget that we're talking about a major server farm, probably in several locations, consisting of likely hundreds (if not thousands) of servers and mail stores.
More than likely, Charter made the business decision that (as other posters have pointed out) email is a volatile storage medium and their internal checks and balances (RAID, etc) were sufficient for protecting against loss. Obviously, they made a mistake and miscalculation. At the end of the day, however, I suspect they'll implement more checks and balances to protect against human error, but I'd be really surprised if IBM/SUN/etc got a big order for a tape library/upgrade. I just can't imagine a company like Charter spending the money (hardware, consumables, people) to back up "Forward this to 10 people in the next 10 minutes and Bill Gates will give you a hand job" messages.
Ignorance? How so? I said it in full understanding of the fallacy of stereotypes. As I said in another post, think what you want about the injustice of stereotypes... they exist, and we have to deal with them. Shouting about how they are unfair or untrue does nothing to change them.
I have no delusions that Americans are the only group that get saddled with these stereotypes. I just don't happen to care what the Greeks think of the Italians, or the Brits think of the Germans, or any other group. My concern is for the stereotype associated with MY country. It's up to the Germans to deal with theirs, and the Italians to deal with theirs, and so on. Anyone who isn't concerned with how their country is viewed just boggles my mind.
I didn't say I bought it, I said I recognized it. As has been mentioned ad nasuem, it's only the loud and obnoxious that get noticed - they're the ones forming the stereotype. You'll note that my original post was directed at an individual who belived that this stereotype somehow came from other country's jealousy at our obvious American superiority. I countered that the stereotype came from loud and obnoxious jackasses - and not because we were so revered.
What I said wasn't anti-American in the slightest. What I said was anti-moron. I'm opposed to the minority of Americans being loud and crass and giving all Americans a bad name. I love my country and I have a genuine concern with how we're viewed outside our borders. It's called dignity.
So after all that, you conclude with a stereotype. Stereotypes are not always negative - this here just happens to be a positive stereotype. I'll admit that yes, by in large, the Japanese tend to be polite - it's built into their culture. But your stereotype doesn't hold true for 100% of the population, nor do any stereotypes.
Congratulations on avoiding even the slightest bit of reality. Is it nice in your universe?
More civilized than what? Than morons who do stupid things like spraypaint parked cars in Singapore? Yes... indeed I find myself quite a bit more civilized if that's your comparison. I am also, as you note, ashamed of people who establish these stereotypes of Americans.
Having travelled in Europe, the Scandanavian region, Central America, and throughout North America, I have had the opportunity to witness Americans behaving badly throughout the world first hand.
You seem quite interested in absolving Americans from any possible wrongdoing (attributing it to fiction), while simultaneously pointing the finger at "foreign residents". Sure, every country has their "asses" (as noted in other posts in this thread)... ours just tend to be most vocal and unapologetic about it.
Welcome to Stereotypes 101.
I won't get into the whole stereotypes debate here, but the fact is that stereotypes generally exist for a reason - some quantity of the target population (generally the most visible) FITS it. When travelling, people such as yourself who make an effort to adapt themselves to their environment don't really get noticed... so there's not much of a stereotype there. The people who DO get noticed are who the stereotype are based on. That's how it works.
Resent it all you want, it's how the world works. You can wish it wasn't that way, but this is reality.
How do you figure? I'm advocating respect for one's own country (by not presenting a poor image to others) and respect for other cultures and people - if by that you mean superior in that most people don't do that... I'll go along with you.
Yes, the rest of the word sees us as loud, crass, and uncivil. It's not, however, because we have common sense or know-how.
(FWIW I'm an American, quite proudly)
Travel somewhere else in the world where Americans travel or vacation. Pick a quiet bench somewhere and just watch. It's quite easy to spot the Americans, generally. They're loud, crass, and uncivil. As a stereotype, they tend to expect and demand status in their new locale simply based on their classification as "American". "I'm an American," they boast loudly to anyone who will listen. The fact is, no one really cares. Of course we have a long list of accomplishments to be proud of - but it doesn't give us the right to disregard foriegn cultures or customs - particularly when we're IN that culture.
There's a reason the average American tourist gets treated poorly or at least indifferently in most countries - we don't make the effort to be sensitive to the environment we're in. There's a certain swagger Americans like to put on while travelling and it's quite insulting to the locals. We as a country get branded as loud-mouthed hicks, because those are the people that are most visible. If only more Americans would grab their own kind and say "Shut up, you're in someone else's country, be respectful," Americans would have a better reputation. It all comes down to respect. As Americans we're taught from day one that we're the superior, chosen country - and the weaker minded often try to remind the rest of the world of it too.
All it takes to change this perception is respect - respect your own country enough to make a good impression, and respect your hosts enough to play by their cultural rules. If you don't like their cultural rules, go back home.
For the most part, the rest stops in Texas are well maintained, well lighted, clean, and generally very comfortable places to take a break. I wouldn't have any problem stopping at a Texas rest stop to check my e-mail, etc, any more that I would in ANY reasonably public place. If it's dark and you're alone, you'd be stupid to leave yourself vulnerable - rest area or no.
I've got a decent sized (by normal standards, not geek standards) music collection of over 3500 songs of varying lengths/genres, most of which are ripped at 128k - and that's only 12gb. 40gb is overkill for the *average* consumer who wants to rip their 100-200 CDs.
Perhaps we need to define some metrics. I consider thousands upon thousands of incidents of this behavior to be "common". Possibly you have a different interpretation.
I'm all for being reasonably criticised. You just seem unqualified to do so.
I'll note that it was you who decided to degrade into name-calling. I'll also allow you to draw your own conclusions as to who is childish.
Not terribly surprising for a lawyer, however. I say this not as an uninformed stereotype of the legal profession, but rather as a professional who has had dealings with all levels of the legal field - from ambulance chasers (a category that I strongly suspect to which you belong) to high-profile criminal defense attorneys to corporate counsel for Fortune 500 companies. In my experience, most of them are quite unable to handle someone challenging their little isolated worldview.
Have a nice life, BobTheLawyer. (I wonder if this is the second profession of BobTheBuilder)
My comment was directed at the general practice of retaining counsel in order to prevent the same counsel from representing your opponent. This is a common tactic used by countless companies and organizations. The original poster wondered why an entity might employ the services of a firm that traditionally handles the "other" side of this type of dispute. My suggestion was perfectly valid.
Your 'nay-saying' contributes nothing, however. In your legal studies, you might have heard this referred to as "irrelevant". Look it up if you're unfamiliar.
Blah, blah, blah. Sarcasm aside, there's no telling why any particular client picks any particular firm. So, BobTheLawyer, why do you (in your obvious legal expertise) believe they would select this firm?
It's not such a strange move... if you're afraid that a particular firm might get used against you, you engage their services first. You prevent your opponent from being able to use them, as no firm can represent both sides in a dispute (it's just a minor conflict of interest).