I'm not going to debug these procedures for you; that's the homework assignment. The almost uncountable combinations of things that can/will go wrong in configuration, operations, procedural error, etc. make it a distant, but real, probability that a catastrophic failure will occur. The probability is higher in a mono-culture (of any kind). If you can't understand that, go back to reading Microsoft adverts - their truth tastes yummy to a cyclops.
What makes you think MORE than one has to be hooked up to the Internet? Never mind - the issue in the British case was one of patching seven systems and oops - accidently patching 60,000. That's not Internet related - it's all about the management package they're using to manage the mono-culture.
Here's the math: Mono-culture + Management Package = Easy to Maintain from one central GUI somewhere in the corporation.
The missing term that drives the equation negative of the brochure-promised cost savings is the eventual catastrophic failure when hung-over contractor-Bob (who just started secretly banging the admin girl in the two weeks he's been on this assignment) forgets to un-check a box and just hits OK. *poof* - an unemployed open-source programmer is born.
I think you've proved it for me: Monocultures trade off management ease for the potential of catastropic failure. Many would call this a Bad Trade.
Those who cannot distinguish between an operating system that makes it easier to cause catastropic damage, and one that is less facilitating, are likely signing the purchase orders (or at least defending the practice on/.)
Any idiot, even a professional idiot from EDS, can knock out 80% of a Microsoft network with the click of a button (see "UK benefits system crashes and burns again" http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19900)
So what's 80% of "a specially configured version of Windows to be used by all its 525,000 personnel and civilian support staff" ?
Lessee... 80% * 525,000 = A shit-load of ruined careers?
There are a couple of ways to solve this problem: The printed receipts could be counted by humans after the polls close. Use the machine totals for early results only, making the paper receipts the final authority.
And maybe not this election, but soon, enough people will have access to a web browser, and there will be enough bandwidth, where each voter goes to a govenment-run web site where the receipt numbers and their votes are listed. It would be each voter's "duty" to verify their ticket is listed correctly. Then any computer system on the internet can download the list and count all the votes and confirm the results.
Yup - I'm worried about patent infringement too. But one of joelonsoftware.com's essay comments stuck in my mind: That html is the "next" api. Maybe we should stop looking at the PC as the platform on which we concoct our million-dollar ideas, and turn our gaze towards the web?
Re:Poor planning? BS. Poor Math? Certainly!
on
An Introduction to IPv6
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I thought it amazing that the designers of IP carved out a 32-bit address rather than 16. When there was just a couple of universities on the internet, who woulda though 4 billion addresses would eventually be needed?
But our author says with IP v6, we get enough addresses for every person on the planet to have 10 of their own. Let's see... 5 billion people, 10 addresses each... 50 billion? IP v6 only offers up 10 times the address space? I don't think so!
Anyone else think that cutting cokes is going to have any remotely significant effect on the Balmer-billion-dollar-cost-cuttage plan? Puhleeze!
This kind of fix certainly mimics their approach to fixing their cruft-quality malware.... big talk, miscellaneous tweaks, nothing of substance. But instead of pissing off customers, this time they're poking their own. Yikes! The beginning of the end?
I don't know this particular facility, but the usual components would be: 1) two-node (minimum) OpenVMS cluster, a UPS for the computer room (perhaps more than 1), dual redundant air conditioning systems, multiple WAN connections from different providers over physically separate media, and dual generators for longer-term power outages. Why 2 generators? That's the homework assignment.
If application X can crash the Operating System, isn't something fundamentally wrong with the OS? Does the MS Distorion Field prevent them from seeing this?
Design flaws beget ugly patches, ugly patches beget uglier patches, and eventually, you'll have to rip it all up and start over....NET anyone?
Of course,.NET was designed from within the Distortion Field, so all you ISV's out there - be ready to re-write your code yet again in 10 years.
The trend I see is to dumb down IT staff to a bunch of interchangeable widgets. Maybe management types don't like to manage smart people. And maybe that's why the offshoring of systems development is still gaining momentum.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not going to debug these procedures for you; that's the homework assignment. The almost uncountable combinations of things that can/will go wrong in configuration, operations, procedural error, etc. make it a distant, but real, probability that a catastrophic failure will occur. The probability is higher in a mono-culture (of any kind). If you can't understand that, go back to reading Microsoft adverts - their truth tastes yummy to a cyclops.
What makes you think MORE than one has to be hooked up to the Internet? Never mind - the issue in the British case was one of patching seven systems and oops - accidently patching 60,000. That's not Internet related - it's all about the management package they're using to manage the mono-culture.
Here's the math: Mono-culture + Management Package = Easy to Maintain from one central GUI somewhere in the corporation.
The missing term that drives the equation negative of the brochure-promised cost savings is the eventual catastrophic failure when hung-over contractor-Bob (who just started secretly banging the admin girl in the two weeks he's been on this assignment) forgets to un-check a box and just hits OK. *poof* - an unemployed open-source programmer is born.
I think you've proved it for me: Monocultures trade off management ease for the potential of catastropic failure. Many would call this a Bad Trade.
/.)
Those who cannot distinguish between an operating system that makes it easier to cause catastropic damage, and one that is less facilitating, are likely signing the purchase orders (or at least defending the practice on
Any idiot, even a professional idiot from EDS, can knock out 80% of a Microsoft network with the click of a button (see "UK benefits system crashes and burns again" http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19900) So what's 80% of "a specially configured version of Windows to be used by all its 525,000 personnel and civilian support staff" ? Lessee... 80% * 525,000 = A shit-load of ruined careers?
Any idiot, even a professional idiot from EDS, can knock out 80% of a Microsoft network with the click of a button:
1 40 211&tid=201&tid=128
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/26/
So what's 80% of "a specially configured version of Windows to be used by all its 525,000 personnel and civilian support staff" ?
Lessee... 80% * 525,000 = A shit-load of ruined careers?
There are a couple of ways to solve this problem: The printed receipts could be counted by humans after the polls close. Use the machine totals for early results only, making the paper receipts the final authority. And maybe not this election, but soon, enough people will have access to a web browser, and there will be enough bandwidth, where each voter goes to a govenment-run web site where the receipt numbers and their votes are listed. It would be each voter's "duty" to verify their ticket is listed correctly. Then any computer system on the internet can download the list and count all the votes and confirm the results.
Yup - I'm worried about patent infringement too. But one of joelonsoftware.com's essay comments stuck in my mind: That html is the "next" api. Maybe we should stop looking at the PC as the platform on which we concoct our million-dollar ideas, and turn our gaze towards the web?
I thought it amazing that the designers of IP carved out a 32-bit address rather than 16. When there was just a couple of universities on the internet, who woulda though 4 billion addresses would eventually be needed? But our author says with IP v6, we get enough addresses for every person on the planet to have 10 of their own. Let's see... 5 billion people, 10 addresses each... 50 billion? IP v6 only offers up 10 times the address space? I don't think so!
Anyone else think that cutting cokes is going to have any remotely significant effect on the Balmer-billion-dollar-cost-cuttage plan? Puhleeze! This kind of fix certainly mimics their approach to fixing their cruft-quality malware .... big talk, miscellaneous tweaks, nothing of substance. But instead of pissing off customers, this time they're poking their own. Yikes! The beginning of the end?
I don't know this particular facility, but the usual components would be: 1) two-node (minimum) OpenVMS cluster, a UPS for the computer room (perhaps more than 1), dual redundant air conditioning systems, multiple WAN connections from different providers over physically separate media, and dual generators for longer-term power outages. Why 2 generators? That's the homework assignment.
If application X can crash the Operating System, isn't something fundamentally wrong with the OS? Does the MS Distorion Field prevent them from seeing this?
.NET anyone?
.NET was designed from within the Distortion Field, so all you ISV's out there - be ready to re-write your code yet again in 10 years.
Design flaws beget ugly patches, ugly patches beget uglier patches, and eventually, you'll have to rip it all up and start over...
Of course,
- spin
The trend I see is to dumb down IT staff to a bunch of interchangeable widgets. Maybe management types don't like to manage smart people. And maybe that's why the offshoring of systems development is still gaining momentum.