Jonathan Rochkind wrote:
> Duplantis, Patricia A. wrote:
>> On- and off-site redundant back-up of all critical hardware and 
>> systems is and will continue to be performed by GPO. 
>
> I don't really understand how this is consistent with:
>
>
>> Though the hardware configuration was restored, GPO has worked 
>> continuously, including this past weekend, to restore the system 
>> software configurations for this legacy application. Thus far this 
>> has resulted in re-established access to a small percentage of PURLs. 
>> Although back-ups of critical files ensured no loss of data, the 
>> reconfiguration of the software on the new server is still being 
>> enabled. GPO's approach is to properly construct a new configuration 
>> and to restore all the PURLs to enable use of the automated 
>> resolution process.   
>
> Doesn't sound like they had the right backups of the right stuff to 
> me.  Sounds like _something_ wasn't backed up, necessitating 
> "reconfiguration of the software on the new server."  At least with 
> the stuff I work with, I would have backed up anything requiring 
> 'reconfiguration' too, so all it took was a reload of the backup. Of 
> course hindsight is 20/20, hopefully GPO has improved their backup 
> procedures, although I'd be more confident if they had something like 
> "Based on this experience, we will be reviewing and enhancing our 
> backup procedures to ensure that in similar circumstances in the 
> future full restoration from backups can occur within minutes."
I'm with you Jonathan. While there are probably a lot of valid reasons 
behind what they are doing and why it was necessary to reconfigure the 
software for the new server, it is clear that their backup and recovery 
plan was not sufficient to get the service up and running in a timely 
manner. Obviously they are not the first place to have this problem (see 
Ma.gnoliaand JournalSpace for even worse situations) and they won't be 
the last.

This should be a lesson to each and everyone of us who are in charge of 
maintain systems to actually try to restore a system from your backups 
on a some-what regular basis to ensure that you can get important 
systems up and running in a timely manner. From personal experience, I 
can tell you that you can learn a lot from these tests, and on at least 
one occasion they saved my ____ when I had a critical system fail.

Edward


>
>
> Jonathan