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On Sep 1, 2009, at 9:36 PM, Ross Singer <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > On Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Edward M. > Corrado<[log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> Thus I have to believe them that they did not have a compromised >> server and instead they had a hardware failure. I have no idea why >> they couldn't just restore from backup which would at least gotten >> them back to where they were from the last backup (which presumably >> was at most a week ago, if not someone should have a lot of >> explaining >> to do to someone). > > I didn't want to join this speculation party, but here goes. > > It's quite possible that part of the problem here is that the > "significant hardware failure" meant that the replacement was a > completely different architecture (let's say for argument's sakes that > the server that failed was AS/400 and the replacement was Solaris on > an Intel server) because IT policy (or, you know, reality) dictated > that the old hardware would be replaced if it failed. > > So then we're not just talking about backing up from tape -- things > need to be compiled -- there are perhaps problems with legacy C > libraries, character sets, *whatever*. > > When I was working at Emory, we had a grant funded project that > indexed a handful of collections of SGML EAD files in an app called > iSearch (http://www.etymon.com/tr.html#). When the (admittedly > neglected) VA Linux server it ran on had a major problem it was > insanely non-trivial to get this completely orphaned application > running in a contemporary operating system (in this case, RedHat). > Old versions of iSearch /would not under any circumstances/ compile -- > new ones couldn't read the old data. The application was down for -- > I don't know -- months, IIRC. Granted, this was nowhere near the > priority of GPO's PURL server -- but you can't stop time to solve > these sorts of Catch-22s, either. > > Things happen. Catastrophes generally have the added advantage of > ensuring they don't happen again for a while. > > -Ross. Ross, For arguments sake, let's say youe speculation is correct. In this case this would be a huge management failure. If you are running a major service you need to plan for hardware failure. This isn't rocket science, this is sysadmin 101. Hardware fails. Edward