ADSM-L

Re: It wouldn't have happened if they'd used TSM, would it?

2002-04-13 18:05:13
Subject: Re: It wouldn't have happened if they'd used TSM, would it?
From: Zlatko Krastev <acit AT ATTGLOBAL DOT NET>
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 17:16:08 +0300
The only fact might not be true is "big defense contractor working on a 
cutting-edge project". OTOH it also may be true as well.
I cannot recall where I looked at a survey which pointed that over 50% of
small & medium enterprises in Germany perform backups rarely than monthly
or do not make any backups. In my practice I've seen enough companies
making occasionaly copies of the application data. No plan how to recover,
no even knowledge what have they to install to become able to restore this
data. "We are making copies!" and that's all. I have seen this even in
banks and governmental institutions.

Zlatko Krastev
IT Consultant




Please respond to "ADSM: Dist Stor Manager" <ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU>
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Subject:        It wouldn't have happened if they'd used TSM, would it?

Thought you all might enjoy this *true* story.

************************************************************


Shark Tank: It's about time

This big defense contractor working on a cutting-edge project hires a
consultant who adds a little something special to the project. "He
brought with him a neural network package and integrated it into our
product," says an engineering manager pilot fish on the team.

After another year of development, fish is the one who's tapped to
deliver the finished work to another division. But when it gets there,
one of the hard drives fails.

"I replaced the drive and installed the software from the tape backups
-- full and incrementals -- I had carried with me," says fish, "only to
find that the backups contained material that was over six months old."
find that the backups contained material that was over six months old."

And -- no surprise -- the project's product doesn't work.

In the ensuing brouhaha, the project's program manager is removed, and
the fish gets a new task: finding out what went wrong. And he does.

Turns out the consultant's oh-so-useful neural networking package was
actually a demo copy of the product with a 90-day evaluation period.

"We never bought it, and the former manager allowed it to be used
without investigating the legality of it," fish says.

"The neural network had been installed more than a year previous to
the delivery," says fish. "The way the consultant kept it running was
to frequently reset the system clock on the particular Sun workstation
hosting our tool."

Meanwhile, the configuration management specialist on the project
knows the consultant is regularly turning back the clock on the
workstation. But the configuration guy isn't exactly sweating the
details -- he's doing a complete backup only once every six months,
with lots of incremental backups in between.

"The last full backup happened to be done at the very end of the 90-
day eval period for the neural net software," fish says.

So to keep it running, the day after the backup, the consultant turns
the workstation's clock back three months.

As a result, all changes on the project after that last full backup
get a time-stamp that's earlier than the time-stamp on the full backup.

So when the configuration management specialist runs his incremental
backups, nothing gets backed up.

"The backup routine scanned through all the directories, listing all
the files -- but not backing any up to tape, since all the changed
files were stamped with a date that was 'older' than the last full
backup," says fish.

And because the consultant keeps turning the clock back, the
workstation's clock never again gets to the date of the last full backup.

"The CM specialist never checked the incremental tapes or the backup
log," says fish. "Otherwise he would have discovered the incremental
tapes were all blank."


_____________________________________________________________

Can't get enough Tank?

Check out other bite-sized bits of humor, rumors, gossip and fun at
The Sharkives:

http://www.computerworld.com/sharky
_____________________________________________________________


CLUELESS CONSULTANTS?
---------------------
Bungling bosses? Useless users? Tell me your tale:
Bungling bosses? Useless users? Tell me your tale:
sharky AT computerworld DOT com

If it gets printed, you get a sharp Shark shirt.


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