Re: Looks Like The Party Is Over In Menlo (2nd try)

From: "smooth1" <smooth1@iclway.co.uk> > >Obnoxio The Clown wrote in message <8nb3in$qb4$1@news.xmission.com>... > > > >From: "smooth1" <smooth1@iclway.co.uk> > >> > >>Obnoxio The Clown wrote in message <8n8ddm$8g6$1@news.xmission.com>... > >> >> Hence, my backups are corrupt, I can't handle crashes, kill errant > >> >> users and I won't know about corruption until someone spots > >> >> that the system is producing crap data (if this gets spotted at > >>all!). > >> >> > >> >> SE is out of data in terms of data integrity and should be dropped > >> >> in favour of IDS Workgroup Edition. > >> > > >> >That's all fine and dandy, David, but what about small sites who can't > >> >afford a DBA and just want a simple database platform? > >> > > >> > >> Why does online need a DBA? You can > >> > >> automate start and shutdown > >> automate backups with onbar and ISM. > > > >And you can automate the price difference, too? Is there anybody out >there, > >please tell me if there is, who has a totally hands off IDS instance? >I've > >*never* seen one, and I've seen plenty of IDS sites, believe me. > > > >> If online panics then that is only to stop data corruption. > >> > >> Are you saying it is ok for your customer to have undetected > >> corrupt data? > > > >Oh, come on, David. > > Come on? I have seen this happen several times. Just ask a > collegue who I left repairing a SE database at 6pm and who > called me at home at 4am to say our servers were rebooting > for backups and he was losing his connection to the customer! Maybe you need to choose your colleagues more carefully. :0) I've never seen or had this kind of pain with SE. I've had hefty bchecks, sure (I grew up with SE on Xenix, I defy you to name a less stable OS [excluding MS]!!) But even with that, I never lost data. And why can't a bcheck run unattended anyway? You can output the messages to a file and look at them tomorrow. > >> Please let me know the names of the customer for whom this is ok > >> and I'll pass onto them the good news. > > > >OK, smarty pants. Now they have an AF. Now what do they do? And how long > > Reboot the machine which will run the vendor supplied script to > automatically start online. Yeah? And then what? Would you just assume the AF is OK, it doesn't need any checking out? No. You're a bright and conscientious chap. You'd dial in to examine the AF to see whether it can be ignored or not. But you're not there, and there's a PFY who's fresh out of college on the support line tonight, and what's he going to do? >, If the online server fails to start then > > THEY HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM AND PROBABLE DATA > CORRUPTION Even if the server comes online, there might still be A SERIOUS PROBLEM AND PROBABLE DATA CORRUPTION. Or can I just ignore those oncheck commands in the af log? > So they should run a server which will ignore this and carry on > running, accessing corrupt data? No. I never said they should. But I've had far more entertainment value out of AFs and OnLine in general than I have out of SE. It's not perfect, and I have spent the odd weekend bchecking, I won't deny it. But I've spent far more weekends picking up the pieces of OnLine sites, I (and my customers) have put far more effort into maintaining IDS sites than SE sites. IDS is *never* hands off. > They can either call the vendor or call informix who can > dail-in to fix it > > 50 pound for a modem, use any spare phone line. Sure. Call the vendor. What's easier, a) the three hours trying to get the dial up working because the customer's forgotten which broom cupboard he's stuck the modem in (which is different from the one where the modem *cable* is), then checking whether the AF is something to worry about or not, possibly involving Informix; or b) telling him 1. Login as informix 2. cd /path/yourdb.dbs 3. bcheck -y *.idx > >will they be down for without an inhouse DBA? > > As long as a reboot takes or as long as it takes the Informix > system down team to fix it. But you've got to make sure the AF didn't corrupt anything. That means you still have to check the af log, and potentially you're going to have to run an oncheck anyway! :-) Well, it's funny. Like I said, I've seen plenty of sites, some of them disturbingly wealthy and substantial, and they've run SE for years and years without any of the pain you've experienced. It's a stupid and pointless argument anyway. I'm by no means saying that SE should be the first choice for every new site, but the bottom line is that for many sites, it is a far better solution than either IDS or WE. I've had my share of all of the above over the years, and that's my opinion. You can shout and do naked handstands (please!) and anything else, you won't change my mind. Clearly, I can do the same (please no!!) and it won't affect your opinion. I know I'm in some good company here, so I'm content with that. I just don't want any newbies out there to think that there's only one opinion on this issue. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com