How Reliable Is Your Server

scottalanmiller

@BRRABill said in How Reliable Is Your Server:

@scottalanmiller said

Outside of systems logging to the USBs dying, I really never run into them having problems.

Just for giggles, how much data do you think can be written to a USB drive before it kicks the bucket?

Like say you left logging on for some crazy reason.

How long would you feel "safe" using the USB?

Not very long. Totally not how they are meant to be used. Their utility is in being a write once, read many device. In fact, I'd recommend hitting that little lock option on the side if it is available.

BRRABill

@scottalanmiller said

Not very long. Totally not how they are meant to be used. Their utility is in being a write once, read many device. In fact, I'd recommend hitting that little lock option on the side if it is available.

Ooooh, the server really wouldn't like that!

scottalanmiller

This point just came up, again, on SW. SAN promoted not because SANs are reliable, but because servers must not be. This assumption drives so many recommendations, it's crazy.

dafyre

@scottalanmiller said in How Reliable Is Your Server:

This point just came up, again, on SW. SAN promoted not because SANs are reliable, but because servers must not be. This assumption drives so many recommendations, it's crazy.

As you had a hard time convincing me, originally... It's all about perception.

scottalanmiller

What's humorous in this one particular example, is that the server and SAN would come from the same vendor. Which is common. And someone asked the vendor to speak up. But the vendor is trapped. Because the question has to be framed as a relative safety concern and for an IPOD to be sensible the SAN must be orders of magnitude safer than the servers. Which means that the storage team would be forced to throw the server team (who makes their SANs for them) under the bus in order to sell the SAN, which in doing so would make their SANs look bad by being built by the very team that they just said could not make reliable gear.

I guarantee the vendor is going to stay out of it. Even if the servers were not reliable, they would not be in a position to say anything. But the servers are extremely reliable.

Carnival Boy

@BRRABill said in How Reliable Is Your Server:

I am more afraid of the software ON the server than the server itself.

Oh, and recently, USB boot devices.

Yeah, main causes of downtime:

Humans
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Hardware

I had a RAID controller fail on me on a fairly new Proliant recently. That wasn't nice. But HP said it was a firmware issue and upgraded the firmware. So even what I thought was a hardware failure was actually software - not that it makes any difference as the server is still down.

Basically, it seems that if it doesn't move, it doesn't fail.

travisdh1

@Carnival-Boy Software is written by humans, so couldn't we condense that down to?

Humans
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Hardware

scottalanmiller

@travisdh1 said in How Reliable Is Your Server:

@Carnival-Boy Software is written by humans, so couldn't we condense that down to?

Humans
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Hardware

But hardware is made by humans. So...

Humans.

travisdh1

@scottalanmiller said in How Reliable Is Your Server:

@travisdh1 said in How Reliable Is Your Server:

@Carnival-Boy Software is written by humans, so couldn't we condense that down to?

Humans
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Hardware

But hardware is made by humans. So...

Humans.

We have a winner!

scottalanmiller

@travisdh1 said in How Reliable Is Your Server:

@scottalanmiller said in How Reliable Is Your Server:

@travisdh1 said in How Reliable Is Your Server:

@Carnival-Boy Software is written by humans, so couldn't we condense that down to?

Humans
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.
.
.
.
.
.
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.
.
.
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Hardware

But hardware is made by humans. So...

Humans.

We have a winner!

Even humans are made by other humans. Meta human failure!

scottalanmiller

Adding in @HPEStorageGuy as we were discussing this exact topic a few minute ago on SW in another thread.