RE: Hey Guys -Now backups

I tell my students that the #1 way to get fired in IT is to lose data due 
to no backups (seen it happen over a dozen times).

You can lose data from many more sources than a disk crash ...

Even for http://.www.ScoreBook.com , which is a high-volume 24x7 web site 
that we host on a Raid-5 equipped system, we do nightly application data 
backups (with the site still up) and weekly (3:00am Sunday) complete (save 
option 21) system backups (with the site down).

A lot of sites that say that they are 24X7 really aren't ... look at your 
server logs ... are you really 24X7?  How many visitors (not search 
engines) arrive at 2 - 4am ?

Do these people have big mortgages, small children, & NO INSURANCE? I doubt 
it!!!

John Myers
IBM Certified Specialist - AS/400 Technical Solutions
IBM Certified Specialist - Advisor for e-Business
Strategic Business Systems, Inc.
17 S. Franklin Turnpike, Ramsey, NJ 07446  USA
E-mail: mailto:jmyers@sbsusa.com   Phone: +1 (201) EASY 400   x131
Web:    http://www.sbsusa.com      Fax:   +1 (201) 327-6984

Free Sports League Management - Powered by AS/400
      http://www.ScoreBook.com

Get and route intelligence from your IBM AS/400 web site - WebSurvey/400
      http://www.WebSurvey400.com

At 04:32 PM 5/4/01, Stone, Brad V (TC) wrote:
>My system is hardly static.  then again, your definition of static and mine
>may be different, and we are probably on different pages anyway.
>
>Also, if you tell someone...
>
>"If we do not take the machine down for 1 hour a month to do backups, there
>could be BIG problems.  If the system goes down and you don't allow for
>these backups, you'll be down for good."
>
>And they say
>
>"I don't care.  No backups!!"
>
>You have 2 choices.
>
>1.  Don't do them, and at the first sign of fire, run.
>2.  Do the backups anyways, and see if they notice.  Then when a crash
>happens tell them "I told you so", but don't tell them you did backups.
>Then say "I can get your system back up in 1 hour for 500k or in 3 weeks for
>100k" and see which option they take.  They take option 1, you retire and
>look like a hero.  Because, those backups never existed.
>
>If you simply give up after hearing project requirement of "24/7" and don't
>discuss the pros and cons of doing backups, then you as a project
>manager/solution provider have failed.   I don't see what is so hard about
>understanding that.
>
>When someone asks me to jump, I don't so "how high".  I say "what is the
>benefit of jumping?"  and I get more respect (and self-respect) in the
>longrun for that than licking boots.
>
>Brad
>
>Brad
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Evan Harris [mailto:spanner@ihug.co.nz]
> > Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 2:42 PM
> > To: WEB400@midrange.com
> > Subject: RE: Hey Guys - people actually think that I know what I'm
> > talking about...
> >
> >
> > Brad
> >
> > Yes I was talking about more than just the data. User profiles, Hosts
> > tables, the whole shebang.
> >
> > Agreed you have to decide which is the lesser of two evils -
> > but sometimes
> > it is not your decision. It seems you are in the fortunate
> > position of
> > deciding at the moment
> >
> > It sound like the system is fairly static and not a lot
> > happens on it,
> > otherwise your approach would be somewhat more problematic.
> >
> > Regards
> > Evan Harris
> >
> > >Evan,
> > >
> > >You'll have to explain more what you are talking about.  I'm
> > talking data,
> > >it sounds like you're talking system settings, etc.
> > >
> > >Again, you need to decide which is the lesser of two evils.
> > Being down for
> > >an hour to do a system save once a month, or not being able
> > to restore if
> > >your machine crashes.  I choose the first.  No amount of
> > reasoning will be
> > >able to convince me that doing that one hour a month to do
> > backups is more
> > >important than the customer wanting 24/7 no matter what,
> > even if it means
> > >total disaster and the inability to get anything back.
> > >
> > >Of course, if the customer was so blind that they didn't
> > think of that, I
> > >would specifically put in my contract that they declined the
> > backup option
> > >and that any rebuilding of the system as a result of a crash would be
> > >charged triple time rates.
> > >
> > >Brad
> > >
> > >
> > > > Brad
> > > >
> > > > To be honest I meant a system rebuild :) If anyone still does
> > > > these these
> > > > days. I take it from your comments that the webserver is
> > > > easily rebuilt
> > > > somehow, and from that point of view, a recovery could be
> > > > accomplished
> > > > using scripts that rebuild things rather than restoring.
> > Recovery and
> > > > restore are not necessarily the same thing even though the
> > > > point is often
> > > > missed
> > >+---

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