Downtime

Tom Dunne

unkel wrote:

Who said anything about paying someone? There are hundreds of people that moderate boards.ie 24/7 for free. There are plenty of people out there that would be honoured to be given the great responsibility to keep boards.ie up

Surely issues like security, physical access, etc. can be overcome?

While I admire your enthusiasm, have you ever done 24 hour support? I am in no way getting at you, don't get me wrong, but I am just wondering if you know the practicalities of supporting something, especially out of hours.

Moderating and providing systems support are very different beasts.

The biggest thing is as you mention physical access. Do you think Digiweb will allow a non-employee access to their crown jewels (their data center) unsupervised at 4:00am? Not in a million years. And if they did allow supervised access, I am sure management would take issue with their employee engaging in non-business activities such as supervising a non-employee.

nesf

seamus wrote:

And most of those who do know how, would probably do it when it's not required

Exactly. Out of hours support to a site is not something that the vast majority of people know well enough for them to be realistically allowed to try and fix things unsupervised and people who have the experience to do it generally won't do it for free because they realise how much of a headache it can be. That's before all the hassle of people getting physical access to the equipment etc.

Gone West

unkel wrote:

With the greatest respect, regi, but

Obviously "greatest respect" is lip service.

unkel

tom dunne wrote:

Do you think Digiweb will allow a non-employee access to their crown jewels (their data center) unsupervised at 4:00am? Not in a million years

That's constructive criticism. Thanks Tom! Maybe some of regi's colleagues in work are on boards? They might volunteer to keep boards.ie up.

DeVore

unkel wrote:

That's constructive criticism. Thanks Tom! Maybe some of regi's colleagues in work are on boards? They might volunteer to keep boards.ie up.

You mean, like... um .. Asok.

DeV.

Sparky

unkel wrote:

With the greatest respect, regi, but boards.ie was down for 12 or 14 hours because your mobile was switched off? Maybe someone else could keep an eye out while you're not around?

Jesus so feckin what if boards went down for 12 hours! I'd understand your comment if this was an online bank.

Imagine if it went down again while regi and asok try to have a life...

mike65

*lightbulb moment*

Mike.

TimTim

tom dunne wrote:

The biggest thing is as you mention physical access. Do you think Digiweb will allow a non-employee access to their crown jewels (their data center) unsupervised at 4:00am? Not in a million years. And if they did allow supervised access, I am sure management would take issue with their employee engaging in non-business activities such as supervising a non-employee.

Physical access to servers is becoming less of a problem these days. You could get a server with a lights-out card in it or hook up a proper KVM to the machines
and throw in a APC remote power switch you'll never have to enter a DC 99% of the time.

And if worse did come to worse Digiweb have a 24/7 NOC on-site (according to their site) so you shouldn't have a major problem getting physical access.

Tom Dunne

TimTim wrote:

And if worse did come to worse Digiweb have a 24/7 NOC on-site (according to their site) so you shouldn't have a major problem getting physical access.

tom dunne wrote:

Do you think Digiweb will allow a non-employee access to their crown jewels (their data center) unsupervised at 4:00am? Not in a million years. And if they did allow supervised access, I am sure management would take issue with their employee engaging in non-business activities such as supervising a non-employee.

TimTim

tom dunne wrote:

While I can't be sure of the relationship between digiweb and boards, personally if it was me and managment took exception to me getting access to my hardware, I'd be finding a new DC to host my gear.

regi

One of the major reasons we (I work in Digiweb, in the hosting / datacentre team) have an on-site 24 hour NOC is to precisely cater for customers who want to work with their kit at 4am.

Terry

But not at 3am.

Sorry. Just had to throw that in there.
I know you all do your best to keep this place up to scratch and I persoanlly appreciate the work you put in.

passive

Hrm... What is the 3am thing, since Terry has slyly brought it up? why does a little piece of all of us die at that time? is it in any way related to Zombie outbreaks and the prevention thereof?

feylya

Nightly backup.

passive

feylya Nightly backup.

Impending Nightly backup... Sweet dreams all.