Re: Trusty UPS's...
Some people here seem to be a lot more idealistic than those of us who have "been there, done that" a few too many times.
I've often found the best cure for idealism is putting them in a RW environment where they have 6 days to complete a 5.9 day task, and tell them they have to twice do full outage tests as well as full backup/recovery tests in that time - hint that if the system works they'll lose a couple of hours, if it fails they'll at best lose a couple of days. Up to them when to test it, and hint it may not be noticed if one of the tests is missed.
The sort of time pressure that can be faced when dealing with business-critical systems and taking things off-line to test works wonders on idealist fantasies!
(Ok, was up till 4am banging my head against someone's IT problem (Christmas is paid for!), not at my best example making atm! :) Hope the concept that the 1-2 hours work I suggests 6 months ago would've saved them a packet if they'd implemented it then instead of giving me an urgent phone call during my relax time)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
