Posts by vikingivesterled

The biggest British Airways IT meltdown WTF: 200 systems in the critical path?

Re: It's about saving money

Not costing you money but the company, and hopefully by then you will have moved on to something better because you saved so much, so the failure will be somebody elses problem.

BA's 'global IT system failure' was due to 'power surge'

Re: Power spikes & surges

That would probably only be an issue when there is more prower produced than can be consumed. Meaning the island needs something that can instantly lead away, consume or absorb overproduced power, like a sizeable battery bank, water/pool heater or similar. Alternatively if it is not connected to the national grid, the base ac sync creating generator/device is not sufficiently advanced.

In fairness to Cruz he didn't specify what the, in laymans tems power surge in engineer terms voltage spikes, took out. It could have been sample non ups'd air-con's power supplies being destroyed and a lack of environmental alarms going to the right people leading to overheating before manual intervention. AC can also be notoriously difficult to fix quickly. I have myself used emergency blowers and toll out ducts to cool an airline's overheating data center, where the windows where sealed and unopenable to pass pressurized fire control tests.

Re: I do not get it.

Yes but; does it run a relational database, did it ever loose power in the middle of an upgrade and did the power ever come back in a set of surges that fried your power supply. That is why even your home computer should be protected by the cheapest of ups's.

Re: Very Old IT Person

Until, like in plumbing, the shit starts to fly, or in this case not fly.

It is the sad fact of electriccity. You can't power the same stuff from 2 different grids at the same time. Has something to do with how AC power alternates and the need of synchronization. Meaning all failure reactions are of a switch in nature. This is why you sometimes see a blink of the lights when the local grid to your door switches to a different source. And somtimes these switch-in's fail or several happen in a series leading to power surges and failed equipment.

Most airlines has a main data-center with a main database to ensure the seat you book is not already taken by somebody else booking through a different center. It is not like tomatoes where any tomato will do the job. You will not be happy if that specific seat on that specific plane on that specific flight you booked is occupied by that somebody else..

Re: The ol' corrupted backup

Backup's and DR testing never gave any manager a promotion. It is quite soulsucking to work on something for years and years that nobody up top ever notices, until if you are (un)lucky the one day it is needed. And then you'd probly get criticism for why the main system went down at all and why there was a short break in service, instead of a path on the back for how quick and easy it was restored thank's to your decade of quiet labouring to ensure it would.

Smart talkers steer well clear of it and work instead on sexy development projects that gives new income streams and bonuses, leaving DR to them with a conscience, who will be the first out the door when savings are looked for.