[rescue] Sun 5.7 disk partion juggling

[Michael A. Turner]

> 1. keep your job.  otherwise, you'll have to end up selling 
> the sparcs to buy 
> food.  you can still play with them while they are in production.

	The losing the job comment was more from the point of view that if
the users suddenly got a clue I would be less valuable. Since the chance of
this is approaching negative infinity I am not sweating that one much :-) .
	
> 2.  pose the "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" position to 
> them.  how may 
> years have they worked _just_fine_?  do they *really need* 
> some feature that 
> the existing (and already paid for) system doesn't provide?  

	The problem is that it is not working just fine anymore. When these
were put in place they were designed for several teachers to use and it was
96-97. When E-mail was still mainly text and attachments were rare.
	 Since then everything e-mail is bloated horribly and has lots of
attachments, Also a lot more people are now using E-mail at the schools and
that causes even more load. Then their are the E-mail viruses it is
cleaning. It is getting them but generating huge log files in doing so, much
larger than originally planned for. This is causing the slice to fill where
mail gear lives. I keep getting calls every couple of months to clean out
the logs and mail so it will start working again. I was hoping to fix this
with a little creative space moving, but only if it was feasible.
	The other big problem is that the software is no longer really being
supported by Symantec. These boxes went in with I-Gear (a net nanny type
software) and Mail-Gear (same for E-mail) on slow connections. Now things
have sped up and they want more. Unfortunately in that time Symantec bought
URlabs out to remove the competition so these products have been dying on
the vine. Software updates are few and far between. They dropped redhat
support because no one knew how. Solaris is in bad shape. Their NT offering
seems to work but damn it is NT. They are trying to push people to their new
other products and these sites are feeling it.

> 3. Are they ready for the Hidden Costs? (not only the new 
> hardware and 
> software, but also administrator training or hiring someone 
> conversant with 
> the software? interruption of workflow while transitioning to 
> the new system? 
> staff training costs associated with the new system and 
> features?  support 
> costs?) 

	The way they see it they have the same problem either direction. I
have to agree with them also. They need to replace the gear that they have
and upgrade. Unfortunately, like most IT shops they all speak windows. I can
throw them some help occasionally but I work for the internet provider, not
them and their servers. I am not sure they are up on all the hidden costs,
but it is also not my place to grill them on it. I can offer advice, I
cannot make the decisions. I see this a lot and have come to accept it in a
Taoist/Zen sort of way. 

> 4. explain that they're talking about replacing a system 
> which has proven 
> itself reliable for how many years?  with something *new* 
> which has how many 
> security holes in it?  sitting on top of an OS which is the 
> #1 target of 
> Viruses and Worms, and which by the recommendation of the 
> manufacturer needs 
> to be constantly updated and patched to remain secure.  and 
> any of those 
> security patches may break the software...  Anyone remember 
> NT4SP6 and what 
> it did to Bloated Notes (Lotus Notes)...

	Thinking about this made me come to a revelation where Sun may be
taking it in the butt on this. Take what I have been talking about as an
example. The local school systems (their are 13 we deal with in my area not
counting the private schools) bought these boxes many years ago when they
had enlightened managers and sysadmins. Many of these people left during the
Dot-com rush and cannot be found now. When the new people took over the suns
were sitting their, running smoothly and nobody took notice. It just worked.
Nobody touched them because they were like voodoo.
	They sat their. not getting updated, not getting managed until one
day something broke. Mail goes down and the manager who is in charge finds
themselves with a foreign system that they cannot understand. They end up
calling me because as their upstream provider of connectivity we must be
involved with their E-mail right? I dig around a bit, find the problem and
show it to them. I patch them up and then it happens again a couple of
months later. The manager calls me etc. etc. Rinse and repeat. 
	The point is that these managers are being introduced to sun in a
bad way. They are not aware of how long it ran without a problem, that it is
their lax management of E-mail policies that allowed users mailboxes to fill
the slices. All they know is that they are now at the mercy of something
that they don't understand and have no clue how to fix. Their first reaction
is to replace it with something that they do understand, even if it is buggy
and an abomination before god. 
	I have to wonder if my situation is unique? maybe this is something
sun should look at if it is affecting their market share. anyone else having
similar problems?

> 
> George



Michael A. Turner
Systems Engineer
WHRO
michael.turner at whro.org
http://www.whro.org