Date: Sat, 22 May 1999 10:50:53 -0700
Reply-To: David Marshall <vanagon@VOLKSWAGEN.ORG>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: David Marshall <vanagon@VOLKSWAGEN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Gerry is ill - suggestions for a server upgrade
In-Reply-To: <278a1b2a.2477f33e@aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
At 07:47 22/05/1999 EDT, David Priemer wrote:
>I do not claim to be an expert in any field but I do like my job as a PC
>Tech. (better than any other job that I have had) and have been doing it
>since the TRS-80's and 8088's (back in 1985-86) along with some progaming
>(some progams are still in business use today).
>
>We have been able to solve many problems with NT by applying the service paks
>from Microsoft and in some cases cause more or new problems with the same.
SP3 is on Gerry, SP4 is *known* to be buggy and SP5 is just out - I'm not
trying it first!
>In playing with NT5 we have found it to be buggy and therefore have not
>applied the upgrades to our customers systems yet. We have however been
>successfull in fixing many of Nt's querks by applieng the different service
>paks that are available for NT4.
NT5 is still Beta - why would you even *think* of introducing it to your
customers. Where I work we use NT 4.0 exclusivly on our network and our
customers networks. SP3 is the highest service pack we are using. *ALL*
of these servers are rock solid and do not give us problems what so ever.
Service packs arn't the only answer to a buggy Windows NT install. Part of
the reason why Gerry is so wonkey is there have probably been dozens of
people working on it before I got involved. I am a *firm* believer in "If
it works, don't fix it" this is the reason for our NT4 servers going so
well. They work and we leave them along, yes some of them only have IE3
installed on them - big deal!
>As you probably know, NT3 is not and will not be Y2k compliant. Many of our
>customers want to go from NT3 to NT5 but at this point we are advising
>against it as there are no official service paks available for the version.
There are no service packs available for NT5 as it isn't released yet!
>As far as hardware goes, I agree at keeping cost down and in most cases (in
>my experience anyway) when being advised to replace the entire hardware
>system you are talking with someone who is or was a sales person after a
>comission or bonus of some sort and they are still running in that sales
>person mode (just because it costs more does not mean that it is better).
I get NOTHING from the "sale" of a new server.
>My personal opinion is to assess the customers neeeds/goals and determine if
>the hardware/software is suffecient to perform the task to meet those needs
>and goals.
Done.
>In many cases a memory upgrade and hard drive upgrade (ecspecaily when
>replacing an old hard drive with a slow access rate) and operating system
>tweaking as all that is needed (usualy less than a 1/4th of the cost of a
>complete hardware replacement along with data transfer from old to new pc). I
>have had many customers call me a couple of days after getting their PC's
>back all happy and excited about the gained speed and reliability of their
>computer (this is my greatest award).
I agree, but, the HP Vectra is full as a tick no room for upgrades.
>So, for the record, my opinion is:
>"Gerry", who has realy been doing pretty good with all things considerd,
>would benefit from a RAM and HDD upgrade along with some OS tweaking. If
>"Gerrys" current HDD access rate is greater than 14ms then I would recommend
>replacing it with a faster drive.
>If the partition is still FAT16 and the OS is NT4 then I would go to FAT32
>(some programs will not run in FAT32 so this has to be checked as well).
For the record, Gerry works, "sort of" and I'm am willing to leave it that
way until dooms day if I didn't feel there was a concern. At ABC
Communications we are a firm believer that the customers data come first
over all other things. I think everyone would agree that if ABC was to
burn down tomorrow and take Gerry with it, we would all be devistated as we
would be without our data. So, in order to get our data safe, there are
some things that have to be done. Second of all for the record, I am not
going to do messive hacking on Gerry as there is a good deal that I don't
understand about the ListServ software. *I DON'T WANT TO LOSE ANY DATA* .
There is a two fold reason for a new server:
- First, it needs to be faster for the HTML searches, some people have
brought up the fact that the email searching works fine. I bet anyone $100
that less than 10% of the list members can do an email search or even would
want to learn. It is a web world and people want to use this style of
interface (non-members).
- Second when the server arrives, I can do a fresh install of NT and
ListServ on the new server and transfer the data over, leaving everything
on Gerry the way it was. This has several benafits, nothing changes on
Gerry and nothing gets deleted (data is safe). If the new server fails for
some reason, we have a backup server (data is safe).
Now, at this point, I agree that I am not the absolute best person to do
this job. The last thing I want is to be know and the freak who killed the
Vanagon list - so I am being cautious as possible. If anyone want to take
the responciblity of Gerry and the Vanagon list you are more than welcome
to it.
>
>In a message dated 05/21/1999 7:46:11 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>sullivan@OPENMARKET.COM writes:
>
><< The reason NT Server runs out of virtual memory is that IIS and other
>services have known memory leaks -- no amount of memory upgrades will
>eliminate these kind of crashes -- only delay them. I believe IIS4 is better
>than IIS3, but much of it depends upon careful "tweaking" of the system and
>not just adding more/better hardware. One way to "tweak" is to
>eliminate/reduce any unnessary services (such as FTP, gopher, etc.).
>
>
> I agree with a second drive. However, I'm always skeptical when some
>"expert" (and every company is full of them) recommends a complete new system
>to solve a problem. And please don't explain to me his credentials -- I'm
>sure they are extraordinary. It just that if you ask ten "experts" you'll get
>ten different answers.
>
>
> And clearly one of the (many) solutions is simply to add another hard disk,
>tweak the sytem to eliminate the memory leaks, and keep the costs down.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> MJS >>
>
>
-- David Marshall - Vanagon List Admin - Quesnel, BC, Canada --
-- 78 VW Rabbit, 80 VW Caddy, 84 VW Westie, 85 VW Cabriolet --
-- 87 Audi 5000 Quattro, 88 2.0L VW Syncro Double Cab --
-- David's Volkswagen Home Page http://www.volkswagen.org --
-- Fast Forward Autobahn Sport Tuning http://www.fastforward.ca --
-- david@volkswagen.org (pmail) or vanagon@volkswagen.org (list) --
