Conference 44.370::system_management

121.0. "No weekend cover for ADG machines" by RDGE00::GARLAND (Howard GARLAND, ADG, 830-6287) Sat Feb 20 1988 11:03

	"Wot, no STOPIT?" I thought, as I logged in on this bright
	Saturday morning, when I got the LAT response of 'Service
	not currently availble".

	"Yep, STOPIT didn't reboot after the backups last night, and 
	there isn't weekend cover for it" was the response from I.S.
	Operations on 6060.

	Questioning further, I learnt that there is:

		NO WEEKEND COVER FOR ANY ADG MACHINES. 

	So, if you come in out of the goodness of your heart for a 
	little weekend work, and the machine is down, you ain't gonna
	be able to get it going.

	I can appreciate a response of "You shouldn't need to work at
	weekends, so why should ADG pay the maintenance costs", and in 
	principle I agree with that. However, many of us have found
	occasions when we really have needed to get something extra done, 
	and the weekend is the only opportunity.

	There are two purposes of this note:

	 1. To warn everyone else that they cannot rely on the 
	    machines being fixed during a weekend.

	 2. To ask that the backup for STOPIT is moved from Friday 
	    night to some other night (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or
	    Thursday), so that if it doesn't reboot, at least someone
	    will fix it immediately.
	    How about it, System Management?

	This note is not written out of anger, since I primarily need to 
	do some work on a GPX, and I can continue with that today...however,
	I think it might have been out of anger if I needed that big VAX to 
	work. 8-)

Howard

    If you want the backups moved to another night than I'll
    see if it can be accomodated in the IS ops work schedule. What's
    the feeling amongst the rest of the STOPIT's users??
    
    Regarding the "no cover at weekends" bit , IS ops and Networks don't
    provide weekend cover unless we ask for it (and pay for it).
    They did try and call me on Friday night after the reboot. However
    my trusty BT pheletone pager didn't register the message so I was
    unaware of the problem until this morning. 
    

    Stopit full backups will be done on Monday night's starting at 7pm
    as from Monday 7th March.
    
    Stopit will not shut down at 7pm on Friday 4th March - only incremental
    backups will be done.

    Great news.
    
    Thanks Jerry,
    
    Howard