🚀 go-pugleaf

Bernd "Bernie" Meyer (root@wombat.hanse.de) wrote:
: dons@olympus.net (Don Schmelling) writes:
: 
: b) If you came to my place and would look at the computer, you'd not hear a
: harddisk (spins down after 1 minute idle), not see a power light (they are
: just annoying bits of light, and I sleep in the same room, so they are not
: attached) and hear no fan (it's a regulated Papst fan, very very silent, see
: above). If that made you flip the switch, you'd be in a lot of trouble!
I would still be able to tell.
: 
: c) look at your average Workstation in a computer room. It often doesn't
: have any lights, or these are well hidden behind some panel. There are many
: machiens around all making a humming, nearly unlocatable noise. Hard to tell
: whether they are on or off
The average Workstation in data centers I have visisted everything was in
plain sight.
: 
: d) Accidentally switching _off_ a workstation is a very bad idea. in the
: best of cases, it just takes a long time to come up again. Worse cases
: involve the sudden killing of long running background processes, potentially
: in the middle of a disk write. Worst case is filesystem corruption leading
: to massive data loss. And that's from someone who knows --- now what horrors
: do you think a _user_ might imagine?
This is laughable.  I have been in too many data centers to listen to this...
You really didn't have to go through all of this stuff, I am aware of the
potential dangers.
: 
: A power switch which, for reasons of American regulations about the distance
: of the point there power goes into a machine and the point where it is
: switched, is often located on the back of the machine. A power switch which
: rarely is labelled at all (or at all visible), and which sometimes is
: miswired. 
This could be a potential problem for an absolute beginer.  But as I recall
everything was in plain sight.
: 
: _Of course_ a computer needs power. But
: a) The user might never have seen a power switch
: b) The user might not consider himself permitted to flip said powerswitch.
It was impossible to miss.
I can see where point b) would be a good argument, but in this case we were
talking about TRS-80 computers in 1988.  Not exactly a huge investment.
: 
: Point b) above is not as dumb as it may sound --- in large installations,
: there are only few with turn-on rights. This is to prevent accidents due to
: lack of communication. The same with turn-off rights --- the system might
: not react to keyboard or mouse actions anymore, but there is a good chance
: the supervisor has some idea on how to get it down gracefully. If not, there
: is a good chance he wants to take a look at some status information
: available on or in the machine.
I would never call point b) dumb, I have been in too many data centers, to
blow this off.

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Don Schmelling   Port Angeles, WA USA
    A1200/540/CD + A1230 50/50/8
           OMNIA EXTARES
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