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Archives for June 2006

The power of Raid

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So the other week I was in the datacenter doing a routine check on one of our servers, and I noticed that Chimera (our MySQL server) had a blinking orange light on it, and it was making this *beep beep beep* noise.  Great!   The Raid array has failed, or possibly the hard drive.

Well it doesn’t really matter now, because I’m at the datacenter again preparing to fix this problem.

Thankfully, we use RAID.  RAID stands for a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (some claim the I stands for independent).  In particular, this server runs RAID 1, or mirroring.  That means that it has 2 hard drives, and one mirrors the other in real time, so both drives contain the exact same data.

This is a good thing, because in the case that the hard drive is actually bad, I just call up Dell, they send me a new hard drive, and I re-image the array off the good disk.  But hopefully the case is that the array just broke it’s sync, and I just need to rebuild it.  In any case, it means I have to take our database server offline to do this process, which means thousands of databases for our shared hosting customers are going to be offline for a wee bit.

I feel really bad about this, because it means that they will have an interruption of service, but then again, they are only paying $10/mo to share a server cluster with hundreds of other customers.  This kind of stuff comes with the territory.  Unlike our major dedicated server customers who have their own database servers and redunant load balancers etc.  Then again, they are paying hundreds of dollars per month for the assurance that they will not have an outage.

This is a little off topic, but as I’m sitting in the datacenter here backing up the server before this process (in case we need to do a bare-bones re-install), a centipede like bug just ran across the floor from under the rack.  I think I need to tell the DC techs that there are bugs in the datacenter.

Anyways, the main point of this little tirade is that any reputable web host will have redundancy built into their system for cases like this.  Modern hardware and computer equipment is not infallible, rather it is quite fallible and will break or fail at some point.  The key is to know what you are going to do when it happens, and what you are going to do to minimize the situation with pre-planning.

Possibly deployment any time now

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I just got a call from Jay, one of my clients, that we built a rapid deployable emercency communications system for.  It looks like there is a 90% probability of being called out to deployment within the next few days.  If we are deployed, it means I get to pack my bags and head to Wyoming.  So right now I’m scrambling to make sure everything is all set with the system so we can get out there and it works.

I’m excited about this, I had a blast last summer when we deployed the system at the Alpine Lake fire, so I’m looking forward to this now.  The only downfall is that my friend Will is getting married the 24th of June, and I wanted to go to his wedding.  It also means that I’ll be away from Melanie and my son for a while.

On my to-do list.

  • Complete the startup page for the system’s intranet
  • Make sure all components in the system are functional
  • Do laundry, pack a suitcase
  • Reconcile my bank statements and get as caught up in my billing as possible
  • Quick test my remote access capabilities to the office, so I can still get work done on the road.  (Remote desktop is going to be a pain through the satellite)
  • Pick up another TV series on DVD to watch

Well, back to work!

Paintball Fun

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So tonight is Monday. That means Monday night paintball at Pastor Jeff’s house.  Jeff has 20 acres of land up on McQuade rd off of HWY 61 north of Duluth.  Every Monday, a bunch of people get together there and play paintball in his woods.  Tonight, we had about 20 guys, so we had some good sized teams.

During the 3rd game (capture the flag), I was defending our flag.  I was hiding behind it up on a small ridge, shooting down through the trees at the opposing team as they were rushing for the flag.  One of them got a lucky shot and hit me in the face.  Everyone thought it was a Kodak moment, so I grabbed my phone and had some pics snapped.

The ball hit me right in the mouth area, and splattered on through my cheek.  I still have a faint paintball aftertaste.    It definitely was a fun time tonight, I look forward to next week!

Segway Police!

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Well the other day I was walking to work, and I saw a Duluth Police Officer riding down the street on a segway. I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of it at the time, but luckily, when I was leaving work, I saw an officer on the segway again. So I whipped out my phone and took a picture. Well, I thought I did, instead, I ended up taking a short video clip.

Why does the Duluth Police Department waste money on Segways for their officers to ride around on? I have a lot of respect for our police force, but with the city facing bankruptcy, why do they waste money like this? I’d rather see the police riding around on bicycles than segways.

Although I do think that it is an interesting idea, and I look forward to snapping more pics & vids of the segways when I get the chance.

What goes around comes around…

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I came across this site today : http://www.evanwashere.com/StolenSidekick/ where this guy is telling the world about how his friend’s sidekick was stolen, and he is shaming them into apologizing and giving it back.

I like what this guy is doing, he is standing up for his beliefs, and making a public example of a group of people without moral conscience. I hope that his friend gets her sidekick back, and I hope the people involved each learn their lesson. I also think that it’s nice to see he’s not using all this publicity to make a buck. Heck, I’d probably put adsense or yahoo publisher network on there if I was doing that, just to recoup some of the bandwidth costs.

As of now, it looks like he’s gone through a couple different hosts to host a forum for people to chat on, and they’ve all crashed. I’m going to contact him and see if he’d be interested in giving it one more go with a forum, since I do have a couple dual xeons that are not active right now (although they are earmarked for another client, they are not yet in use). And from the looks of it, the other hosts had set up phpBB2, while I would set up punbb. And use a separate dedicated mysql server.

We’ll see. Hats off to Evan!