Off topic - Slow batch processing

[Stephen Swaney]

> I found when I was running up a new MailScanner install on a machine
> with
> dual cpu's and not much ram, that my MailScanner processes just became
> defunct after a while. I could slow the process down by decreasing
> things
> like no. of children and the like, but the problem was instantly solved
> when
> I bumped the ram up. (We had some on order).
> 
> Seamus Allan
> Network Engineer
> Rheel Electronics Ltd

This reminds me of a story that is way off topic but some of you might need
a laff today.

Many years ago I worked for a large NY firm that had a overseas office. The
overseas office started having a problems with Sybase servers running
slowly. The Sybase experts? were called in and could not resolve the
problem. After a little over 30 days! someone noticed that there was very
little memory in the systems.

A check the data center access records, system reboots and data center
cameras showed that a contractor had been systematically removing memory
from many systems for LONG time. A check of the contractor's apartment found
a lot of memory and other kibbles and bits :(

Sometimes it not always a configuration or application problem :)

Best regards,

Steve

Steve Swaney
steve at fsl.com