Off topic - Slow batch processing

[Glenn Steen]

On 27/04/07, Stephen Swaney <steve.swaney at fsl.com> wrote:
> > 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

LOL, thanks Steve... Really needed a good start on the day, and that did it:-).

Reminds me of a not that distant (approx.7 years) incident where we
took a not-that-new server out of storage, for doing some tests, and
it just didn't want to boot... Beeped a bit, but never got to begin
the POST at all...
Turned out that there wasn't any CPU under the meticulously replaced cooler...
If it had been something nice, one could have understood the act of
theft, but IIRC it was some P133 or similar, so why anyone would go to
all the trouble... This was back when it took some tinkering to get at
the HW, no snap on/off thingies, so the thief had to have been working
at it for at least 30-40 minutes...
As far as we know, the temp janitor (with keys to go _everywhere_) was
the culprit. 've always wondered who does the security check on people
like that (janitors, cleaners etc etc:-).

Cheers
-- 
-- Glenn
email: glenn < dot > steen < at > gmail < dot > com
work: glenn < dot > steen < at > ap1 < dot > se