Wirt Atmar wrote:
>
> Patrick asks:
>
> > Comments?
>
> Seems reasonable to me.
>
> With hardware, you're more likely to screw things up royally when you're
> attempting to fix a small problem than at any other time.

Ok, Ok, so I'm finally reading really old mail I missed.  I agree with the
concept of the policy, just don't let it be taken to extreme.

Anyway, just wanted to throw out an experience with operations attempting
to run diagnostics on a tape drive during the middle of Fall registration.
Fall registration is the most critical system time for most Univesities.
Anyway, this was on a Series 48 with HPIB discs and tape drives.  Guess
what happened when the diagnostics were attempted?  The tape drive got
it's HPIB address reconfigured accidentally to the same as LDEV 1 and the
system hung.  Not a good thing during the middle of registration.  We
adopted a policy after that that any "elective" testing or repair work
would not be done during critical periods like registratin.

>
> Heck, even with software, you're more likely to screw things up royally when
> you're attempting to fix a small problem than at any other time.
>
> Wirt Atmar


--
Richard L Gambrell
Database Administrator and
Consultant to Computing Services at UTC

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