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Changing the Oil In Your Server
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Changing the Oil In Your Server
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Andy Warren
Andy Warren
Posted Tuesday, June 28, 2011 9:20 PM
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Changing the Oil In Your Server
Andy
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Post #1133380
opc.three
opc.three
Posted Tuesday, June 28, 2011 11:12 PM
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You highlight a sad but true fact about technical managers.
Does your organization give you the time and tools to keep your systems operating?
I have found that for the most part this time has to be dovetailed onto revenue-generating projects. "Oil Changes" do not typically make it out of quarterly planning meetings.
Or at you still trying to sell them on the value of changing the oil?
Sometimes I think organizations hurtle through space with no real idea that they're ignoring basic preventive maintenance on their systems. The ones that get by despite themselves only get more arrogant over time...my all-time favorite is "It supports the business and we don't have the time for that."
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Post #1133393
cfradenburg
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Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011 6:50 AM
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To the extent it doesn't require additional money, yes. The existing DBA only had time to keep up with things but was able to make sure reindexing was done properly and so on. When I joined we were able to revamp processes to make things smoother. We have a number of memory bound servers but haven't pushed to get memory added to those yet. We've been following up on enough other stuff we're not sure if users are unhappy with the performance on those boxes yet.
Post #1133682
GSquared
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Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011 6:58 AM
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Every place I've worked, I've been given the tools I need to keep the databases running, and the time to do it.
Management hasn't understood the details of what's been needed, but they've understood that the whole reason they hired me was because I do know those details, and they don't want to be bothered with them. They just want me to "go do that voodoo that you do so well!"
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Post #1133692
Eric M Russell
Eric M Russell
Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011 7:30 AM
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Rebuild an index? What's wrong with it? Why didn't you do it right the first time?
"Changing the oil" is a good analogy for rebuilding the indexes, because indexes are something that keeps the database running smoothly, but they also degrade over time as a result of writes and have to be replaced eventually. However, there are design decisions on the part of the DBA or developer that can cause indexes to fragment quickly and require frequent maintenance.
"Wise people understand the 10,000 things without going to each one.
They know them without having to look at each one,
and they transform all without acting on each one." - The Tao Te Ching: Verse 47
Post #1133724
Ron Porter
Ron Porter
Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011 7:59 AM
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This is an excellent analogy and I'm going to use it during my next push to get time and tools for various kinds of scheduled maintenance on our systems.
When I started in this business, I worked for a guy who was very big on scheduled maintenance for the hardware and software. I took it in stride because my background in trucking and railroading had already made scheduled maintenance just a part of doing business. Sadly, I've not worked for anybody like that since, even when scheduled maintenance is accepted as critical in other parts of the business.
Post #1133747
jay-h
jay-h
Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011 8:19 AM
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I'm going to milk this analogy further.
Everything has a cost, so a proper metric is required. Fleet owners have known for years that the manufacturer's oil change recommendations were fairly conservative based on guesses of service conditions, so a lot of oil and labor was wasted. They have moved to evidence based maintenance using oil analysis, not mileage or calendar, determining when service is necessary.
The precautionary principle is seductive, but can be very expensive. We need to use proper tools rather than guesswork to determine when maintenance is needed.
[I might add that when you can actually show (via tools) that an index is fragmented or other issue is occurring, you're much more likely to get organizational cooperation]
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
Post #1133763
Dalton Moore
Dalton Moore
Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011 8:23 AM
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For my experience, I have found that schedulling the maintenance is not the problem. It is actually getting people to do it. My company requires approval from many different parties to do any sort of maintenance on the servers and we are required to hold meetings and such and we can get a date but it always gets pushed back to months at a time...
Post #1133764
Charles Kincaid
Charles Kincaid
Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011 9:13 AM
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Good article and points well taken. I just could not resist:
Hopefully everyone reading this realizes that servers don't actually have oil,
Funny you should mention this. Not long ago I saw a demonstration of an oil cooled server. It was very overclocked and they did this as a more effective way than air cooling. The high contact ratio gave superior cooling. They used vegetable oil - which degraded rapidly over time. Even with the recycling costs and having to de-gunk things about once a year it looks to be cost effective.
The point is that whatever strange concept you might have there is bound to be somebody even stranger that will try it, and likely there is a group of strange folks who will make the damn thing work.
To the Brits FAB is Thunderbirds, to the Americans it's Fuel Air Bomb.
ATB
Charles Kincaid
Post #1133806
jay-h
jay-h
Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2011 9:17 AM
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Charles Kincaid (6/29/2011)
... Not long ago I saw a demonstration of an oil cooled server. It was very overclocked and they did this as a more effective way than air cooling. The high contact ratio gave superior cooling. They used vegetable oil - which degraded rapidly over time. .
Which brings the question why vegetable oil??? There are excellent cooling oils available (such as used to cool x-ray tubes) that will last the lifetime of the device. I wonder it this is an example of 'greenwashing'.
...
-- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers --
Post #1133813
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