Prometheus wrote:
On Wed, 25 May 2005 15:55:40 -0400, Odinn
wrote:


UNIX rules!!!


I've got one Linux box that has an uptime of (checks) 1004 days.


Longest I have up is 419 days, FreeBSD, and only because of a major
power outtage (UPS couldn't last 13 hrs). Prior to that, it had a 642
day uptime.


All right, I know you Linux guys are going to blink a couple of times
and scratch your heads, wondering how I could even think to ask such a
thing, but why one Earth would you care how long the computer has been
running continously? I know mine has been on for a couple of months
(Win2000 professional) but I can't imagine keeping track of the number
of days, or even really caring if it got shut off for a while (it just
stays on because I'm sort of lazy, and I figure the cancer-research
screensaver can use it when I'm otherwise occupied). What are you
doing, trying to find the zillionth decimal place of PI with a 486 or
something equally odd?


Since the company I work for writes (and hosts) online banking. Uptime
is critical. Banks want 5-9s of uptime (that's 99.999% uptime for those
who don't know what 5-9s is), which is about 300 seconds of downtime per
year. Having a system that requires a reboot every month is
detrimental. Our applications and web servers are redundant, so we can
shut down one to upgrade it while the others take the load, but it's
much more difficult with database servers. You need something that is
stable and not very vulnerable, plus tons of security controls
(firewalls, ACLs, PKI, IPSec, etc) to limit access to any possible
vulnerabilities.

--
Odinn
RCOS #7

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worshipped anything but himself." -- Sir Richard Francis Burton

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