> I'm a lurker on this list but I have decided to come out of my shell for a moment. I
>a previous job I was the Oracle DBA for my development team. We had a persistent
>problem with Oracle corrupting the development database. Oracle had no idea with the
>problem was even after I sent them a copy of the data files. I eventually traced the
>problem to a flaky memory chip in the development database server. We replaced the
>chip, reinstalled Oracle and the problem went away.
I propose an addition to the MySQL manual in order
to promote general good sys adminlyness.
A good way to weed out these problems early and with
minimal grief is by stress testing a server before
it is ever purposed.
Most people try to develop their own stress test schemes. Don't
bother, there's a very good one out there called CTCS. I believe
VA Linux developed it in-house to stress test servers that they
had just built for customers.
After running CTCS on 7 x86 servers we recently received (NOT
from VA Linux), we discovered 2 of them had bad RAM, and one of
them had a faulty RAID controller(!). The disturbing part is
these machines appeared perfectly functional, even held up
under high load for weeks sometimes before crashing. If I hadn't
found CTCS when I did our agony probably would have been far
more prolonged.
We learned our lesson. Now it's policy that machines must
stand 48 hours of CTCS before being put into any role at all.
Presumbably your vendors do this too, but its a good idea to
do it after UPS hands you the box too, for reasons that
should be obvious.
--
Michael Bacarella | Netgraft Corp
| 545 Eighth Ave #401
Systems Analysis | New York, NY 10018
Technical Support | 212 946-1038 | 917 670-6982
Managed Services | http://netgraft.com/
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