What can the IT people do if the management refuses to invest ? Or how could they test the new softwares effectively with the very old hardwares. ( I am a nobody in Tech )

Initially the CEO blames it on IT people, as to cover himself.

This post has been edited by SKY 1809: Jul 7 2008, 08:43 AM

my god the K-series, i see this system only once in one of my previous company DR site, even the S-series is consider a old machine.


They have quite a large budget for IT about 60 million a year, why is this not done earlier?

This post has been edited by robertngo: Jul 6 2008, 06:54 PM

If I'm not mistaken, each K-Series processor has only a max of 128 MB memory... even my PC has more processing power and memory

this server is not about speed, it is about ensuring the integrity of every transaction, a process is executed on two CPU on the same time, if one CPU is down, the process can still complete on the other CPU. This design make nonstop server very suitable to financial transaction where the integrity of the processing result is more important that the speed. That said, they really should have upgraded the server years ago, who is the one that approved the plan to keep running their critical trading system on a obsolete platform.

I'll give you an example for you to compare for you to see why your reasoning here isn't very accurate.

At one of my client's place, their old billing system runs on a Digital Alpha machine, and is right now, 12 years old. It still runs perfectly for the purpose that it needs to have. And they're still making use of it right now for their secondary market, as they do not trust their new system to be able to handle multiple markets.

Now, the new system runs off a HP SuperDome, with all the high spec stuff and so forth, but the stability of the system is something that really constantly gives the support ppl sleepless nights. There's nothing wrong with the hardware, but its the software part that they do not trust.

This is a rather good example that such hardware despite being old can still very much run properly without any issues. Don't forget that these are not PC quality hardware which you can expect stuff to start breaking down after 2-3 years.

To put it in layman terms in regards to the hardware specs: I had visited my aunt's office once a few years back, and there's this PC there that's still a 486. But surprise surprise, Microsoft Word 6.0 on Windows 3.1 running on that 486 is still faster than Microsoft Word 2003 running on Windows XP, on a Pentium IV. It is for that reason why they've not have the need to upgrade or replace that PC as yet, unless it breaks down on them.

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Added on July 7, 2008, 12:13 amWell, such systems tends to be rather customized, as well as certified only to certain ranges of hardware. To get new hardware will require a re-certification of the old system for the new hardware, of which the cost will be difficult for them to justify should they be planning an upgrade of the entire system. In a way, the delays in the rollouts of the new system can also be partly to blame for this.

This post has been edited by fyire: Jul 7 2008, 01:34 AM

They are changing to a new trading system together with new hardware soon, the project cost like 60+ million, let hope they will have disaster recovery plan work out properly this time.

robertngo,

If I am NOT mistaken, each process is executed on 3 CPUs. The result is voted on the egress where the majority wins. If one CPU is different than the other 2, it is voted out and detected to be faulty.

<<it is about ensuring the integrity of every transaction>>

You CANNOT ensure the integrity of every transaction with ONLY 2 CPUs. You need at least 3 CPUs to do that. With ONLY 2 CPUs, if the results are different, you cannot tell which CPU has the correct result.

<<That said, they really should have upgraded the server years ago, who is the one that approved the plan to keep running their critical trading system on a obsolete platform.>>

What does that tell you about the Bursa IT system?? It is an OLD system. It should have VERY STABLE process and procedure to handle disaster recovery. People have more than 10 years to work out the problems. But, they cannot do it. So, what makes you think the NEW system with LESS TIME to work out the process and procedure will be BETTER??

It is the PEOPLE that make the system succeed or fail.

Dreamer

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein

This post has been edited by dreamer101: Jul 7 2008, 05:02 AM

this is true for the new NonStops that run on Itanium. The old NonStops have only 2 cpus that run in lock step.