Esther Schindler made the following keystrokes: >Why hadn't they upgraded or changed, in all that time? > >"If it works don't fix it" makes sense for a while. But then you slide >down the other side of the adoption curve -- especially when it's part >of your infrastructure or the company really depends on it. That poor >guy with the Novell servers knew he couldn't get any kind of modern >software to back up those systems.
A long time ago, in a machine room that should have been in a galaxy far far away.. There was a lowly IBM Model 30 running a very custom accounting package. This handled payroll, purchasing, bookkeeping, .... Unfortunately that machine room was in a even older quanset hut that wasn't expected to fall down years earlier. So, it's time to move it. That would be impossible. The machine, connectors, etc were all too fragil. The raccoons making a den under the machine room floor didn't help. What to do... Checking the books it's found there is a Model 30 emulator that will run on the Model 75 located in the much newer computer room. Granted this machine is old as well, but it will do the job. It even gets the job done faster since the base machine is so much faster. Everyone's happy. Time marches on. Til.... It's now to the point the Model 75 needs to be shut down. So time to look into options... Since that first kludge worked so well, lets bump this up to the Model 195. Oddly the 195 running a M-70 emulator that runs the M-30 emulator running the accounting package is still faster. Pressure releaved, there IS a solution... Time STILL marches on. The 75 move out and a IBM Model 3033 is installed. Now it's time for the 195 to be removed to make room for a Cray. It does not take a psychic to see the next step. Yes there is a 195 emulator that runs on the 3033. Fortunately there isn't a 3033 emulator to run on a Cray. The real problem is that as time marched on, few of the original staff that knew how the accounting package really worked were around. Changes were needed, as they always are. It finally came to the tipping point that it was now to expensive to continuue to attempt to update this software and it's time to move to something supported/supportable. That was many years ago, but a real good example of if it's not broke... --Gene _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list Discuss@lists.lopsa.org https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators http://lopsa.org/
