Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 9
Transparencies | Hiding Common
Problems
\It's no good," Trevor said, shutting his laptop with an air of nality.
\We just can't meet the performance and availability targets with our current
server platform, and what's probably needed is some kind of nonstop platform
that would put us well outside our budget."
The four of them were struggling with resource plans in one of the small
meeting rooms. These rooms had been carved from the drawing oce when
the old dockside works had been converted as a home for cleaner, higher tech
activities. There were windows on both sides, now partly blocked by extra
whiteboards, but still looking down, to the left over the cubicles of the open
plan development area and to the right over what was now the repair lab,
shipping areas and stores. The skylights that used to illuminate the drawing
boards now showed the hurrying streamers of mares tails, orange in the setting
sun.
\Well," said Nigel, \what about sharing the load by replicating the logistics
server on independent platforms? We could put replicas at regional centres so
that no local service failure took everything out, and get better local response
at the same time." \Please," said Claire, bristling, \have you any idea how
much trouble we would have in coordinating and synchronizing those replicas?
Last time we tried to get our developers to produce a structure like that we lost
almost two months in test." \And ended up needing three platforms rather
than two to compensate for the extra cost, as I remember," added Trevor.
\Mind you, it would mean we could use the existing equipment, so it would
certainly be cheaper!"
\Hold on," said Alex, who had been listening quietly for some time. \You
don't want the application programmers involved in writing code to manage
replicas. That's too hard a job to want to do it more than once. What you need
is an infrastructure solution. Put it in the engineering view and then use it as
a generic service." Claire looked unconvinced. \But we would still need to get
the application people to pick the right style each time they call for an access;
any misunderstanding would result in chaos." \But remember what I told you
about using transformational tools. Don't worry about the accesses. Mark
the data objects that need special treatment and then use those markings
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