c0t0d0s0.org

This is another artitcle of the kind i do not really understand: FAA: Sun box disk failure caused NOTAM database crash. What do you think, when you read this article at first: Sun can´t develop storage? Bad, bad Sun ? Well, the cursory observer might think that.

But at the end it´s a story about the stuff, why Sun develops stuff like ZFS. It´s just doesn´t told this way. It´s a story of undetected silent data corruption, transmission of the data corruption to the backup system, the problem of damages/power outages while updating the data on the harddisks:

"What happened was the drive in an end-of-life Sun box failed in the middle of updating the information on the hard drive, so it screwed up the database," Davis said.

and

As the technicians were working to fix the database, they decided to go to the backup system. As they did that, they soon realized they had written the error over to the backup system and had corrupted that system as well, Davis said.

It sound like a perfect example why the industry needs a filesystem like ZFS. Harddisks fails, that is inevitable, and mostly they do not fail without a last scream. And that is independend of the brand of harddisks or the storage vendor.

So ... dear Computerworld, would you mind to use a less lurid headline next time?

Man sagt, das die Strecken des Luftverkehr die Blutbahnen in einer globalisierten Welt sind. Wenn man sich das Video von Aaron Koblin anguckt, kann man nur sagen: Kommt hin. Ich fühle mich ständig an einen lebenden Organismus erinnert.