July 2005

[30-Jul-2005]
Sitemaps:   I've just submitted a sitemap to Google. This is a pretty clever idea from the masters of search. If you construct an XML file containing your URLs and the date they were last updated, Google will know if it needs to spider them again, thus reducing bandwidth requirements for the general population on the net, and reducing CPU requirements for Google's server farm. Very clever. (65 words, 0 comments, 0 pings)

[29-Jul-2005]
System Administrator Appreciation Day:   Go on, appreciate us. (5 words, 0 comments, 0 pings)

[24-Jul-2005]
Site moved:   I've relocated this site to a new web host. If you can see this entry, you're talking to the new host. I got completely fed up with the previous host. Noone should have to put up with ancient versions of software like I did. I am sorting a few things out with the new host, so if you notice weirdness, please be a little patient. (65 words, 0 comments, 0 pings)

[22-Jul-2005]
Reconfiguring the GS160s:   Today, the GS160s that were freed up by the GS1280 cutover were reconfigured for the GS140 replacement. The two GS160s are being partitioned into three nodes each, and we will do a similar cutover to replace six GS140s that currently make up the "Production" cluster. (64 words, 0 comments, 0 pings)

[19-Jul-2005]
GS1280 performance:   Early indictions of a reasonable performance increase due to the new AlphaServers are starting to become apparent. (93 words, 0 comments, 0 pings)

[17-Jul-2005]
GS1280 cutover:   Today the AlphaServer GS1280s replaced the GS160s that have been the data warehouse cluster for the last couple of years. We encountered two problems, but neither of them were showstoppers. (245 words, 0 comments, 0 pings)

[15-Jul-2005]
Ready for cutover:   After jumping up and down to get some serial cabling and the network uplinks wired, we are ready to go live with the GS1280s on the weekend. I hope I've remembered everything... (32 words, 0 comments, 0 pings)

[07-Jul-2005]
More on the 8.2 crash:   Apparently the crash that I saw in 8.2 is caused by a very small timing window in $GETJPI, where the system service goes to get information about the process and the process is no longer there. Engineering tells me that the fix will be in the first UPDATE patch for 8.2 (or was it the first SYS patch? As I'm not running 8.2 I didn't write it down). (152 words, 0 comments, 0 pings)