Re: maildir with softupdates

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• In reply to: Terry Lambert: "Re: maildir with softupdates"
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Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 09:12:39 -0400
To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>

Terry Lambert wrote:

<SNIP>

>>In reality, anything comes with a certain amount of risk, and that
>>statement is too vague to be useful.
>
> Sure; you also forgot terrorists blowing up the data center where
> you computer is housed, and a total collapse of the government in
> the country where it's located, leading to anarchy and looting of
> aluminum and copper from the wires that make up the power grid, in
> order to appease the god Trogdor The Burninator. 8-).

Ha! And I thought I was the only Strong Bad fan here!

<SNIP>

>>However ... even a sync mount can become corrupt in the event of
>>hardware failure, although it's much less likely.
>
> Yep; and don't forget those pesky Ebola victims exploding and shorting
> out the entire RAID array... ;^) ;^).

Yuk ... has this happened to you?

<SNIP>

>>So you need to determine the risk level you're willing to accept as
>>well as the performance you require. And you probably need to do more
>>research than accepting that one-line statement, as it's too vague to
>>properly describe the potential risk/benefits.
>
> It's always a question of risk. If the business is designed
> properly, what's actually happening is that you are betting your
> job vs. the risk involved, and hoping you win the bet. Some
> people are happy with paying craps for their money; others need
> a certain amount of security, and other want a government guarantee.
>
> For something like bet-your-business-it-works-email-services, my
> own personal risk tolerance is low enough that I would eat almost
> any performance hit in order to obtain guaranteed delivery, because
> in that case, a single email lost could be as bad for my business
> as a fire in the copier with a missed 911 call to the fire department.

This is interesting to me, since I tell all my customers "you can NOT
trust email to be mission-critical". Not because of my systems, but
because the underlying structure is not reliable (i.e. - the Internet
connectivity, the mail server on the other end ... etc) So to consider
email a reliable form of communication sounds crazy to me. I lump it
in with faxes. Sure, I can set you up with a quality, reliable fax
system, but I can't guarantee that the fax machine at the other end
will be working, or have paper, or that the fax won't accidentally get
mixed in with someone elses faxes and lost.

I guess that was the point of my original post, is that if you consider
the unreliability of the parts of the system that are beyond your
control, the potential unreliability of softupdates isn't really worth
worrying about.

However, each individual MUST determine the proper risk level for his
business. For large businesses with inter-office email where many of
those factors _are_ under his control, it's possible that the situation
is different.

>>Also, this is off-topic for -CURRENT, please remove -CURRENT from the
>>CCs if you respond. I'm redirecting to -QUESTIONS for future discussion.
>
> Replied to questions, per your request, but probably -performance
> would have been a better overall choice.

Possibly, now. But the original question sounded like it belonged on
-questions, although the topic is spidering toward -performance.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com
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• Previous message: Peter Elsner: "Re: Make Permission errors! Most odd."
• In reply to: Terry Lambert: "Re: maildir with softupdates"
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