The customer release mentioned in my last post is done. Numerous problems were had. Took about five times as long as it was supposed to, but I got there in the end. Seems I should write a help document on this clustering stuff since everything out there on the internet is rubbish.
*collapses*
*orders Japanese R2 DVDs for late January in anticipation of a good paycheck*
So I’m doing a rather complex software change for a customer’s production system tomorrow morning (Yes that’s right, on Sunday). Can’t do it on a weekday as preventing a few hundred people from doing their jobs for a few hours isn’t a viable option. The aim is to provide a bunch of their Linux-based Oracle application servers concurrent access to a shared Storage Area Network (SAN) device. For those unfamiliar with these terms think multiple computers which are all able to read and write from the same hard disc at the same time. That’s pretty much what it is except that in the SAN there’s actually more like sixteen hard drives, and they are connected to the computers with fibre optic cables so everything happens really really fast (Yes, this kind of hardware is crazy expensive).
My description makes it sound a bit easier than it actually is because if left to their own devices computers sharing a disc will normally end up overwriting each other’s changes corrupting everything. i.e. You lose all your data. The trick is to make the computers all think as one so that they can share nicely together without fighting amongst themselves. In computing terms this means putting them in a cluster. This aspect is really the trickier part of what I’m doing tomorrow.
I think I’m really well prepared actually. I’ve set up a number of clusters now for testing purposes and feel like I know the software and the fairly sizable process to set everything up like the back of my hand. I guess it’s just the complexity of it all and the the fact that it’s such a major system that I’m feeling rather paranoid about it all with only a few hours to go. I mean to make this all work there’s probably a good twenty or so pieces that all have to come together and if even one of them goes awry it’ll cause me a world of hurt.
Ah well. I think I’ve prepared as much as I can and everything I could do in advance has been. No point worrying about it I guess. All going well though there will be a big load off my shoulders tomorrow afternoon. *is optimistic*
Had a day trip up to Auckland last week for a RedHat sponsored event at the Langham hotel. I did find the event itself reasonably worthwhile in the sense it provided some case studies of the kinds of systems I’ve been working with myself in recent times. Overall though it felt very much like a hard-sell with little real technical meat. This was especially the case with the second JBoss session. Time doing something different is always welcome though.
Managed to do lunch at Kiraku on Elliot St which was just as great second time around. It’s definitely my new favourite lunch spot in Auckland. With the time we’d be getting back to Hamilton it wasn’t worth going back to work so instead we took our time coming home. It was a great day overall though. It was one of my tasks to choose the CDs for the journey and I attempted to cover the bases. Some choices were successful and others not so much. On a related note I really need to pick up more Suzanne Vega albums.
More recently one of my aunts has been staying with us for a few days. Today we had plans to go “somewhere”, but the decision on the actual destination was left to the last minute. When the time came to choose my aunt expressed a desire to visit Raglan so off we went. Of course there’s not a lot to the town of Raglan so we ended up at Ngarunui Beach which is probably one of the better surf beaches in the country. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve last been out there and I must say I’m really regretting not making it there more often. Back in the summers of my uni days there were times I’d head out to Ngarunui beach most weekends. I had two groups of friends who loved the place which meant I ended up there twice as often. (This reminds me, we really need to catch up and do this again sometime Kingsley). The day was perfect for it and I managed to completely avoid sunburn too so it was a total success all round.
On a semi-related note for those that know my reddish facial complexion and may wonder as to the cause, the real reason is unfortunately childhood sun damage. 
No doubt my skin cancer risk in later life is quite high, but unfortunately with my pale skin as a young child I used to get badly burnt with even the tiniest bit of sun exposure. My skin has adjusted in recent years such that I don’t really burn much these days, but of course that’s little help now. At this point all I can do is try to avoid additional damage.
Most of my other spare time lately has been spend with family and the like. 5-6 birthdays this month. (Yes, you read that right). I’m still not entirely back up to date with the anime this season. Caught back up with Shikabane Hime Aka which has tended to be a bit average lately, and Michiko to Hatchin while I’m really enjoying. Bring on the DVDs.
nostalgic
