Secret Service Runs At "Six Sixes" Availability 248
PCM2 writes "ABC News is reporting that the US Secret Service is in dire need of server upgrades. 'Currently, 42 mission-oriented applications run on a 1980s IBM mainframe with a 68 percent performance reliability rating,' says one leaked memo. That finding was the result of an NSA study commissioned by the Secret Service to evaluate the severity of their computer problems. Curiously, upgrades to the Service's computers are being championed by Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who says he's had 'concern for a while' about the issue."
Re:Here's An Idea ... (Score:5, Informative)
Misleading photo (Score:5, Informative)
The story uses a stock photo [gettyimages.com] captioned "Obsolete mainframe super computers in [Computer History] museum". I don't think the Secret Service uses IBM 2401 magnetic tape units [ibm.com]
Re:Here's An Idea ... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, as AC already pointed out, the idea that you'd need to rewrite anything is incorrect. One could for added speed, but the IBM mainframe line runs the code for every IBM mainframe for the last few decades without changes. There are reasons people buy them, you know.
Re:Here's An Idea ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hokey Illustration (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Upgrade... (Score:4, Informative)
if you can't manage 2 nines on a an IBM mainframe your doing it wrong to begin with what makes you think they can do with something vastly more complicated as a massive windows deployment.
Sampling bias (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't this constitute a sampling bias? (from netcraft)
Why do you not report uptimes for Linux 2.6 or FreeBSD 6 ?
We only report uptimes for systems where the operating system's timer runs at 100Hz or less. Because the TCP code only uses the low 32 bits of the timer, if the timer runs at say 1000Hz, the value wraps around every 49.7 days (whereas at 100Hz it wraps after 497 days). As there are large numbers of systems which have a higher uptime than this, it is not possible to report accurate uptimes for these systems.
The Linux kernel switched to a higher internal timer rate at kernel version 2.5.26. Linux 2.4 used a rate of 100Hz. Linux 2.6 used a timer at 1000Hz (some architectures were using 1000Hz before this), until the default was changed back to 250Hz in May 2006. (An explanation of the HZ setting in Linux.)
FreeBSD versions 4 and 5 used a 100Hz timer, but FreeBSD 6 has moved to a customisable timer with a default setting of 1000Hz.
So unfortunately this means that we cannot give reliable uptime figures for many Linux and FreeBSD servers.
Re:Two Satans (Score:2, Informative)
That's not downtime - that's no public access time. During the night is when the Library of Congress gets the most work done by magically book elves and their brethern the dust dwarves.
Re:Upgrade... (Score:2, Informative)
Half of those show as IIS 5.0/Windows 2000. There is no way that a Windows 2000 box has stayed online for 1700 days (over 5 years!!!) without being pwned and crashed. For large sites that do load balancing and such, Netcraft is a better indicator of SITE uptime instead of uptime for a single particular box.
Re:Upgrade... (Score:3, Informative)
Rewrite their apps into a DB2 database on a mainframe, provide a gateway into NCIC, and you'd really have something.