Tips for the everyday admin -- #1

Evan Marcus

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Our countdown, brought to you by SearchStorage.com high availability expert Evan Marcus, includes some common sense tips for the everyday storage admin to follow.

#1: KISS (keep it simple)

1. Use no extraneous hardware
2. Remove all non-critical applications
3. Keep non-critical users off critical systems
4. Limit network connections
5. Use sensible, mnemonic system names
- Some names and IP addresses change during failovers
- Pick "zeus" over "ha4pv56a"
6. Minimize points of control, contention and variable introduction
7. Avoid monitors or remove screen savers

More on KISSing

1. More mistakes happen on complex systems
2. Mistakes lead to downtime
3. Honest errors are responsible for some percentage of downtime
4. Give everyone less opportunity to make those errors
5. New system admins have to learn everything
6. Obscure configurations take longer to learn
7. Complexity hard to maintain after staff departures

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Check out the Evan Marcus availability tips section of SearchStorage.com.

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This material is copyright 1997-2003 by Evan Marcus and Hal L. Stern. It may not be used in whole or part for commercial purposes without the express permission of both authors.


This was first published in June 2003

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