Looks like TOG was right...

I love that noise. I've only seen them on infrequent childhood visits
to the south, so I saw an amazing thing when all the stations clacked
past.

Heh.

 

Actually, this is an instance where I wouldn't mind Bruce waving his
State of *nix flag. If it's got to work 24/7, to the point where the
effort is justified, then why not do it properly?

While I don't believe Windows is as bad as it used to be, I'd have
nagging reservations about using it for something that should be up
24/7. Not many home machines fit this bill, which is why I don't see
the point of telling people to fix their computers with format c:,
install <whatever>.

 

It really depends on what the windows software is used for. If its just
a front end for another system then having to reboot it say one a month
would be fine in most situations.

The ATM network doesn't use windows on the back end systems[1] so a
crashed ATM is not that important in the banks scheme of things.

[1] Or Unix IIRC

 

But it is in the customer scheme of things.

Depends on the back end system, I know of a lot of Sun instalations in
banks and financial houses.

 

They "use" would be no different[1] from a customer perspective.

[1] Except no BSOD

 

Well, that was sort of my point - the ATM in your example doesn't
*need* to be on 24/7 therefore it's not that important to use a
specific OS.

 

I won't bore you with links and stats about uptime over the various OSes,
you are capable of finding those yourself.

I beleive part of it has always been the "immediate" cost, ie how cheap
something can be put in *now* as opposed to the long term cost/savings
doing it (IMO) properly. Remember when the machines used to shortchange
you ?

Sun never pushed Solaris x86 properly in these arenas in the past, but now
hopefully hat will differ (the light dawned on the Execs 2 years ago) as
we can now put a robust, stable OS on the same cheap and cheerfull
platforms they are using. On top of that we have security built and and
easily added. And when people see Solaris 10 (Dec 04) they will wonder
how we have done it all so cheaply. (You can download it now in beta for
free)

<G> Works for me, the only time I powercycle is when I swtich on in the
morning and off at night.

Admittadly we have some way to go on some gadgets (USB scanners for
instance, that will be sorted in Sol10 when we have libusb in the OS). A
lot of people do not realise we have USB built in for Sol9 and a fair
number of common devices work out of the box (pen drives for instance)

(Gosh I even steered clear of the worm/virus issue)

 

How often have you gone to the nearest walkable ATM and it has been down?
Banks forget about the customer.

 

You must live in a blessed land my son.

 

Me either. Then again, if I did, I'd walk 20 yards up the road to the
next one.

--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/KH500A8/TS250C
|_\_____/_| ..64741../..15361.../..3157./.19406
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 YTC#4 PM#5
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 two#11 WG*
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17
'^' RBR-Visited:14 Pts: 270 Miles:1248

 

[Broken ATMs]

Quite. There are at least 14 that I can use within 200 yards of my flat.

 

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember Andy Bonwick

Over the past couple of years, the one nearest to me has been down about
5% of the times I've been to it. Given that I'm not at it every day,
indeed sometimes a few weeks pass between visits to it, the actual
downtime on it must be higher.

Impressed - not.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19 COSOC#10
Get rid of your SOC/SOB here http://www.sparesorrepair.co.uk/

 

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the

Humph. I tried d/l it and couldn't.

--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
SbS#6 DIAABTCOD#16 APOSTLE#6 FUB#3
FUB KotL OSOS#12? UKRMMA#19 COSOC#10
Get rid of your SOC/SOB here http://www.sparesorrepair.co.uk/

 

In uk.rec.motorcycles, Steve Parry said:

If you could see the state of my account, you'd know how true that is.

 

Why would you think that your sample of the 'downtime' would be
inaccurate to the extent that the downtime would be *higher*. Surely
it's just as likely to be lower?

 

The only time I've seen, recently, the cash machines not dispensing money
has been when they've run out of it.

 

I've very rarely seen cash machines not dispensing money. On occasion
I've assumed the fault is with the comms link but I can't ever remember
seeing BSOD type issues.

 

Like that worries the bank

Yep, from what I've seen probably the majority of back end systems in
banks are on Sun kit but the ATM system is NSK stuff IIRC.