server down time 1

[ejstrom]

we have two nt4 servers
sp6
one pdc
one bdc (also the file server)
425 users on win9x clients

today the file server's nic went bad. it took 2hrs to diagnose and fix.
My question is, the server has been up and running since 01/03/01 with no down time till todays 2hrs.(that's over a year)Is this normal or should it be less? My managers are still throwing a major fit over the down time.

 

[FilthPig]

Oh, you're just bragging now! I'd call that uptime fantastic. Marc Creviere

 

[polymath5]

If they have not provided you with failover servers, etc... they are idiots to be throwing fits. Particularly because of component failure like a NIC. Any environment that requires 100% 24/7, should have failover servers online.

That is excellent uptime, period. Personally I recommend bouncing most servers once a week. But that's a different subject.

What brand server? Just curious.

 

[yizhar]

HI.

First of all - good for you.
2 hours to diagnose and fix the problem is very good.

Now is a good time to throw the ball back to the management - ask for an additional server, replacement parts like backup tape and hard disks.

Depending on the structure of your network, you can use more the 1 file servers, using DFS or other technique for fault tolerance and load balancing, or simply changing the ratio of users/server that way the next down time will be limitted to only part of the network and not the whole.

Bye
Yizhar Hurwitz

http://come.to/yizhar

http://teachers.sivan.co.il/yizhar

 

[rjbj]

My suggestion is this. Since you have a BDC, why don't you make a replication of the PDC on it. Then if the PDC or BDC goes down, next time you can just send out a network message that all information can be found on the other server if the PDC or the BDC goes down. The bottom line is you can monitor a server everyday, eventually hardware will go bad. It happens. There is no way to tell when or where, but it will.