Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!ubc-cs!alberta!atha!rwa
From: rwa@cs.AthabascaU.CA (Ross Alexander)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Single user vs. shared (was Re: Killer Micros and vectorized code)
Summary: a vote of agreement
Message-ID: <1771@aurora.AthabascaU.CA>
Date: 21 Mar 90 19:43:13 GMT
References: <51771@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <100598@convex.convex.com> <1990Mar20.174931.2202@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: Athabasca University
Lines: 28

In article <1990Mar20.174931.2202@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> Yes, it's ever so much nicer to force every user to be a system administrator.
> That way you get to see any particular mistake made over and over again,
	[ much totally correct observation edited for brevity ]
> don't want to be bothered.  For example, few people run backups half as
> often as a centrally-administered system run by professionals does.
> A good many of them live to regret it.

Yes, yes, and yes.  Amateurs, even extremely well-meaning and erudite
ones, are paid not to adminstrate their workstations but to *get their
primary jobs done* be that what may.  Backups are not their primary
job, and in the nature of things get pushed down the queue until they
fall off the bottom.  Then cometh the day of reckoning, and Lo!  there
is no backup, folks.  Guess it's time to redo it.  Sure glad we
remember everything we did :-(.

I might add operator time $ is < rocket scientist time $ by an
appreciable margin.  And the central site gets the backups done.  ( We
do a full backup of everything every working day. )

Either way you cut it (central server or distributed workstations),
you *must have* a professional administrator whose primary job is
adminstration, or the nescessary just doesn't get done.  Ad hoc
administration by uncoordinated part-timers is a recipie for chaos.

-- 
--
Ross Alexander    (403) 675 6311    rwa@aungbad.AthabascaU.CA    VE6PDQ