5 ms·

1) It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken. 2) You should know what you're going to do ahead of time, and you should have done tests beforehand. The aft

• lsc 16y ago
  1) It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken. 2) You should know what you're going to do ahead of time, and you should have done tests beforehand. The after-hours work isn't that complex if you're doing it right. 1. you have no idea how many systems have been utterly destroyed by "tough men" working beyond their limits. I have seen this many places I've worked as a SysAdmin... it's like a mind disease, and it's not any good for anyone. 2. You need to prepare ahead of time, and you need an easy way to roll back. but you /always/ need to be prepared just in case something goes wrong. This is the other classic mistake: Make the new guy stay up all night handling the upgrade. I mean, the senior guys have tested it, right? It ends in tears for all involved. the new guy is the least able to deal with the stresses of doing the upgrade (and the rollback, and even if you test the upgrade, nobody tests the rollback) Do your upgrades when your senior people are around, preferably towards the beginning of their shift. If everything goes as planned, it won't matter when you do it, because downtime will be minimal either way. If, however, it throws up on your shoes, I don't know about you, but I am significantly more effective at dealing with problems when I'm fresh. And yeah, that means I'm a wimp. But when you get down to it, most of us are.