3 ms·
I imagine that the process is very highly pipelined and optimized, and I would imagine that they had some sort of backup (generator) that failed. One analogy i
by kop316 7y ago
I imagine that the process is very highly pipelined and optimized, and I would imagine that they had some sort of backup (generator) that failed.
One analogy is to think about if you had a batch script that you were working on that touches a lot of files (1000s). Now imagine power was cut and the batch script was interupted because the computer turned off, but that computer hasnt been turned off in a long time (say it was a server).
First, you have to turn the server back on after a power outage. Was there corrupted files in it? You have to now get that server in a known working state, and if you have kept it on for years....then you may be in a world of hurt.
NOw you got your server up and running. You have the option of going through each of the 1000s of files your script was working on....but that will take time. Does it make sense to start from scratch? You will have to through our all the files you were working on, but at least you can start that script again. You could attempt to salvage every file, but that will also take time too.
- paranoidrobot 7y agoAnother analogy is that you have a bakery that produces soufflés on an industrial scale. These soufflés take two months to bake. The baking has to be done in such a precise fashion that even fractions of a degree in variance results in the entire batch being ruined. Worse still, it takes a long time to bring the oven up to temperature and stabilise it on the precise temperature. You can't just scrap the batch that's ruined and start production again.
- watsocd 7y agoI like this analogy. Lets expand. These soufflés take two months to bake but you need soufflés every day for sales. What does this mean? You always have 2 months of soufflés in various states of production at all times. Now you lose power and all these as very fragile soufflés in production are lost because of the power failure. Furthermore, it will take you two months to get the first soufflés off the restarted production line.