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Why transaction logs are a good idea
Feb. 14th, 2005 02:06 pmI don't usually write about work. However, this is incredibly stupid and irritating and I have to complain somewhere.
On Friday Feb. 11 the shared library system (we share with eleven other libraries in our region) had problems. It was acting really quirky and we all knew it. The system managers waited until 4 in the afternoon to reboot the server when it was obvious by 10 in the morning that it needed this.
Whatever the problem was, today we find that no transaction that was made on Friday actually registered in the database. Books returned show as still checked out. Books checked out left no record of who has them. Books cataloged that day do not exist in the system. New library cards given out that day are unrecorded.
This "modern" client-server system keeps no transaction logs, and has no recovery method for these problems. Transaction logs would be easy to create, since the client programs spool their activity anyway and send it to the main server in small batches. But no, it has never been thought of apparently. The software vendor says it can't be done unless proposed and voted on as an "enhancement" -- that's a three year long process.
I do hope banks and retail establishments aren't following this same stupid methodology.
Edit an hour later: Only when confronted do we get the facts. The system was restored from Thursday's backup during the reboot late Friday afternoon. But they never told us until Monday afternoon, three days later. This is human misbehavior that compounds a computer problem.
On Friday Feb. 11 the shared library system (we share with eleven other libraries in our region) had problems. It was acting really quirky and we all knew it. The system managers waited until 4 in the afternoon to reboot the server when it was obvious by 10 in the morning that it needed this.
Whatever the problem was, today we find that no transaction that was made on Friday actually registered in the database. Books returned show as still checked out. Books checked out left no record of who has them. Books cataloged that day do not exist in the system. New library cards given out that day are unrecorded.
This "modern" client-server system keeps no transaction logs, and has no recovery method for these problems. Transaction logs would be easy to create, since the client programs spool their activity anyway and send it to the main server in small batches. But no, it has never been thought of apparently. The software vendor says it can't be done unless proposed and voted on as an "enhancement" -- that's a three year long process.
I do hope banks and retail establishments aren't following this same stupid methodology.
Edit an hour later: Only when confronted do we get the facts. The system was restored from Thursday's backup during the reboot late Friday afternoon. But they never told us until Monday afternoon, three days later. This is human misbehavior that compounds a computer problem.
