[38] in Athena_Backup_System
Re: Request for comments on Athena Backup System
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Theodore Ts'o)
Mon Nov 7 20:37:24 1994
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 20:36:59 +0500
From: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@MIT.EDU>
To: salemme@MIT.EDU
Cc: jis@MIT.EDU, athena-backup@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: salemme@MIT.EDU's message of Mon, 7 Nov 94 18:25:06 -0500,
<9411072325.AA14943@vege-a-matic.MIT.EDU>
Well, as you all know, my big concern is the cost of the on-going
maintainance. So, I'd suggest that the support plan contain a detailed
run-down of the expected costs of on-going support.
This includes the annual maintenance fee for any third-party software,
as well as the estimated amount of EFT necessary to fix bugs, port the
software to new platforms, upgrade to newer versions of third-party
software as they become available (and old versions become desupported),
and in general be well enough versed in the code to fix whatever
problems come up --- from database inconsistencies (such as those
suffered by Netprob and Moira in the past) to simple crashes.
We don't want to end up in a situation like OLC, where we have a
critical service and no developer familiar with the code, and in fact no
resources to spare to even get a developer up to speed.....
I'd suggest trying to get the support plan done as quickly as possible,
and delivered at roughly the same time as the detailed design review ---
I doubt you'd be able to do it sooner since the design decisions will
impact the anticipated support costs. Then, I'd suggest that you go to
the relevant managers to get a permanent commitment of the necessary
resources (both money and people) to take care of the on-going
maintenance for as long as we are planning to run the Athena Backup
Service; we should get this commitment *now*, before we get too far down
the implementation stretch.
If you get pushback about committing the necessary resources for the
on-going support (say, we figure that it will take 0.75 EFT of
development support, forever, and we're told "no more than 0.10 of an
EFT"), then that should be factored into the acceptance critera, and it
will probably have to be reflected back into the design, too.
- Ted
