Naive young man in the face of the IT paradox
We are supporters of progress! But the brave new digital world turned out to be close not so beautiful, as it seemed from afar, from the mid-nineties ...
1. Where to store? In the bank. Glass
Working in a public non-profit organization, I was faced with the need to store a variety of unique video-audio materials. First of all, they present the achievements of enthusiasts on the Amur tiger, and other endangered species, as well as a kind of encyclopedia on this subject. Keywords - “unique” and “non-commercial”. the decision budget should be as modest as possible, and reliability should be high. For this, all materials were divided according to the degree of value - super important, simply important, and so on. It would seem - we digitize videotapes and photos, estimate the cost of the solution, and slowly create archives. It was not there!
How to guarantee to keep at least a hundred gigabytes of information for at least ten years? And even ten years is a very short time ... A serviced disk array in such a situation is not an option, since the organization lives from grant to grant, and the presence of a technician at hand is not always observed. CD / DVD-R media, as it turned out, is not so reliable (meaning not factory stamping, of course). A strange situation gradually manifested itself in all its glory: it is safer to leave everything as it is, on cassettes and in the form of paper texts and images, providing optimal storage conditions for humidity and temperature, and after a couple of years, a technical solution will appear acceptable in terms of money and performance! Moreover, having taken up this problem, I came across a discussion of a similar situation in runet:
')
forum.sources.ru/index.php?showtopic=264771&view=showall
All the beautiful possibilities of modern multimedia have broken about the harsh reality: you will inevitably lose data. I'm not talking about expensive solutions like M-ARC, etc. In the old manner safer!
And one more side of this situation. Naturally you come to the idea to save at least the most important data "outside", in the clouds or something similar. With all my initial skepticism with respect to the cloudy direction in the IT industry, I have to admit that this is the only real solution ... and not the best one, but simply no other one. It turns out that the clouds are not a beautiful idea, but the harsh prose of life, the same muddy water that you have to drink due to the lack of clean ... Fortunately, the amount of data is measured while in gigabytes, and it’s still a long way from old age.
2. The best hard drive is the hardest.
Speaking about the problem of data integrity, I would like to touch on another aspect. I'm talking about MTBF, of course, about the average time between failures of hard drives. Some kind of conspiracy of silence surrounds this problem. Even in publications on this topic on the Internet, where they are harshly criticized by unnecessarily optimistic statements made by hard disk manufacturers about the reliability of their products, they somehow forget that it’s not bad that the disk is mortal, but that it is mortal suddenly. Frankly speaking, SMART technology, in my opinion, simply cannot cope with the tasks assigned to it. There are no means acceptable to accurately predict HDD failure. It would seem that it follows that the importance of regular backups should be communicated to all users even earlier than the methods of work in office applications. However, ordinary users do not know anything about it. It would be honest to explain to users that the guarantee for HDD when buying is not at all a guarantee of the safety of their data, but only that the hard drive as a device will be replaced during the warranty period. The safety of the data is the buyer's headache. Or his sysadmin. The percentage of hard drive failures in the first year of operation is too high to treat this fact as unworthy. And the situations when information on disks is worth orders of magnitude more than the disks themselves are completely ordinary. Let the percentage of failure of the HDD will be huge - but at least 50% - but if the user is aware of the problem, then it is not scary, he will learn how to back up, or ask someone. But when the user is not aware ... and this, as a rule, accountants of small firms, non-profit / educational institutions, and just home users ... disaster will come. Required. Of course, this is not a purely technical problem. The slyness of the term “mean time to failure” will eventually become obvious, if not to all users, then to the majority. And - of course - over time, something more reliable than fragile hard drives will appear. But so far this has not happened.
3. Unwanted guests
You really thought that I mean viruses and other malware? Taki no. I mean just antiviruses. And not only.
Example 1. A user worked on a Sempron / 256 Mb RAM / 30 Gb HDD. Used for the browser and the office. KAV 2009 was installed. I applied to the computer service company regarding the expiration of the KAV license. On the client side, there have also been complaints about the "stagnation" of the system. He was installed KIS 2011. A week later, an additional RAM module and a new 80 GB HDD were also installed. The funny thing is that neither a KIS nor an extra “iron” was needed at all. The specificity of his work is such that it would be enough for the simplest antivirus software. No upgrade. In this case, you do not know whether to laugh or cry: the client himself is unable to determine what he really needs, and the seller sells everything he can sell ... regardless of need. Is the seller cheated? Not. The customer spent the money in vain? Yes. And most importantly - the client’s problem, in fact, is not solved, but rather postponed. How long can you "tilt" a computer based on Sempron? But KIS 2012 is on sale ...
Example 2. Another user managing the regional representative office of a medium-sized distributor company, “advanced”. It uses two applications: remote desktop and Excel. The first is to obtain data on sales in the central database in another city. The second is for maintaining your own accounting, for which, in a modest volume, studied and applied mathematical formulas in tables. Installed MSO 2003 + Avast Free. Everything. More in the next 2-3 years will NOT be REQUIRED. For sure. And no one can impose anything on him. Is that about the breakdown of iron will have to turn to a specialist.
We know that we do not need to self-medicate. We know that you don’t have to go to the fuel pump in the Land Cruiser yourself - it will be more expensive. And this is true. But the quality of service in the field of IT-services is unpredictable. Of course, the behavior of the seller from the first example is unethical and unprofessional. But there are many such sellers. If not to say - the majority. And the most reliable - to deal with their own problems. Like 20 years ago.
4. ... who will be called anyway
Most of the users with whom I have to deal, have very modest needs in the computing power of their computers. Here is a quote from the Trend Micro release, which clearly defined the situation today: “According to the survey, the main reason for disabling antivirus software is that users call too much computer system resources, which makes it difficult to use for other tasks. However, to fully protect confidential data, the use of security software is mandatory, although it does not provide 100% protection. ”
Anyone who complains of a significant slowdown due to the installation of Kaspersky Lab products has not used a similar package from Symantec. However, these products will be used. Nowhere not to get away from this.
It would seem - computers should work with time more and more quickly. But - no, the opposite happens. Of course, this is my personal impression, due to working with real clients not in the richest (but not the poorest) region of Russia. All, of course, not so gloomy, but the trend is obvious.
5. Looking for a fulcrum
Quote: “According to a new study by the Digital Universe, which IDC conducted for EMC, in 2011 the volume of data will grow faster than Moore’s law will reach 1.8 zettabytes; in the next decade, the total amount of data that enterprises must manage will increase 50 times, and the volume of files 75 times. ”
In conversations with ordinary users of home computers there is an inevitable and indispensable topic: how to protect children from the harmful aspects of using the Web? Yes, nothing.
(The use of social networks as a tool in organizing unrest recently preoccupied the government after recent events abroad. The idea was expressed about the need to control social networks. But you and I understand that this is ridiculous. Then you need to control the Network in general. The levels are different, the problem is one)
Very often, we hear complaints that the introduction of IT technologies does not lead to a decrease in paper workflow in organizations, especially state ones. What is this surprising? Is not it logical to entrust the most important paper? After all, it does not disappear spontaneously from a closed cabinet. Access to it can not get someone else, if you did not give yourself the key, or not lost it. And this wardrobe is yours. No one would ever think to play with your closet and inadvertently break it. Yes, and damage the cabinet is very difficult. At the very least, the cleaning lady can't do that. And in the closet there is definitely nothing that you do not need. The only advantage of a computer over paper is the speed of processing and exchanging information. And this superiority on orders. But for me it is obvious: the reliability of IT systems is very far behind the one that ordinary users need today.
When a computer is a business process tool, the user must either have at hand (for years, of course! How else would it be in a serious matter?) A reliable IT specialist whom he should trust ... or become one himself. By the way, cybercrime, about which, in my opinion, many comrades like to speculate over the past 15 years, just fledgling, takes only the first steps. It will be much more interesting next ...
Oh yeah ... on the computer, you can play games and communicate comfortably. This is yes. It is indisputable. Well, and porn.
The indicated problems are a glance from the very bottom. All of them are characterized by one word - insecurity. Even such a convenient and familiar thing as managing personal bank accounts from your netbook immediately revealed the obvious advantage of the traditional method of transferring funds: in a bank branch, you simply will not be allowed to do the obvious nonsense when transferring. They will not let you manage funds when you are inadequate. All this is not intractable. But for some reason this is not particularly pay attention.
1. Where to store? In the bank. Glass
Working in a public non-profit organization, I was faced with the need to store a variety of unique video-audio materials. First of all, they present the achievements of enthusiasts on the Amur tiger, and other endangered species, as well as a kind of encyclopedia on this subject. Keywords - “unique” and “non-commercial”. the decision budget should be as modest as possible, and reliability should be high. For this, all materials were divided according to the degree of value - super important, simply important, and so on. It would seem - we digitize videotapes and photos, estimate the cost of the solution, and slowly create archives. It was not there!
How to guarantee to keep at least a hundred gigabytes of information for at least ten years? And even ten years is a very short time ... A serviced disk array in such a situation is not an option, since the organization lives from grant to grant, and the presence of a technician at hand is not always observed. CD / DVD-R media, as it turned out, is not so reliable (meaning not factory stamping, of course). A strange situation gradually manifested itself in all its glory: it is safer to leave everything as it is, on cassettes and in the form of paper texts and images, providing optimal storage conditions for humidity and temperature, and after a couple of years, a technical solution will appear acceptable in terms of money and performance! Moreover, having taken up this problem, I came across a discussion of a similar situation in runet:
')
forum.sources.ru/index.php?showtopic=264771&view=showall
All the beautiful possibilities of modern multimedia have broken about the harsh reality: you will inevitably lose data. I'm not talking about expensive solutions like M-ARC, etc. In the old manner safer!
And one more side of this situation. Naturally you come to the idea to save at least the most important data "outside", in the clouds or something similar. With all my initial skepticism with respect to the cloudy direction in the IT industry, I have to admit that this is the only real solution ... and not the best one, but simply no other one. It turns out that the clouds are not a beautiful idea, but the harsh prose of life, the same muddy water that you have to drink due to the lack of clean ... Fortunately, the amount of data is measured while in gigabytes, and it’s still a long way from old age.
2. The best hard drive is the hardest.
Speaking about the problem of data integrity, I would like to touch on another aspect. I'm talking about MTBF, of course, about the average time between failures of hard drives. Some kind of conspiracy of silence surrounds this problem. Even in publications on this topic on the Internet, where they are harshly criticized by unnecessarily optimistic statements made by hard disk manufacturers about the reliability of their products, they somehow forget that it’s not bad that the disk is mortal, but that it is mortal suddenly. Frankly speaking, SMART technology, in my opinion, simply cannot cope with the tasks assigned to it. There are no means acceptable to accurately predict HDD failure. It would seem that it follows that the importance of regular backups should be communicated to all users even earlier than the methods of work in office applications. However, ordinary users do not know anything about it. It would be honest to explain to users that the guarantee for HDD when buying is not at all a guarantee of the safety of their data, but only that the hard drive as a device will be replaced during the warranty period. The safety of the data is the buyer's headache. Or his sysadmin. The percentage of hard drive failures in the first year of operation is too high to treat this fact as unworthy. And the situations when information on disks is worth orders of magnitude more than the disks themselves are completely ordinary. Let the percentage of failure of the HDD will be huge - but at least 50% - but if the user is aware of the problem, then it is not scary, he will learn how to back up, or ask someone. But when the user is not aware ... and this, as a rule, accountants of small firms, non-profit / educational institutions, and just home users ... disaster will come. Required. Of course, this is not a purely technical problem. The slyness of the term “mean time to failure” will eventually become obvious, if not to all users, then to the majority. And - of course - over time, something more reliable than fragile hard drives will appear. But so far this has not happened.
3. Unwanted guests
You really thought that I mean viruses and other malware? Taki no. I mean just antiviruses. And not only.
Example 1. A user worked on a Sempron / 256 Mb RAM / 30 Gb HDD. Used for the browser and the office. KAV 2009 was installed. I applied to the computer service company regarding the expiration of the KAV license. On the client side, there have also been complaints about the "stagnation" of the system. He was installed KIS 2011. A week later, an additional RAM module and a new 80 GB HDD were also installed. The funny thing is that neither a KIS nor an extra “iron” was needed at all. The specificity of his work is such that it would be enough for the simplest antivirus software. No upgrade. In this case, you do not know whether to laugh or cry: the client himself is unable to determine what he really needs, and the seller sells everything he can sell ... regardless of need. Is the seller cheated? Not. The customer spent the money in vain? Yes. And most importantly - the client’s problem, in fact, is not solved, but rather postponed. How long can you "tilt" a computer based on Sempron? But KIS 2012 is on sale ...
Example 2. Another user managing the regional representative office of a medium-sized distributor company, “advanced”. It uses two applications: remote desktop and Excel. The first is to obtain data on sales in the central database in another city. The second is for maintaining your own accounting, for which, in a modest volume, studied and applied mathematical formulas in tables. Installed MSO 2003 + Avast Free. Everything. More in the next 2-3 years will NOT be REQUIRED. For sure. And no one can impose anything on him. Is that about the breakdown of iron will have to turn to a specialist.
We know that we do not need to self-medicate. We know that you don’t have to go to the fuel pump in the Land Cruiser yourself - it will be more expensive. And this is true. But the quality of service in the field of IT-services is unpredictable. Of course, the behavior of the seller from the first example is unethical and unprofessional. But there are many such sellers. If not to say - the majority. And the most reliable - to deal with their own problems. Like 20 years ago.
4. ... who will be called anyway
Most of the users with whom I have to deal, have very modest needs in the computing power of their computers. Here is a quote from the Trend Micro release, which clearly defined the situation today: “According to the survey, the main reason for disabling antivirus software is that users call too much computer system resources, which makes it difficult to use for other tasks. However, to fully protect confidential data, the use of security software is mandatory, although it does not provide 100% protection. ”
Anyone who complains of a significant slowdown due to the installation of Kaspersky Lab products has not used a similar package from Symantec. However, these products will be used. Nowhere not to get away from this.
It would seem - computers should work with time more and more quickly. But - no, the opposite happens. Of course, this is my personal impression, due to working with real clients not in the richest (but not the poorest) region of Russia. All, of course, not so gloomy, but the trend is obvious.
5. Looking for a fulcrum
Quote: “According to a new study by the Digital Universe, which IDC conducted for EMC, in 2011 the volume of data will grow faster than Moore’s law will reach 1.8 zettabytes; in the next decade, the total amount of data that enterprises must manage will increase 50 times, and the volume of files 75 times. ”
In conversations with ordinary users of home computers there is an inevitable and indispensable topic: how to protect children from the harmful aspects of using the Web? Yes, nothing.
(The use of social networks as a tool in organizing unrest recently preoccupied the government after recent events abroad. The idea was expressed about the need to control social networks. But you and I understand that this is ridiculous. Then you need to control the Network in general. The levels are different, the problem is one)
Very often, we hear complaints that the introduction of IT technologies does not lead to a decrease in paper workflow in organizations, especially state ones. What is this surprising? Is not it logical to entrust the most important paper? After all, it does not disappear spontaneously from a closed cabinet. Access to it can not get someone else, if you did not give yourself the key, or not lost it. And this wardrobe is yours. No one would ever think to play with your closet and inadvertently break it. Yes, and damage the cabinet is very difficult. At the very least, the cleaning lady can't do that. And in the closet there is definitely nothing that you do not need. The only advantage of a computer over paper is the speed of processing and exchanging information. And this superiority on orders. But for me it is obvious: the reliability of IT systems is very far behind the one that ordinary users need today.
When a computer is a business process tool, the user must either have at hand (for years, of course! How else would it be in a serious matter?) A reliable IT specialist whom he should trust ... or become one himself. By the way, cybercrime, about which, in my opinion, many comrades like to speculate over the past 15 years, just fledgling, takes only the first steps. It will be much more interesting next ...
Oh yeah ... on the computer, you can play games and communicate comfortably. This is yes. It is indisputable. Well, and porn.
The indicated problems are a glance from the very bottom. All of them are characterized by one word - insecurity. Even such a convenient and familiar thing as managing personal bank accounts from your netbook immediately revealed the obvious advantage of the traditional method of transferring funds: in a bank branch, you simply will not be allowed to do the obvious nonsense when transferring. They will not let you manage funds when you are inadequate. All this is not intractable. But for some reason this is not particularly pay attention.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/132617/
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