Travel --- 9/11/1995-9/14/1995 --- Monterey, CA

Attended the 14th IEEE Symposium on Mass Storage Systems where I had a paper published. Went to the aquarium and spent lots of time looking at the seals and sea lions on the beach.

A few months after this trip, in May 1996, I managed to wipe out 10TB of data from the Cornell Mass Storage System. The extremely convoluted backup process had no valid backups of the data. After working for 10 days and creating a new recovery program, the data was restored from backup. The experienced prompted me to write this:

The Top 10 Reasons To Let Jeff Deutsch Administer Your HPSS System

10) HPSS isn't dead, it is just sleeping.

 9) Gain solace in the fact that other HPSS sites are learning from
    your experience.

 8) Technically speaking, a down system is a very stable system.

 7) Deep down you really hate your users.  You blame them for your
    headaches, most weather related phenomena, and the fact that you
    have to sit through 10 minutes of commercials before you can see
    a movie.  You hear voices telling you to seek revenge.  Now... now
    they will pay.  Bwaahahaha!

 6) Prove the old axiom -- Nothing is foolproof because fools are so
    ingenuous.

 5) You will look really competent in comparison.

 4) [I had a reason #4, but I selected the paragraph to reflow the text,
    then accidentally pressed ALT-CTRL-D (delete) instead of ALT-CTRL-F
    (reflow).  The two keys are right next to each other.  Anyhow, I had
    another copy of the file, but I wanted to save this one before going
    to look at it.  So I accidentally saved this one right on top of the
    old copy.  Can you believe it!?  So #4 is gone.  It was something like,
    "He will never make that mistake again."]

 3) Mask data corruption problems in your system by wiping out the data.

 2) The FAA is hiring air traffic controllers, so we don't want Jeff
    looking for another job right now.

And the number one reason to let Jeff administer your HPSS system...

 1) It takes 4,892 TRB files to back up this system.  I know what you're
    thinking, was that 4,892 files or only 4,891?  Well this is HPSS, the
    most powerful mass storage system in the world and you've got to ask
    yourself a question, do you feel lucky?  Well, do you Punk?

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