TFTD: Thought for Tuesday, Apr 24, 2007

In my inbox this morning...

-----*****-----*****-----

   The new system routine  "produced an unexpected impact
   and triggered a compounding series of interaction errors
   between the system's operational database and cache,"
   according to the statement. "After isolating the resulting
   database problem and unsuccessfully attempting to correct it,
   RIM began it's (sic) fail-over process to a backup system."

   RIM described the backup system inadequacies this way:
   "Although the backup system and fail-over process had been
   repeatedly and successfully tested previously, the fail-over
  
   process did not fully perform to RIM's expectations in this
   situation and therefore caused further delay in restoring service
   and processing the resulting message queue."

                                  
               -Research in Motion Ltd. explanation of the
                widespread BlackBerry  wireless e-mail service
                interruption on Tuesday night (April 17, 2007).
                As reported in ComputerWorld
               
   http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/1469594/229577/60157/2/
***********

  We longtime practitioners of data processing refer to this
  as an "unfortunate juxtaposition of circumstances".