Lawsuit Proceeding for PICS Outage

[Sebastian]

Looks like a group of gun dealers are getting together to file a lawsuit over the impending PICS outage.

Gun dealers file suit over planned sales freeze


Good for them. Hopefully that'll twist Rendell's arm into doing this properly. There is absolutely no reason for an upgrade to require several days of downtime. At worst, it should be a few overnight hours as you do a cut over.

[Lougotzz]

This is why I love PA. if this was NY they would just roll over and all the NYC a$$holes would flex their muscle. lets see if we win this one. from what I see in this state our (pa constitution) has more clout then NYS. NYS has no provision for firearms. God I love PA.

[thirtyonebravo]

good for them!

[Pa. Patriot]

Yep, there is NO reason for an outage for an upgrade... If this was a corp. business upgrade it would be set up to happen after hours and be online before following morning.

[FNG19]

Yep, there is NO reason for an outage for an upgrade... If this was a corp. business upgrade it would be set up to happen after hours and be online before following morning.

Respectfully, I have to disagree. Depending on what's being done and what the fallback plan is (if one even exists), it may in fact be a "throw the switch and keep working until it's done" kind of deal. I don't know what the details of the upgrade are, so I can't say with any authority what the situation is. I can, however, say that there are some kinds of work for which "after hours" is not a sufficient amount of time. Five days seems to be excessive, but I guess it depends on what they're doing and how much padding is included in that time.

Just my $0.02, of course.

[Pa. Patriot]

I can, however, say that there are some kinds of work for which "after hours" is not a sufficient amount of time. Five days seems to be excessive, but I guess it depends on what they're doing and how much padding is included in that time.

Fall-back plan and un-expected failures aside.

Consider the size of the system and the connections involved. Any IT person will acknowledge that 4 days is not only excessive but that any business hours downtime likely is as well. It's not the NYSEG. (who's system is probably never down for business hours maintenance, I bet) It's probably 6-10 WS's and a server

[Justin]

I have sent Rep. Solobay an email commending and encouraging his support of the shop owners in this matter. Feel free to do the same.

tsolobay@pahouse.net


And I also agree and know that 5 days is unacceptable. As this proposed outage is illegal and unconstitutional, then another avenue needs to be taken.
If the system cannot be "upgraded" in less time, then they need to implement the new system alongside the old one until the bugs are worked out and it is good to go.

[Pa. Patriot]

...If the system cannot be "upgraded" in less time, then they need to implement the new system alongside the old one until the bugs are worked out and it is good to go.

How logical of you. You must NOT work for the state

[Montanya]

I would say this. Pull a backup after hours of the current server, copy it to a new machine. Then add the update to the identical machine, while the production server keeps running. Then once they have tested it on the TEST server they can move it into production overnight. Then if it ends up having an issue it can be on the test server and they can take all the time they want to fix it, because it won't impact anyone but the IT folks for the Commonwealth.

[FNG19]

Fall-back plan and un-expected failures aside.

Any IT person will acknowledge that 4 days is not only excessive but that any business hours downtime likely is as well. It's not the NYSEG. (who's system is probably never down for business hours maintenance, I bet) It's probably 6-10 WS's and a server

Oh, without a doubt. It's probably <i>not</i> that big a deal. I'm having a hard time coming up with an explanation of what could possibly take four days, particularly with people working around the clock. While it's possible, it's not <i>that</i> big a system, as you pointed out. It does make one wonder. On the flip side, I've been a part of upgrades and outages that were easily 16 hours in duration, even starting after business hours, and even when everything went right. 16 hours isn't 4 days, no.