Category: Uncategorized

In the world of Ops, it’s always good to learn from mistakes. It’s not good enough that we solved a problem (*fix*), but we must also do a post-mortem to understand what went wrong (*root cause*), what can we do to prevent it in the future (*long term solution*).

I am of the opinion that long term solutions are preferred to short term fixes (hacks!). But long term solutions are not easy, they almost always require understanding the root cause, and that is not always obvious.

After any incidents, crisis, problems, whatever you want to call it, make sure you have a *blame-free* post-mortem. This is very important. We are not looking to blame anyone, we should be focusing on the root cause and how can it be prevented from happening again. Going into a post-mortem with the right mind-set also help make the process go much smoother. You will get better cooperation from involved parties. It’s a team effort, to improve everyone’s job.

The process should be something like this.

• Assign an owner of the post-mortem process. Usually the lead engineer involved in the incident. That person is empowered to call for help from anyone needed.
• Assign a specific time-frame for when the post-mortem must conclude by. You do not want to let it drag on. Let’s get it done and move on. Recommend no more than two weeks from date of incident.
• Communicated what is expected of the post-mortem output.
  • When — Timeline of incidents
  • What — specific details of alerts, failures, etc.
  • Communications during the incidents — within team, with other teams, internal and external (customers, press).
  • Root Cause Analysis
  • Prevention
    • Training – better training
    • Monitoring – better monitoring (add monitor, alerts)
    • Failure detection – missed failures
    • SPOF – Single Point of Failure. Add redundancies. Re-architecture.
    • etc.

It’s good if we can learn from past mistakes. It is even better if we can learn from others’ mistakes!

Here is the start of a list of Operational mistakes published on the web. I will be adding more as I find them. Feel free to submit any that I missed. Thanks!

Kubernetes

 

Very nice post from David Henke:

USB Ethernet Adapters for TiVo

plaza-prize

Here is a collected list of USB adapters I got from http://www.tivoco
mmunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=54620&pagenumber=3

I bought a cheap one (Farallon USB1.1 to ethernet) for $13 from Computer
Geek, and it worked great. Just plug-n-play 🙂

09/11/2005Got word from Antonio Carlos that a Linksys USB200M
works great.

06/17/2004 I’ve received feedback from Rob Clark
that a D-Link DSB-H3ETX (USB to enet adapter) also work.
He bought his locally for $15 and the link he sent is http://support.dlink.com/products/v
iew.asp?productid=DSB%2DH3ETX.

Basically any USB-enet adapters that uses the Pegasus chipset should
work with Tivo as Linux has driver support for that chip.

3COM
3Com USB Ethernet 3C460B

ABOCOM
USB 10/100 Fast Ethernet
USB HPNA/Ethernet

ACCTON
Accton USB 10/100 Ethernet Adapter
SpeedStream USB 10/100 Ethernet

ADMTEK
ADMtek ADM8511 Pegasus II USB Ethernet
ADMtek AN986 Pegasus USB Ethernet (eval. board)

ALLIEDTEL
Allied Telesyn Int. AT-USB100

BELKIN
Belkin F5D5050 USB Ethernet

BILLIONTON
Billionton USB-100
Billionton USBE-100
Billionton USBEL-100
Billionton USBLP-100

COMPAQ
iPAQ Networking 10/100 USB

COREGA
Corega FEter USB-TX

DLINK
D-Link DSB-650
D-Link DSB-650TX
D-Link DSB-650TX(PNA)

ELSA
Elsa Micolink USB2Ethernet

HAWKING
Hawking UF100 10/100 Ethernet

IODATA
IO DATA USB ET/TX
IO DATA USB ET/TX-S

KINGSTON
Kingston KNU101TX Ethernet

LANEED
LANEED USB Ethernet LD-USB/T
LANEED USB Ethernet LD-USB/TX

LINKSYS
Linksys USB100TX
Linksys USB10TX
Linksys USB Ethernet Adapter
Linksys USB USB10TX
Linksys USB100M
Linksys USB200M

MELCO
MELCO/BUFFALO LUA2-TX
MELCO/BUFFALO LUA-TX

SIEMENS
SpeedStream USB 10/100 Ethernet

SMARTBRIDGES
smartNIC 2 PnP Adapter

SMC
SMC 202 USB Ethernet

SOHOWARE
SOHOware NUB100 Ethernet

---

Tin “Tin Man” Le /
[email protected]

Tin’s Home…

Last Updated: $Date: 2003/08/19 04:32:49 $