[Today’s run: 12 miles]
There is a small job for the office that I need to do this weekend.
I have a note here in front of me that says something like “move rates this weekend, prod–>test”. That means I need to copy a handful of database tables from the production system to the test system. Another guy will then work on the rate configuration (this is a utility billing system, electric, water, storm water, that kind of thing). When he is done I will have to move the new rates into the production system.
“Production” means the system that is being used every day to do the real work. “Test” is a different database where we can try things out and generally make a mess but it doesn’t hurt the customers.
The tricky part with this is that these tables are referenced by other tables in the system. So I have to turn off some of the internal checks and balances when I do it. I can do it pretty fast, 10-15 minutes total, so if I pick a strategic time it is very unlikely to cause any trouble. It is the destination system that has to have these turned off. This weekend’s copy is into “test” and that doesn’t have anyone using it during the weekend.
The “production” system does have people using it during the weekend. Over the years that I have been working on this system it has slowly evolved into a nearly 24×7 operation. It used to be only the customer service people and some of the metering departments that used the system. But then we got tied in to a telephone payment system (check your balance 24×7 by calling in over the telephone via touch-tone) and we are tied in to an outage management system and to a new real-time metering system. So any time I do something disruptive I have to plan in advance and make announcements and get everything squared away ahead of time.
As a practical mater, I don’t think there is any way for me to even find out that a customer is using the telephone access system at any given time. And I don’t think there is any way for them to complain when the main office is closed. But we like to have things running when the customers are expecting it to be running.