Crappy virtual box...



  • Currently waiting for an all to frequent reboot of a rather WTF'y virtual machine. Here's the deal:

    I am currently maintaining a Classic ASP application (wtf 1) for a client that's been shouting "Yeah, we know it's old, but this will be the last year we're running it anyway, so keep it together" for the past 4 years... Development for this application follows a rigid process of development, testing, QUA and finally production (which is a good thing!)

    Occasionally, issues come up that require me to test things with some actual data. Since I, the developer, have zero rights on the production system, I'll have to use QUA, which holds a slightly anonymised data set (only medical records are blurred out, it's an HR portal). Embedded in the portal, one of my predecessors built a page with a textbox and a submit button, which fires a query from said textbox to the database. This page is completely unprotected by passwords (wtf 2). Anyone that knows the path to this file can query everything.

    But when I use this page to query (I have no database access to the QUA set-up from TOAD...) the house comes down. If a query executes successfully (10% chance of that happening), its extremely slow at best. In the other 90% of the cases, the server simply dies. And not just the server (which is the crappy VM-box in the title) but EVERY BOX ON THE FRIGGIN HOST! My Dev environment, Test, QUA, my network mappings to the source files and someone else's Prod environment too...

    Some weird things about this issue: 1. It takes the house down. 2. Only QUA disintegrates when queried. 3. The problem used to exist in some other parts of the application too,  but I fixed it by rewriting the offending code (it was good code, and I simply made it slightly more verbose and used less switching between asp tags), but 4. That doesn;t work for the query page...

    Oh, WTF 4: Since this is a large and fragmented organisation, This problem got shoved down the line from me, to a tech support guy, to some network specialist, to a database expert etc, and the last person in this chain refuses to give this issue any priority...



  • Well, you've got to expect beauracracy in a large organization...It sucks, but is part of life.

     Your technical problem is two-fold:

    1- the queries you are writing are inefficient or returning too much data for the QUA machine to handle.

    2- SQL-Server isn't configured correctly to limit itself to a particular CPU and/or maximum memory.

    When one of your big-ass queries gets going, SQL just takes over the entire box.  BTW: Doesn't Microsoft still recommend NOT running SQL Server in a VM????  VMWare recommends "for" it, but only after buying at least 4-way processor machines...

     



  • My queries aren't especially large, and who said anything about MS SQL?

    I connect (via ODBC) to an Oracle database on another server entirely. And I'm definitely not even scratching the surface of that beast's performance capabilities. Think multiple quad-core processors and 64 gigs of Ram on an exotic AIX machine, or such something. I saw the specs only once, about 5 months ago...



  • With Oracle it is even easier to mis-configure something.



  • Probably true, but it would be nice to see it fixed someday...



  •  QUA = Quality Un-Assurance?



  •  QUA = Quebec Urological Association?



  • QUA is what the semi-english speaking predecessors of mine decided to name QUality Assurance...



  • @steenbergh said:

    QUA is what the semi-english speaking predecessors of mine decided to name QUality Assurance...
    Makes sense.  You've got to follow a 'q' with a 'u'.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @bstorer said:

    You've got to follow a 'q' with a 'u'.
    Unless it's a broken English phonetic spelling of an arabic/persian/hebrew word



  • @PJH said:

    @bstorer said:
    You've got to follow a 'q' with a 'u'.
    Unless it's a broken English phonetic spelling of an arabic/persian/hebrew word
    I love how that talks about qwerty as a native English word.

    Before you say "oh btk of course it's a word.  It's in the dictionary and everything!" I don't buy it.  I don't consider GUI to be an English word either, though it has even more of a right to be as qwerty.  Next you'll be telling me that PCMCIA is a word.  and USB.



  • @belgariontheking said:

    Before you say "oh btk of course it's a word.  It's in the dictionary and everything!" I don't buy it.  I don't consider GUI to be an English word either, though it has even more of a right to be as qwerty.  Next you'll be telling me that PCMCIA is a word.  and USB.

    Yeah...Next you'll be saying that Laser is a word too   :)



  • @Auction_God said:

    @belgariontheking said:
    Before you say "oh btk of course it's a word.  It's in the dictionary and everything!" I don't buy it.  I don't consider GUI to be an English word either, though it has even more of a right to be as qwerty.  Next you'll be telling me that PCMCIA is a word.  and USB.
    Yeah...Next you'll be saying that Laser is a word too   :)
    As soon as they attach friggin QWERTYs to the heads of sharks in a movie, it'll be a word.



  • @Auction_God said:

    @belgariontheking said:

    Before you say "oh btk of course it's a word.  It's in the dictionary and everything!" I don't buy it.  I don't consider GUI to be an English word either, though it has even more of a right to be as qwerty.  Next you'll be telling me that PCMCIA is a word.  and USB.

    Yeah...Next you'll be saying that Laser is a word too   :)

    Laser is not a word, it is a way of life.

  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @belgariontheking said:

      I don't consider GUI to be an English word either, though it has even more of a right to be as qwerty.  Next you'll be telling me that PCMCIA is a word.  and USB.
    Do you (the royal you) pronounce LOL (in real life)...

    1) lol (as in the first syllable of lolly)

    2) LOL (as in ell oh ell) or

    3) you wouldn't.

    On hearing a cow-orker speak it do you...

    Um, what would you do if someone verbally txt'd you with 'lol'?



  • @PJH said:

    Do you (the royal you) pronounce LOL (in real life)...

    1) lol (as in the first syllable of lolly)

    2) LOL (as in ell oh ell) or

    3) you wouldn't.

    I pronounce it lawl.



  • @Spectre said:

    @PJH said:

    Do you (the royal you) pronounce LOL (in real life)...

    1) lol (as in the first syllable of lolly)

    2) LOL (as in ell oh ell) or

    3) you wouldn't.

    I pronounce it lawl.

    lohl, or similar to lowell



  •  #1).

    I'm Dutch, so it's with the "o" of "bored".

     



  • @dhromed said:

     #1).

    I'm Dutch, so it's with the "o" of "bored".

     

    Even weirder, for us it isn't even a acronym it's an actual word, which by pure coinsidence actually means fun or having fun.



  • @stratos said:

    Even weirder, for us it isn't even a acronym it's an actual word, which by pure coinsidence actually means fun or having fun.
     

    I think may have lol'd at that a little.



  • Hmm... When starting this thread, I wasn't thinking about LOL in particular.


Log in to reply