Originally Posted by
nevansm
I'd agree with many of your statements except that there are 1000's of busineses today that are performing the same logic on vastly superior systems. The idea of single state is NOT new or even airline centric. You're got to be kidding yourself if you think the airline industry is THAT unique. This isn't new or ground braking.
Want an example in the airline industry? How do GDS's some distribute inventory and fare invormation with any (that I know of) interruption in many many years?
Distriubuted mainframes. It's possible. Let's stop this idea of delta is smarter than IT. they aren't. It's proven. They need better people (no more dissimilar than IT organization when this happens).
Originally Posted by
WWads
If DL really wants to make a run at being LAX's biggest airline, they have a lot of firing, retraining, and very selective hiring to do. My sentiments exactly on the employees. In a market that competitive, DL can't afford to have low-quality staff. High value customers will notice, and will seek out other options after a few bad experiences.
Maybe they should pay some MSP front-line staff to move out there. Bring some of their niceness to LAX.
Delta has been losing long-time and experienced employees left and right over the past 12-24 months, between early out packages and layoffs. On top of that, they are not necessarily replacing retirees and are instead relying more and more heavily on contractors. And their IT pay scale has been, and continues to be, sub-par when compared with every other sector/business, even with their touted 14.5% pay raise last December. Put it this way - I took a 30% pay cut when I converted from a contractor for Delta to a Delta employee, as did another contractor who converted after I was downsized. And he could have gone elsewhere, as a contractor, and made at least $20/hr more than he was getting at Delta. My reasons for converting were some additional job security plus better benefits. Unfortunately, a new manager (hired from an outside financial firm) and new management cost-cutting decrees put an end to my goal of spending at least 10 years as a Delta employee (and thus qualifying for Retiree flight benefits for the rest of my life).
Originally Posted by
minnyfly
Depends on the carrier. ExpressJet and Endeavor also saw mass cancellations. Might not have been as bad as mainline, but it was close. Strangely the rest of DCI operated pretty close to normal.
Both of those CC's run off of DL's internal systems, IIRC.
Originally Posted by
rylan
I see several news stories now that are saying this is (another) glaring example of the need for data and power redundancy and proper planning, and putting the blame on DL.
Saw a report also saying that the power company said it was more than just an electrical equipment failure, but a computer glitch on DL's part that contributed as well.
There are UPS systems and backup generators at all data centers. This wasn't because of a "power outage".
Originally Posted by
flyerCO
A company the size of DL probably has almost a mini-power station either near by or even on campus for its data center. Thus no other power customers need be effected.
Fixing it to ensure you have enough power for a data center in case of power failure is not easy. Older DCs weren't designed with the power consumption backup that today's DCs need. Upgrading is neither cheap, nor easy. I worked at a DC providing support for 5 hospitals and all associated systems. At the time we upgraded power backups, they only could produce 70% of needed power. This was a data center that only ten years ago had power backup upgraded.
The speed at which technology has come into play has vastly exceeded that which data centers wouldve needed and been designed for only a few years before. Every server, every router, every computer or other electronic adds to the power demand. To replace those backup systems in general means taking the whole system down. In the case at the data center I worked that meant being without any computer technology for nearly 12 hours for 5 hospitals. Mind you this is a small data center. The likes of DL'S would be many times bigger.
As for the reason, a wait and see is best in cases like this. At this stage everyone wants to not be the one responsible and will put out PR trying to touted that. Wait a week and we'll have a clearer idea what caused this to start.
"Power outage" is pure PR BS to me until someone publishes reliable, verifiable information to the contrary. We went to *great* lengths to ensure a power failure would not bring down business-critical systems. My team had a DR plan in place for years that would ensure our system could be up and running in the event ATL "became a smoking crater", and every business-critical system needed to have one of those, also. Not sure about other back-end systems, but ours could be executed within an hour (more like 15-20 minutes, in reality).