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My Dog, Max
Around 1990, my wife and I bought a dog, a Scottish Terrier, and named him Max.
We loved that dog and still refer to him as “our first child.” Over the years, we
acquired many objects decorated with the unmistakable Scottie silhouette from
Christmas tree ornaments to pajamas for the human children that came along later.
We were very sad to lose Max to old age a few years ago and went through a period
of grieving before getting another Scottie whom we named James. Because he looks
so much like Max, we were able to keep and continue to enjoy most of the items we
had accumulated during the Max era. The Scottie silhouette was a symbol, or alias,
for an actual dog named Max that we were able to transfer in our minds and hearts
to a brand new dog we called James. Personalized items (name tags, medical records,
etc.) that were specific to Max had to be discarded while items displaying only the
alias (the silhouette) were reusable.
I thought about Max and James while discussing a current project to replace some old
servers in our Data Center. Any JCL, FTP job, batch file, script, link, scheduled task,
or other software component that uses the specific name or IP address of an old server
will need to be discarded along with the old server. The software component must be
replaced with another version that uses a new name UNLESS YOU USED AN ALIAS.
When we replace the servers on the dates shown in the table below, if you’ve used a
specific server name or IP address, your job, script, or link inside an email or web
page will share a lot in common with my beloved Max… both will be fondly remembered
for the days when they were alive and well.
Why don’t you take a few moments today to look for references to specific server names
or hard-coded IP addresses in your software components? If you need an alias, use the
table or link below to look up the alias for your server. If you need help or a
new alias to be created, contact your friendly server administrator.
After all, it’s OK to grieve for our departed pets, but the only one who mourns a
job that crashes at 3:00AM is the one who has to wake up to fix it.
Return to Chuck's Corner and Reneé's Reflections
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