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How long can you keep it up?

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by jdclyde

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How long have your servers been up since the last reboot?

What was the cause of that reboot?

What is the OS of each server?

My first server is our legacy system, running SuSE SLES10.1. Up 112 days. Went down because of extended power outage. (took all servers down)

Before that, our Intranet server was up for 430+ days without a reboot.

The only one that isn't at the 112 is running a fleet management package. The package crashed, and being a new version, we tried the old way of resolving the locked files and it did bad things.... (at the direction of support, mind you.... B-) ) It took a reboot after that to recover. After the reboot, we found the NEW way to recover, and had we known, it would have made that reboot unnecessary. It was just a down and up.

We hear talk all the time about servers, security and reliability. What are YOUR real world experiences with the different server OS's?

Please specify if it was hardware/software/OS that caused the last down time, and how long it lasted.

38 replies

by lthoman

711 days linux Fedora core 5
667 days linux Fedora core 3
922 days linux Red Hat 8

by mdhealy

I was the admin for a Sun SPARC server, running SunOS 4.X, in 1994. We rebooted it for some routine purpose or other in late 1993, but did not reboot it at any time in 1994. In early 1995 we moved it to a different room, and I recall thinking sadly, "now I'll never know how much longer it could have kept going."

by jdclyde

But while the title was a joke, I was really hoping to hear about other peoples servers... :(

As for "how long", my last GF didn't like it because she said it was like being with a 17 year old..... ;\ Can I help it my "quickie" is how long others take for their "longie"? :p

by tink!

With a title like that, and seeing your name as the one who started the topic - did you REALLY expect server answers? :p

If Microsoft would stop having a friggin update every doggone week I'd never restart the server. I swear everytime I get around to installing an update on the server - within a day there's another one bugging me to be installed.

by tink!

could be:

How long since you last went down?
When is the last time you went down?
How long before you go down?
When do you go down?
How often do you go down?

But I like yours :)

by jiminpa

wait... let me read the actual post...

Oh... We're talking about servers. My bad.

:^0

We reboot oh Windows 2000 servers every 3 months during our patching cycle unless something happens unexpectedly which isn't as often as you might think.

by jaqui

they just don't fail.
open source software is [b]reliable[/b]. :D

for one, one app seems to require a reboot every week. It eats ram and locks itself up. the only way to clean it is the reboot.
[ danged proprietary software ]

by cg it

1 Windows Server 2003 [domain member server] 1 Windows Server 2003 Web Edition [stand alone] 1 Windows Small Business Server 2003 Premium Edition [ISA Server 2004] and 1 Windows Server 2008 RC 2.

The 2003 member server only gets a reboot if a patch requires it. Haven't had to reboot it to fix a problem since 2005. The SBS server also hasn't had to be rebooted to fix a problem since 2006. It does get rebooted for security patches if needed. The 2008 server is a test server and well it's been rebooted numerous times.

The member server runs CRM 3.0 seperate from the SBS box with runs SQL 2005 [couple of Access dbs].

by gsg

because it'll jinx it.

Dec Alpha Server -- 364 days. I missed a year by one stinking day.

Unix server -- 378 days. Yes, I have no life since I seem to enjoy counting the days. I have another that's been up longer, but I won't say or it will crash. (psst...it's over 450 days) It's in the process of being replaced so I need to baby it along a little while longer.

Windows 2000 server --about 30 days. That says it all, doesn't it?

I have an NT server that is still running that I refuse to say how long it's been up. I just know if I do, it will die a horrible death. Let's just say that it's been longer than 6 months. Yes, I know that's nearly impossible for an NT server, but the application that runs on it is well-built and they took the NT memory leak issues into account.

by jdclyde

My co-worker and I are constantly looking at the uptime, and commenting on how cool it is.

Does MS have an "uptime" command? Just wondering....

by gsg

I have no idea if MS has an uptime command. I have a server log that I keep and have to log every downtime, why it happened, scheduled/unscheduled, how long, etc...

I'm honestly not a "server person". I'm an applications expert, but I just have to know how things work to a certain extent. Luckily, the person who's reponsible for all our servers, server room, etc... knows me very well, and lets me mess around with my servers to a certain extent. At least, unlike all of the other apps people, I manage my own reboots, upgrades, maintenance, etc... I just don't mess with the hardware any more. I have PTSD after I went through 8 RAID controllers in 2 weeks about 7 years ago, using all my spares. None of our suppliers had a replacement for one of them, so I had to get it here on a sunday morning by buying it a seat on a plane. Yes, they strapped it in a seat in coach so I could get it from Florida to missouri and pick it up at 10am on a Sunday.

by netman1958

Use "net stats srv"

Sample output:

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.NEXCH
Server Statistics for \\NEXADC2

Statistics since 6/14/2008 2:59 PM

Sessions accepted 1
Sessions timed-out 0
Sessions errored-out 335

Kilobytes sent 1267824
Kilobytes received 1190474

Mean response time (msec) 0

System errors 0
Permission violations 305
Password violations 1

Files accessed 267867
Communication devices accessed 0
Print jobs spooled 0

Times buffers exhausted..............

by dr dij

Of course I am talking about my home PC, not servers.

My w2k is pretty stable when I'm just browsing.
When I do heavy graphical work, with several 200 to 400 meg .PPTs open, image composer software, photo editor, photo album... then things change.

After a short while, usually an hour or two, some of the programs complain about out of memory. Windows gives a 'virtual memory low', no matter how large I set it. At this point I quickly have to save and reboot. Good 'ole stable windoze!

by jdclyde

B-)

Dang power outage.

Having our UPS's in need of replacement doesn't help either.... :( But last time power was out for 2 daze.....

by tink!

is there any way to get the server to shutdown faster?

I noticed on the last power outage we had, the server had not finished shutting down before the UPS quit.

by netman1958

We used to have frequent power outages that would last well beyond the endurance of our UPSs. Last year we had a generator system installed. Since then (over a year) we have not had a power blink that lasted long enough for the generator to kick in.

On the other hand, I got a call from our night shift manager at about 8:00 PM one night saying they all got booted off the server. I ran back to the office to investigate and discovered something wierd. All the servers in one rack (powered through common UPS) had shutdown and that UPS was turned off. When I turned the UPS back on, all it's batteries were fully discharged. I checked the power at the wall outlet feeding the UPS and it had 120 volts. No one had reset any circuit breakers. I've never figured out what caused that UPS to start running on battery power and it's never done it again.

Wierd huh?

by tig2

And I don't have those often.

Like most here, when a patch requires it or a tornado comes through.

Please note- home system. I gave up playing with other people's toys (mostly) a while back.

by jellimonsta

You should look into WUS Tink. I used WUS back in my Sys Admin days. I liked having the download server to proxy every M$ patch. It also saves on bandwidth as your WUS server downloads the updates and clients get it off the LAN. It is also nice as you have to approve the patches, and approval can be done after a compatability test is performed.
Granted, this was more important in the NT 4 days. It seemed every patch to fix 1 thing broke 10 others with NT 4. :( :p

by cmiller5400

That was a Novell Netware 3.12 box that was up for over 2+ years if I remember correctly... It would have been up longer but we had to decommission it because we went to Windows 2000 server.

by jdclyde

Serious answers we can have fun with. :D

And what do you MEAN, seeing my name for the topic? :0 I am always "on-topic" and quite serious! B-)

;\

by tig2

That JD's lying. He's posting! :p

JD you knew that you were out to stir the pot. So did we all. You asked for anything you get at this point!

by jdclyde

you are just jealous that you didn't cumup with that heading first.... :p

:D B-) :x

by jdclyde

need to know which UPS's you use, the version of the software that communicates to them, and the OS of your server.

I would assume that it is just a percentage of uptime left before the UPS sends the shutdown?

by w2ktechman

my XP box has been up for 11 days! My personal record is 2 weeks (then MS rebooted it for me with an update when updates were disabled)

by wesley.chin

Recently, a server was purchased, running Windows Server 2008 Standard. Seems it was down when there was a power outage. After the outage, it took a couple of days to get it back up. This was for many reasons, among them not knowing the password needed for access and not knowing that the server had to be rebooted. The server was set up by a contractor and at the time only one person from the company was present and had knowledge of the password. That person left the country and no one could crack the password. When the password was finally found out, it was a few hours later before realizing the necessary reboot. Before the server, file sharing was accomplished through simple file sharing. Ever since the inclusion of the server, random computers sporadically disappear from Network Places.

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