The Blue Screen of Death is something I recall from the days of computers working to a central server, typically managed by IT departments that refuse to modernise or look forward. You know the ones, doncha.
Except where a huge amount of data is needed to be shared in real time across a few workstations, we don’t use networked computers. We use variations of ‘clouds’. Everything we do is ‘online’. Even the big meaty data is backed up instantly. Blow up our building and our hardware and we can relatively easily get back to exactly where we were as soon as we relocate and replace our hardware. Well, assuming the human element has survived.
I recall discussing the whole concept of living on the cloud with the IT department of a place back in London town, probably some seven or eight years ago. They laughed and scoffed at me, venomously snorting at the idea that “the internet” would be all one needed in order to do almost everything. They much preferred to spend an absolute fortune on local servers and ongoing money on trying to keep them protected and up to date, as well as buying all the locally held software. Invariably at least once a year they would crash and be offline whilst they called ‘engineers’ in to try to recover everything. Roll-backs would be to whenever the last ‘back-up’ had been run. Work was always lost, it was just how much work would be the question, and then days of no system, or it running slow would follow as they tried to fix everything.
Meanwhile, those working with the cloud are usually working with data centres that are so ruggedly built that they never fall over, as far as the users are concerned.
The only weak link is ‘the internet’. Indeed, the breaking down of the internet is what all those years ago the ‘IT department’ sneered about. How on earth would one access anything if the net connection was down they sneered.
Yet, most places have built in redundancy. If the pipe goes down, there’s a standard ADSL type back up. If that goes down there’s 4G back-up. And, if the internet is impossible to reach, one just drives to somewhere where it is. Or, if there’s a catastrophic failure due to a zombie invasion, one probably doesn’t feel like working, just trying to stay alive, so, other than Googling for info about how to hide from zombies, the lack of internet becomes the least of the worries.
On an individual computer basis, I can’t remember when I saw the Blue Screen of Death. I have a mixture of Windows 8.1, Ubuntu, and Android devices that seem to just chug along happily. Maybe I’ve had issues with Ubuntu (Linux), but that’s been more about the hardware failing since it was old and tatty in the first place and usually a reclaimed dead Windows machine, but not anything else. Oh, the Apple machines, I forgot about them, yes, they have to be constantly rebooted, but that’s to be expected from iOS these days of course.
So, it always amazes me to see organisations insisting on using the old fashioned local server configuration for their IT needs. I guess it keeps loads of guys employed, but surely it’s time to move into the 21st Century?
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