NHS warez monkeys bring down computer system

[Gareth]

Link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/05/nhs_it_crash/

Originally Posted by El Reg

A Kent hospital's computer system flatlined for two days after staff overdosed it with music downloads, videos, photos, and games, UK tabloid The Sun reports.

As a result of the collapse - provoked by a main server crash - staff at the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate were obliged to resort to producing X-rays on film and pulling patient files from paper back-ups

I can't believe they were allowed to get away with this... what sort of muppets were running the joint?!?

Every company I have worked for or worked on-site at this sort of behaviour would never be tolerated, and anyone caught doing it would be receiving their P45 pretty quickly. Apparently this isn't so in the NHS... maybe that explains why it's in such a bad state overall.

I especially liked the quote "Staff have been told that from now on any music or other inappropriate files will be wiped." From now on...? So it wasn't automatically wiped before? Sheesh, I would've got a job there ages ago if I'd have known!

[Paul M]

How did an excess of files bring a system down for two days !!!

[Paul]

Makes you wonder how much the system administrator is being paid if staff are allowed to do this. Not exactly a well secured system obviously.

[jtwn]

I wonder if it actually had a decent enough connection to leech off. The hospital in Grimsby last I knew only had a ADSL 2mb connection.

[Druchii]

Originally Posted by jtwn

I wonder if it actually had a decent enough connection to leech off. The hospital in Grimsby last I knew only had a ADSL 2mb connection.

Our college has 10x that in theory... Very interesting really.

I can't believe they thought it was a good idea, i mean, didn't they see it was potentially a nightmare waiting to happen?

[NitroNutter]

Originally Posted by Paul M

How did an excess of files bring a system down for two days !!!

You ever tried running a personal windows comp with only 1MB of HDD space left Even XP home or pro single user doesnt farewell under those circumstances. Now drop the same system into a well used setup.

You know when you ring a call center and they say "you will have to hang on a few the computer systems have gone on a go slow" for me its almost every time I call one now we know why. They are really just having to drop a few ftp users of their warez site and pause bittorrent.

Almost everytime i speak to staff in currys, maplin's, pcworld etc they admit and even promote getting stuff from warez and crack sites and chat about how immense their p2p ques are at home aswell.

[Paul M]

Originally Posted by NitroNutter

You ever tried running a personal windows comp with only 1MB of HDD space left Even XP home or pro single user doesnt farewell under those circumstances. Now drop the same system into a well used setup.

I support hundreds of servers, I know how well, or otherwise, they run if the system drive is full.

User data should never be on the same drive, and two days is a ridiculous amount of time, lack of disk space is not hard to cure - it's called using the "delete file" function. Whoever is in charge of this system should be sacked for total incompetance.

[Druchii]

whoever is in charge of this system should be sacked for total incompetance.

True, how could they fail tpo notice applications of that srt, and high bandwidth utilisation? I mean, even with no monitoring software you can tell when your connection is runing way slower than it should be... So they had no excuse really.

[grandmaster]

Originally Posted by Paul M

I support hundreds of servers, I know how well, or otherwise, they run if the system drive is full.

User data should never be on the same drive, and two days is a ridiculous amount of time, lack of disk space is not hard to cure - it's called using the "delete file" function. Whoever is in charge of this system should be sacked for total incompetance.

I Agree.
Sack the person in charge

[NitroNutter]

Originally Posted by Paul M

I support hundreds of servers, I know how well, or otherwise, they run if the system drive is full. User data should never be on the same drive, and two days is a ridiculous amount of time, lack of disk space is not hard to cure - it's called using the "delete file" function. Whoever is in charge of this system should be sacked for total incompetance.

In the NHS, or somewhere else that beleives in having respectable systems beyond the likes of tiny and time etc. They should have something like sentinal installed but then thats probably more cost than the hardware they actually have.

Dont get me wrong here some of the nhs medical equipment is great but I would guess having seen the brands they usually have for the general computers are not, and the sysadmin is probably some underpaid yts type so they probably run a full site anyway as they cant afford their beer (dont need drugs they are at a hospital) and the music and movies they want.

[anthemuk]

Originally Posted by Gareth

Link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/05/nhs_it_crash/
I can't believe they were allowed to get away with this... what sort of muppets were running the joint?!?

Every company I have worked for or worked on-site at this sort of behaviour would never be tolerated, and anyone caught doing it would be receiving their P45 pretty quickly. Apparently this isn't so in the NHS... maybe that explains why it's in such a bad state overall.

I especially liked the quote "Staff have been told that from now on any music or other inappropriate files will be wiped." From now on...? So it wasn't automatically wiped before? Sheesh, I would've got a job there ages ago if I'd have known!

---------- Post added at 13:11 ---------- Previous post was at 13:10 ----------

I regularly receive email jokes, videos etc from NHS workers which appear to have been circulated round most of the country - some of them are also from senior management!