Deployment Blues

This morning, I was awakened at 2AM by a call from Nino. He was on standby providing support to the deployment team and it seems there’s a problem. I quickly dialed-in to the conference call and got the log report. I saw, as Nino already did, that there’s a communication problem between two components, the CWS and the PIS.

However, due to the configuration of the production environment, it is hard to confirm. There is a staging environment but the configuration is different (bad) so it’s pretty much useless. Eventually, the deployment team did manage to isolate one production server and we tested on it.

Same conclusion: there is a communication problem between CWS and PIS. I asked if PIS is available on the port the CWS is trying to connect to. That probably switched the light bulbs in the deployment team’s collective heads because they instead of responding, they configured something, and voila, it worked!

UPDATE: I found out that the port our system has been configured to use is not compatible in production because they had decided to keep the old application server up (good) on that port and have the new application server on a different port (but they hadn’t informed us, bad).

Soldier of God

Soldier of God takes place in the Holy Land during the time of the crusades. It takes off in the aftermath of the Battle of Hattin, probably the single, most disastrous defeat for the crusaders. René, a member of the Knights Templar was wounded during the battle, captured, and taken for ransom.

For those unfamiliar with history, the Knights Templar is a Christian military order that gained fame (and notoriety) during the Crusades. All members of the order take take vows of poverty, chastity, piety, and obedience. The knights of the order are practically warriors priests. In fact, they’re the elite troops among the crusaders.

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Going Smart

I’ve been a Globe postpaid line subscriber for over 10 years but I finally decided to disconnect. Here’s why:

  1. It’s so hard to talk to a person via 211.
  2. I used to get a sizable loyalty bill rebate. But when I inquired recently, the rebate I’ll be getting would less than half of what I used to get. So the longer I stay, the less my rebates get.
  3. The loyalty phone package is exactly the same as what a new customer will be getting.
  4. No stocks of the iPhone everywhere.
  5. They’re not willing (or didn’t offer to) notify me when stocks are available. Instead, they want me to call every now and then to check if stocks are already available.
  6. Finally, they have this automatic image compression when web browsing using a mobile data connection. It even affects my Tattoo MyFi. Image compression is not bad per se but the whatever they’re using absolutely fuglifies photos.

So goodbye Globe! And hello Smart!