ecsimonson on July 24, 2010 - 2:05am
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From todays Coast Guard hearing testimony it sounds like the "A, B and C chairs all had problems with the BSOD" In other words they ran Microsoft Windows NT and the computers would crash and blue screen.
The last version of Microsoft NT was released in 1996. I work in IT so I see lots of old hardware and software but I can think of much more stable platforms to run such critical systems on. Anyone want to comment about what rigs usually use for OS on the chair computers. Mike Williams testified that if all chairs failed then the only option was abandon ship.
I can think of several OS's that I would trust about 1000X more than NT to run in such a critical job. Yes they would have to port and probably rewrite some software. I have had machines I managed that ran continuously for over 3 years, and got worked hard. Definitely not running NT.
I’ve been running a SUSE Linux server continuously for the last 5 years without a crash, the only time I’ve had to restart it was after some doofus cut the power with a backhoe two years ago, and that was a safe shutdown on backup power.
Lock down the OS from ANY change after extensive testing with the application suite.
Never update. Never patch. Never connect to the standard administrative network.
Anyone in this business worth their salt KNOWS the Process Control networks are teat very, very differently than administrative networks. It's a completely different ball-game.
That anyone would run NT as a process control OS shows amateur ignorance and/or criminal negligence.
So - with the kind of financial investment that these drilling operations represent, why run outdated and flawed computers/software, particularly when it comes to drilling safety?