A virus that kills in record numbers is circling the globe. Some who are felled by the disease might be 70 or older. That's the same age range as several HP 3000 experts who still support MPE computing. It might be a disaster if there's no one left at a company who knows details about a 3000 that's still running.

Avoiding that full stop is the business of disaster recovery. Add global fatalities to this list from 3000 consultant Paul Edwards's 2004 disaster recovery white paper. Sixteen years ago he ticked off a big list. "The top ten types of disasters, which have caused the most damage in recent years, are power outage, storm damage, flood, hardware error/failure, bombing, hurricane, fire, software error, power surge/spike, and earthquake."

The full paper remains on Edwards' website at Paul Edwards & Associates. Although, as Edwards notes, the paper doesn't go into the details of writing a disaster recovery plan, it discusses the main points to consider. Another Edwards paper, Homesteading: Plan for the Future, details what should be in a good Systems Manager Notebook. 

Every site should have one because it contains critical hardcopy information to back up the information contained in the system. It is part of the Disaster Recovery Plan that should be in place and is used to manually recreate your environment. You can’t have too much information inside it.

Twenty years ago this month, the 3000 community was already experienced at recovery from the disaster of losing a key staffer.

At that time, a 3000 manager read about a Florida site "where the system manager passed away without much notice. It sounds like documentation is pretty important in that kind of crisis. What do you recommend as a minimum?"

Paul Edwards replied:

The contents of a System Manager Notebook include hardware and software information that is vital to recovering your system in any type of disaster. The rest of the company’s business operating procedures must be combined with the IS plan to form a comprehensive corporate disaster recovery contingency plan.

The Notebook contains hardware model and serial numbers; license agreements for all software and hardware; a copy of all current maintenance agreements, equipment warranty information, complete applications documentation of program logic; data file layouts and system interaction, along with system operator run books and any other appropriate documentation. There is a wealth of information contained in each HP 3000 that can be printed and stored offsite that is critical to a recovery effort.

Image by Hans Rohmann from Pixabay