> Author: proudly declares himself Unix herder, wants to keep track of which systems are important.
Because not all environments are webapps which dozens or hundreds of systems configured in a cookie cutter matter. Plenty of IT environments have pets because plenty of IT environments are not Web Scale™. And plenty of IT environments have staff churn and legacy systems where knowledge can become murky (see reference about "archaeology").
An IMAP server is different than a web server is different than an NFS server, and there may also be inter-dependencies between them.
I work with one system where the main entity is a “sale” which is processed beginning to end in some fraction of a second.
A different system I work with, the main “entity” is, conceptually, more like a murder investigation. Less than 200 of the main entity are created in a year. Many different pieces of information are painstakingly gathered and tracked over a long period of time, with input from many people and oversight from legal experts and strong auditing requirements.
Trying to apply the best lessons and principles from one system to the other is rarely a good idea.
These kind of characteristics of different systems make a lot of difference to their care and feeding.
So much this. Not everything fits cattle/chicken/etc models. Even in cases where those models could fit, they are not necessarily the right choice, given staffing, expertise, budgets, and other factors.
Because not all environments are webapps which dozens or hundreds of systems configured in a cookie cutter matter. Plenty of IT environments have pets because plenty of IT environments are not Web Scale™. And plenty of IT environments have staff churn and legacy systems where knowledge can become murky (see reference about "archaeology").
An IMAP server is different than a web server is different than an NFS server, and there may also be inter-dependencies between them.