Prologue
What you are about to read is based on a true story, though with a twist. I can tell you that this occurred on midnight Friday the 13th (dun dun duuun).
I am not kidding. That is when this go-live was scheduled to take place.
On the Eve of the Go-Live
It was a dark and cold night outside. You could hear the wind bowling, and the house where our protagonist worked creaked much more than usual.
Twas a fateful night where mischief was bound to happen. We all felt it. No one dared speak hereof. As if mentioning it would summon the mother of all bugs.
As if hinting toward it would cause the batch update set to implode unexpectedly in production with no hope of rolling back.
Even so, it was in this most unholy of times that the client had chosen to embark on the treacherous steps of
"Going live".
A Hero Emerges - Wet behind his Ears
Our young protagonist was indeed so - young and unencumbered by the consequences of carelessness in the face of battle against The Platform of Platform.
He did not know its strength. Worse. He was ignorant of his ignorance.
Alas, twas doomed from the onset. Even as our hero previewed and committed one update set after another, slaying all preview problems in his wake, he had already dug his own shallow grave.
A Doomed Endeavour
You see, my fellow traveler of the endless Platform of Platforms, our young friend carried a seemingly simple quest. A quest that promised reward for the entire kingdom of the client.
For many moons, the client had been haunted by poor business service definitions. Ah, the amount of dread and despair this unmanageable beast had yielded was beyond fathoming.
As such, the business services had all been exported to the most loyal and old friend of the client: the infamous Microsoft Excel.
In this fateful piece of software, the client had torturously forced the service data into submission. At a high cost and sacrifice of sanity
Curing the Corruption
But submit the mighty data did.
Or so it would have us think.
Our fool-hearted hero took the spreadsheet, and after all was set and done - the last sys_update_xmls carved into the production instance - he was ready to finish what he started.
He was unsure about his approach as he wandered in the halls of the business service table. There. Amid the production instance, our protagonist found the seed of corruption; as he strode in circles, the malignant and malformed beast of twisted records roared.
On the one hand, he wielded the pristine and submissive data that was to take the place of the to-be-slain data corruption. On the other, he held the sword that was to cure the Platform of Platforms.
He lunged in the direction of the data beast as it swiped its vicious u_fields and misplaced attributes at him. It was too slow. He plunged his sword into the corruption.
A part of him insisted that it was far too simple.
...
A formless deity sounded in a calm and angelic voice: "type 'delete' to confirm.
...
Moments passed, and even as the hero felt something wasn't right, it was too late for second thoughts. He did the deed. And sure enough, the data perished, and the pristine spreadsheet was imported in its place.
Short-lived Relief
The client rejoiced, and the hero was saluted and cheered on by all...
... But then - in the very moment that the corruption seemed gone and the light to be winning - a cold chill ran down the spine of our hero.
A current of vibrant energy swept through the tunnel he was in, rippling cloth and carrying a message. Through closed eyelids, his North Star manifested for an instant; the mythical Lord Tomassi looked pale and befallen, shaking his head incredulously.
It was in this instance our hero opened his eyes and caught his reflection, and realized his mistake. What he saw was no hero. What he saw was malpractice. He had betrayed his duty and honor.
The Nature of the Incident
He ran to the incident table, knowing what he would find... Facing him were ten thousand records, bleeding from the attribute that once contained a reference to the corrupted business service data that had been slain just prior.
Pristine as the new data was, it was unable to relate to the incidents...
"Ha... Ha... What happened? "
Our troubled protagonist barely registered what the client asked.
"Oh. Oh no. Not this. Our poor incidents... Useless. All of them. Tell us you can fix this! Oh, the massacre!"
Stunned and dumbfounded - most of all defeated - the fallen hero opened up one XML after another. The incidents did not recognize the new data. Not one sys_id. Not one bit.
"I don't know. I just don't know."
Summoning of the Council
The problem was that the current configuration of events was impossible for the graceless protagonist to change. Not alone. He would need to submit his request to the celestials.
"Oh, highest tier of support, hear my cry!"
Our fallen-from-grace hero, now with another harrowing learned experience under his belt, closed his eyes and started chanting.
"heya hiya, heya hiya, heya hiya, HI!"
A huge portal opened up, and a mighty 2nd tier specialist otherworldly being strode through. Crestfallen, the tale of the terrible deed was conveyed to the guardian of Support.
The being calmy raised her hood and stared into the very core of the sinner. The client covered their eyes, unable to take in the bright scene produced by the elder support council member.
"fear not, my bewildered children, for thine heartache and misery are unfounded. Tis all by design."
A shimmer of impossible hope sparked in the deepest recesses of our protagonist. He dared not open his heart to it completely.
"travel to the eastern section of the halls, and use the ancient application navigator. Upon searching for "deleted records," ye shall find answers to thy sorrow. The chosen data cannot even be contained by the realm of Death across the river of Styx, should you decide to command it by the power of The Platform of Platforms."
At once, the Support being demanifested. Its only trail a written message with a simple side-quest: to revert with details to the fruitfulness of the provided resolution steps, upon which the request for support would be completed, and the Guardian set free of her service commitment.
Raising the Undead
Frantically, with a burning need for redemption soaring in his heart, the protagonist ran. He ran and ran, not looking back on the confused client who didn't comprehend the nature of the prophecy the support being had bestowed upon them. He ran.
Upon reaching the graveyard of records that once was, he searched through the time stamps of the headstones. There. It was there. Already, many other batches of records had reached their natural end of life. The stop beyond closed complete. Record death... Deletion.
Among all these graves lay the corrupted beast.
It felt like a second ago that the beast was slain, and the protagonist couldn't stomach the idea of its resurrection.
But he pleaded with the Platform of Platforms. Luckily, it was a wise one, as it had foreseen the potential faults of its inhabiting users; the business service table was configured to be audited.
"rise again," he said as he pressed 'restore' with all the strength his battle-worn index finger could muster.
And it did. Oh, how it did. Never before had the hero been so appeased in the face of insufficient data. But it stopped the bleeding of the incidents. They had been restored, albeit to their previous inglorious state.
Last Stand
"go to bed, dear client," our yet-to-be-redeemed hero blurted. I go to war in the night once again."
The client insisted that its Kingdom could assist. That the burden should not be carried alone.
But this burden was his to carry.
And with no hesitation or quarrel, he commenced slaying the business service beast anew. One. Record. A. Time.
He dared not even look at the avenue of the import set and transform maps to which he should have consulted at first. Instead, he let the cobwebs cover its just-recalled entrance. He dared not trust anything but manual updates on this night of horror.
The maimed incidents flashes before his mind's eye as he bitterly fought his enemy hand to hand.
Never again should an ominous sensation remain obscure. Never again would he allow himself to hurt a production instance
