bliki: Snowflake Server
It can be finicky business to keep a production server running. You have to ensure the operating system and any other dependent software is properly patched to keep it up to date. Hosted applications need to be upgraded regularly. Configuration changes are regularly needed to tweak the environment so that it runs efficiently and communicates properly with other systems. This requires some mix of command-line invocations, jumping between GUI screens, and editing text files.
The first problem with a snowflake server is that it's difficult to reproduce. Should your hardware start having problems, this means that it's difficult to fire up another server to support the same functions. If you need to run a cluster, you get difficulties keeping all of the instances of the cluster in sync. You can't easily mirror your production environment for testing. When you get production faults, you can't investigate them by reproducing the transaction execution in a development environment. 1
1: Another metaphor I've heard for this is that you should treat your servers like cattle and not like pets. Although I confess I find it odd when this metaphor is used by my vegetarian colleagues.
