never touch a running system

expression

ops cultureIT support

The conservative operator's creed: if it works, leave it alone.

Born from hard experience with fragile systems, and half-obsolete in the patch-or-be-breached era: not touching a running system also means not patching it. The modern compromise is making change safe enough to do routinely rather than avoiding it.

Also known as: if it ain't broke, don't fix it

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