In system operations it is commonly assumed that arbitrary changes to a system can be reversed or `rolled back', when errors of judgement and procedure occur. We point out that this view is flawed and provide an alternative approach to determining the outcome of changes. Convergent operators are fixed-point generators that stem from the basic properties of multiplication by zero. They are capable of yielding a repeated and predictable outcome even in an incompletely specified or `open' system. We formulate such `convergent operators' for configuration change in the language of groups and rings and show that, in this form, the problem of convergent reversibility becomes equivalent to the `division by zero' problem. Hence, we discuss how recent work by Bergstra and Tucker on zero-totalised fields helps to clear up long-standing confusion about the options for `rollback' in change management.
翻译:在系统操作中,通常假定在判断和程序错误发生时,对系统的任意改变可以倒转或“回滚”,我们指出,这种观点有缺陷,为确定变化结果提供了替代方法;趋同操作员是来自零乘数基本特性的固定点生成器;即使在一个未完全具体说明或“开放”的系统中,它们也能够产生反复和可预测的结果;我们为集团和环群语言的配置变化制定这样的“一致操作员”,并表明,在这种形式上,可趋同的可逆性问题相当于“零分化”问题;因此,我们讨论伯格斯特和塔克最近零集成的作业如何有助于消除在变革管理中“回滚式”选项上长期存在的混乱。