Python reliability

[Scott David Daniels]

You might try a "take over" mode -- starting another copy gets to the
point it looks to listen for UDP, the (if the listening fails), tells
the other process to die over UDP, taking over then.  This scheme would
would reduce your "time-to-switch" to a much shorter window.  Whenever
given the shutdown signal, you could turn on the "watcher sleeping"
light.  The remaining issue, replacing hardware or OS (possibly due to
failure) probably changes the UDP address.  That might be trickier.  I
certainly feel happier when I can do a hand-off to another box, but it
sounds like you might need the instruments to broadcast or multicast
to get to that happy place.

--Scott David Daniels
scott.daniels at acm.org