Things That Go “Bump” in the Data Center

solarwinds_worldwide_llc over 4 years ago Less than one minute read time

Telling tales of data center horrors this Halloween

October 31 is coming up soon, so it’s time for costume parties, haunted houses, and your favorite scary movies. Halloween stories are frighteningly fun during parties or wrapped up in a blanket at home—we all love a good Dracula or Frankenstein tale!

In the spirit of Halloween, we may tell stories of things going “bump” in the night, but nothing’s as terrifying to tech pros as things that go bump in the data center.

To celebrate Halloween this year, we want to know your scariest, most goosebump-inducing data center fears and anecdotes that not only scare you this season, but year-round. Did you have a mishap with a chiller, HVAC, generator, or branch circuit? Or did something outside the data center affect your ability to conduct business as usual?

Tell us your scary stories and how you fought against these spooky tales by Friday, October 11 and we’ll put 250 THWACK points in your account.

Top Comments

Parents

jmodjeski over 4 years ago

One day I got a call to assist with a move. A business unit was moving from one part of a building into a newly refreshed work space. I got called because they learned at the last minute that some servers and routers located in an office needed to move as well. Simple when the business gave me permission, I would shut down the servers and load them onto a cart, then push them to the new server room where I would connect them all back up and power them up. Hurry up and wait, something that should have taken about 15 minutes took all afternoon. When asked about the routers I said the project manager has called the provider. They will be here on Monday to move them. After I had moved the servers and tested with the users, I was confronted by the vice president of the business unit, He asked me what I did when I was moving the servers. I stated I had just tested and everything should be working. He said we lost our connection to all other applications. I went back to the office where the routers were located and they were powered off. I discovered the circuit breaker had been shut off. I looked around to find the project manager for the construction, in a little while he got the power turned back on. I quickly went back to have someone test, after about 10 minutes it was pretty clear it wasn't working. I went back to check the router, something about the CSU was not looking good with flashing red lights. I then ran around until I found the construction manager again, I asked if the work they were doing nearby would have cut any telephone lines? He led me to the area where there was a dumpster nearly full of 50 pair. Several lengths, about several hundred feet. I told him I suspected my connectivity problem was related to all that copper not being properly terminated. I went back to inform the vice president of the bad news. But before I got there I ran into a coworker I asked if he had his cabling tools? I explained the situation. He laughed, we are not going to untangle this mess. I asked if we could use a 300 foot patch cable to connect the router to another company location that existed across the parking lot. After a few crimps and password break procedure on a router, and little but of hacking suddenly we had connectivity. Add a few parking cones and few feet of yellow tape we had a solution until Monday. Not too scary.
- Cancel
- Vote Up +1 Vote Down
- Sign in to reply
- More
- Cancel

Comment

jmodjeski over 4 years ago

One day I got a call to assist with a move. A business unit was moving from one part of a building into a newly refreshed work space. I got called because they learned at the last minute that some servers and routers located in an office needed to move as well. Simple when the business gave me permission, I would shut down the servers and load them onto a cart, then push them to the new server room where I would connect them all back up and power them up. Hurry up and wait, something that should have taken about 15 minutes took all afternoon. When asked about the routers I said the project manager has called the provider. They will be here on Monday to move them. After I had moved the servers and tested with the users, I was confronted by the vice president of the business unit, He asked me what I did when I was moving the servers. I stated I had just tested and everything should be working. He said we lost our connection to all other applications. I went back to the office where the routers were located and they were powered off. I discovered the circuit breaker had been shut off. I looked around to find the project manager for the construction, in a little while he got the power turned back on. I quickly went back to have someone test, after about 10 minutes it was pretty clear it wasn't working. I went back to check the router, something about the CSU was not looking good with flashing red lights. I then ran around until I found the construction manager again, I asked if the work they were doing nearby would have cut any telephone lines? He led me to the area where there was a dumpster nearly full of 50 pair. Several lengths, about several hundred feet. I told him I suspected my connectivity problem was related to all that copper not being properly terminated. I went back to inform the vice president of the bad news. But before I got there I ran into a coworker I asked if he had his cabling tools? I explained the situation. He laughed, we are not going to untangle this mess. I asked if we could use a 300 foot patch cable to connect the router to another company location that existed across the parking lot. After a few crimps and password break procedure on a router, and little but of hacking suddenly we had connectivity. Add a few parking cones and few feet of yellow tape we had a solution until Monday. Not too scary.
- Cancel
- Vote Up +1 Vote Down
- Sign in to reply
- More
- Cancel

Children

No Data

Thwack - Symbolize TM, R, and C