Date   : Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:52:10 -0000
From   : mark@... (Mark Usher)
Subject: [OT] Who'da thought...

> 
> You know, you hear about cleaners and such unplugging critical bits of
> kit. Saw it myself in a different version. A certain large retail store
> had a TTY-like terminal that is not supposed to be unplugged ever.
> Cleaner unplugged it, and to make matters worse, plugged her hoover into
> the bright red socket mounted at chest height. Lazy cow obviously
> couldn't be bothered to bend over to use the white (normal) sockets
> along the skirting board. She switched on the vacuum. The red sockets
> were all hooked to a large UPS, which immediately panicked (at a sudden
> 2kW load?) and shut everything down with sirens blaring. And when I say
> everything, I mean all the terminals went down, as did the phones, the
> printers, the networking kit...

Which takes us back to what we were talking about the other week, regarding
being able to run and maintain systems. JGH's continued evangelism about
software being written correctly, applies just as much to hardware.
If they'd have implemented properly, dual redundant power supplies in each
server and device, attached to two different phases in the 19" rack - each
with its own UPS, in a correctly administered server room, with process
around access you wouldn't get these problems.  Or the cost and
embarrassment associated with them. And as for actually testing failsafe/ DR
scenarios... I'll just leave my eyes in the rolled position ;-) They only
learn when it starts costing them money.

//M