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The World's Most Dangerous Server Room

By the77x42 in Technology
Sun Nov 24, 2002 at 12:58:35 AM EST
Tags: Humour (all tags) 		Humour

Two, ten litre water buckets balanced over the company's mainframe servers - and the backup tapes - oh, and the main routers and switches - oh, and the powerbars for the UPS's.

Yup, it was just another day at work.

I sent this article to The Register a couple months ago. It sparked a great thread of articles showcasing other IT slaves' stories. I thought I should shed some more light on this hilarious situation after recent events.

It all started when a co-worker and I were rambling about Exchange 5.5 when I heard what sounded like someone pissing in the corner. I looked up at the shitty, $300, Costco brand air conditioner that provided the 'cooling' for our server room. Behind the mess of wires and power cords I was able to catch a glimpse of the steady stream of piss that was spilling out of the cheap air 'blower'.

What followed was a mad dash for anything that could retain water. One bucket, then two buckets, each of which would fill up with ten litres of water within three days. This continued for over a year and a half despite countless emails to my manager. The president of the company even told my manager on three ocassions to buy a new air conditioner. My manager was too cheap (read: "stupid") to do anything.

Notice the convient placing of the company's backup tapes, backup drive, open server, and UPS's. Behind all that mess is also the sole powerbar for each of the servers.

The posting of this article eventually led to one of the reasons for my termination, and it was brought up in my final meeting. I post it here to find comfort in my original notion that it was indeed The World's Most Dangerous Server Room. Any comments you have on the subject are welcome.

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Poll
My company's server room is:
o Great 21%
o Could be better 22%
o Poor 9%
o Worse than yours 6%
o We don't have a server room 26%
o Submersed 13%

Votes: 104
Results | Other Polls

Related Links
o Two, ten litre water buckets balanced over the company's mainframe servers
o this article
o The Register
o great thread
o recent events
o mess of wires and power cords
o Notice
o Also by the77x42

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The World's Most Dangerous Server Room | 57 comments (54 topical, 3 editorial, 0 hidden)
OSHA (4.40 / 5) (#2)
by frankcrist on Sat Nov 23, 2002 at 02:47:02 PM EST

File a complaint with OSHA.  Then call a laywer and watch your dismissal turn into a reimbursement for tolerating their stupidity.  Then smirk.

--x--x--x--x--x--
Get your war on!
Don't (4.33 / 6) (#8)
by davidduncanscott on Sat Nov 23, 2002 at 04:22:50 PM EST

the installation instructions for most window A/C's suggest that the unit be mounted with an incline toward the outside?

All air-conditioners produce water as a by-product, and they used just to dump it out the rear. These days it's flung about by the "slinger ring" to add a little more cooling through its evaporation, but still, if the unit is tilted inward, I'm not sure it matters what brand or model unit you use.

Um... (4.00 / 7) (#9)
by delmoi on Sat Nov 23, 2002 at 05:16:46 PM EST

Why didn't you just change the location of the servers/tapes?
--
"'argumentation' is not a word, idiot." -- thelizman
IT "slave"? (3.80 / 5) (#10)
by pgdn on Sat Nov 23, 2002 at 05:35:27 PM EST

I used to work in IT, and I know what it's like to be subject to the whims of idiot managers, et. al.. But slave? When you do undesirable work for someone you hate because it will earn you more than something you would prefer to be doing, that's closer to the definition of a whore than a slave. Neither of us know what it's like to be a slave, but I'm sure it's a lot worse than having to add a useless feature because marketing wants it, or having to empty a bucket every few days because management can't make sure the air conditioner is put in the right way.

Most noisy server room (4.60 / 5) (#11)
by onyxruby on Sat Nov 23, 2002 at 05:44:35 PM EST

I had a server room at one my old contracts that might be labeled the noisiest server room in the world. It had an 25 + yo ancient Liebert inline transformer that had a failure that couldn't be fixed. Even calling in the Liebert factory technician didn't help as couldn't even order the part anymore. The inline transformer was for one of the original HP 4000 (4500?) big iron servers. The old server was old enough that the hard drive and other components were separate units, each about a half rack tall and a rack and a half wide.

This was a paper facility, so noise was quite the issue. Earplugs were required on the floor, and heavy duty $200 earmuffs were required to even visit certain parts of the floor. As a result the operations staff had a sound meter on hand to measure and meet OSHA requirements. I got them to use the sound meter in the server room for me, and promptly got my own pair of $200 earmuffs. Being a rather safety oriented company, they were now "required" to wear to go into the server room. I don't recall the exact dbl level of the room, but I know it was in the triple digits.

The moon is covered with the results of astronomical odds.

micromanagement (4.16 / 6) (#16)
by nex on Sat Nov 23, 2002 at 06:21:46 PM EST

So you don't just had to ask your boss if he could buy you a new air conditioner, you even had to ask him to allow you to relocate the backup tapes that were under the buckets, which you had put up yourselves, and where to put them? And he told you explicitly, "oh no no no, the buckets are fine, and all the equipment underneath must definitely stay there"?

I hope this gets THEM fired ! +1FP (3.40 / 5) (#17)
by nih5oruk on Sat Nov 23, 2002 at 07:23:54 PM EST



Sabotage (4.40 / 10) (#22)
by Blarney on Sat Nov 23, 2002 at 10:16:03 PM EST

What stopped you from sabotaging the air conditioner? If it has a belt drive between the motor and the compressor, you could simply remove the belt and hopefully the noise from the motor would still give people the impression that it was operating. Otherwise, I'm sure you could have come up with some clever way to make it pretend to be on and make the occasional whirring noise. It couldn't possibly have been cooling the room anyway, being as you already mentioned that it did not vent the heat outdoors. Perhaps the room would even have grown cooler!

Our server room (3.75 / 4) (#24)
by scruffyMark on Sat Nov 23, 2002 at 10:54:27 PM EST

I work for a company in Edmonton, Alberta (more or less North of Minnesota, for you Americans). Our server room is in Halifax, Nova Scotia (up by Maine). The servers there are Citrix terminal servers, which, as you might expect, means a certain sluggish feel to some of the apps at our end. The main system we use is an OpenStep app; I'm not sure if it runs via X11 on yet another system or what, but it's still one step slower than any of the other programs. This app in turn connects to a further server running on (an) MVS/ESA system(s) somewhere in the States. On the floor, to run the Citrix desktop client, we have Pentium 4 workstations, with something like 256MB of RAM, and 15" monitors locked at 60 Hz. Oh well; for all that the IT setup is a bit wonky, it's a pretty good place to work.

Why buckets ? (4.28 / 7) (#29)
by drsmithy on Sun Nov 24, 2002 at 08:04:06 AM EST

Surely a funnel and some piping to move the water somewhere less potentially destructive would have been a far smarter interim solution ?

Please read the FAQ about ratings (3.87 / 8) (#34)
by ogre on Sun Nov 24, 2002 at 03:56:23 PM EST

In particular, you aren't supposed to go around downrating all comments that are critical of something you wrote. I makes you look like a whiny little snot who doesn't know how to take part in serious discussions. And of course you don't want to look like that.

Everybody relax, I'm here.

The author of this story thinks K5 sucks (3.66 / 3) (#35)
by Big Sexxy Joe on Sun Nov 24, 2002 at 04:38:29 PM EST

He wrote a recent diary entry about it. Is this story about America or Linux? I love tattling.

I'm like Jesus, only better.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free grassroots news hour
Proliant <> Mainframe Server (3.87 / 8) (#36)
by ecopoesis on Sun Nov 24, 2002 at 04:40:58 PM EST

I think there might have been other reasons for your firing, as you can't tell the difference between a Compaq Proliant and a mainframe. And also, it's not really that dangerous. You could just unplug the AC. As you said yourself, it didn't do much cooling so it's loss would really matter.

--
"Yachting isn't just for the wealthy. :-)" - rusty

Are you telling me... (4.33 / 6) (#37)
by mindstrm on Sun Nov 24, 2002 at 06:52:56 PM EST

that is an oustide wall?
What genius mounted a tiny home air conditioning unit to it?
For that matter, who put it right over the servers? Or who put the servers right under the air conditioner?
You can call the boss cheap, but having the gear right under the AC at all is a stupid move from the get-go; even on my leak-proof air conditioners with proper piping and whatnot, designed for these rooms, there is special ducting addedd IN CASE a pipe leaks, and even then, we try not to put servers directly under those pipes.

Would have been better off to unplug that little thing. I doubt it could possibly have helped whatsoever. All it did was drive up the electric bill I bet.

You would have been better off if you a) filed a report to ask to have it fixed
then
b) having a bucket spill on the servers and then saying "I told you so"

you people remind me of my manager (2.50 / 2) (#43)
by the77x42 on Sun Nov 24, 2002 at 10:45:56 PM EST

most of you are either: 1) downplaying the situation or 2) saying it's my fault for not doing anything it sounds a lot like the retard I had to work under for 4 years :)


"We're not here to educate. We're here to point and laugh." - creature
"You have some pretty stupid ideas." - indubitable ‮

Report your former company! (4.00 / 2) (#54)
by BLU ICE on Mon Nov 25, 2002 at 08:06:27 PM EST

Your manager and the execs sound like they have their heads in their asses. It would be nice if your reported them to Microsoft and they got fined the big bucks.

"Is the quality of this cocaine satisfactory, Mr. Delorean?"
"As good as gold."
-- I am become Troll, destroyer of threads.
It's like an encyclopedia...sorta: Everything2

So, can I safely assume... (4.00 / 2) (#56)
by CaptainZapp on Tue Nov 26, 2002 at 05:38:42 AM EST

...that you requested your managers username before you left the company?

clickety click...

The World's Most Dangerous Server Room | 57 comments (54 topical, 3 editorial, 0 hidden)
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