• (cs) in reply to akatherder
    akatherder:
    Why were there a dozen acetylene tanks in a server room? Do they keep some dynamite in the phone closet?
    In case they get a subpoena or an NSL.
  • not a robot (unregistered) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    AccessGuru:
    What would Jesus do?
    Keep off-Earth backups, of course. You can't be too careful.

    Proof aliens must exist.

  • ajk (unregistered) in reply to Outlaw Programmer
    Outlaw Programmer:
    Mutant:
    I mean, how far do you take it? Nuclear War? Asteriod Strike? The Second Coming?

    I worked at a company that was prepared for those scenarios. They would send a CD with the latest source code to an off-site facility built located deep within some mountain. They had an agreement with their clients that, in the event NYC was vaporized, this company would send out copies of the source code and the clients could continue to develop the software themselves. I guess it's too bad the software didn't really work in the first place...

    Age of Conan? ;-)

  • synp (unregistered) in reply to chrismcb
    chrismcb:
    real_aardvark:
    Badly ripped off, I believe.

    The original is "... and Kenny Dalgliesh scores on the rebound."

    For ignorant Yanks, substitute Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson for Dalgliesh.

    No it wasn't "ripped" off. You are quoting a hockey jock (HOW the HELL do you put a basketball player into a hockey joke? There are no "saves" in basketball)

    But this "ripped" off joke refers to a different game.

    Kenny Dalgliesh and hockey?? Will blesphamy never end?

  • csrster (unregistered) in reply to AccessGuru
    AccessGuru:
    What would Jesus do?

    Reboot on the third day.

  • EFB (unregistered) in reply to Anom
    Anom:
    The only thing you have to worry about with The Second Coming is your magnetic tapes anyway.

    /Obscure Futurama Reference

    I get it!

    /Obscure Futurama Reference

  • Quango (unregistered) in reply to Matt

    Indeed. I also am waiting for a fanboy to come along and tell us they wouldn't have this problem if they'd used LINUX.

  • (cs) in reply to Hans
    Hans:
    What would Chunk Norris do?
    What would Brian Boytano do?
  • iMalc (unregistered)

    I'm guessing they didn't keep a spade in the server room?!

  • (cs) in reply to alcari
    It had, to quote one of the civil enginering students, "More in common with a lean-to garden shed then a gas bunker".
    Oh, OSHA must absolutely love your organisation right now. To say nothing of the insurers...
  • Deliberately Anonymous (unregistered)

    This sort of thing would be highly desirable in my position.

    I work for an car manufacturer and our "server room" is a store cupboard by the canteen. We have the following problems:

    1. The sprinkler system and mains runs through our store cupboard
    2. The run off from the roof runs through the store cupboard (it was decided that drainpipes on the front of the building weren't very stylish, so its all sluiced internally ... which also led to a roof collapse, but I digress)
    3. There is a pipe into the store cupboard carrying electrics that comes out in one of the balancing pools in place in case it rains heavily (its been known to have 2in of water in that room)
    4. There are a LOT of blades in this room.
    5. There is insufficient aircon in the room.
    6. To alleviate problem 5, someone drilled big holes in the fire doors to let air out (did I forget to mention that the aircons in place have no room exit point so they are more circulators than conditioners).
    7. Finance wouldnt pay for either a waterproof "cage", raised floor, or even an umbrella citing cost.
    8. Next door to the store cupboard is the kitchen, containing lots of gas pipes.

    I live only for the day when I can show off a similar picture.

  • ac (unregistered) in reply to Outlaw Programmer
    Outlaw Programmer:

    I worked at a company that was prepared for those scenarios. They would send a CD with the latest source code to an off-site facility built located deep within some mountain. They had an agreement with their clients that, in the event NYC was vaporized, this company would send out copies of the source code and the clients could continue to develop the software themselves. I guess it's too bad the software didn't really work in the first place...

    So the obvious solution was for the clients to pool funds and have NYC nuked, after which they'd be in a position to fix the software.

  • Saint Gerbil (unregistered) in reply to alcari

    I hope they have insurance.

  • Nicholas Furgiuele (unregistered)

    Funny that I read this.

    Yesterday at work we had the most unbelievable co-incidence! We had a scheduled fire drill in the early afternoon just to test our evacuation procedure from our 5 story office building.

    After the drill we all return to work, then less than 10 minutes later the internal fire alarm goes off again. People look around for a minute but we assume that they're running tests.

    Then my end of the office begins to fill with smoke, and a panicked person jumps on the speaker system "Attention, the building is on fire, this is not a drill! Please evacuate now!"

    The timing was unbelievable! Literally less than 10 minutes after we have the first fire drill for ages, the building is actually on fire.

    My office is on level 1 (the level above the road), we had heaps of smoke come through our office but my level and all the ones above were relatively free of damage. The level below has an electronics shop where the fire actually started, they suffered a fair amount of damage.

    I work at a radio station, and the fire caused us to miss our first news bulletin in over 13 years (because it happened close to the top of the hour).

    Sorry, but I just had to mention this.

  • Nicholas Furgiuele (unregistered) in reply to Saint Gerbil

    More to the point: I hope they have a good insurance company.

    The simple fact of having insurance doesn't seem to be enough anymore.

  • (cs) in reply to Nicholas Furgiuele

    Hey, Nicholas Furgiuele, any idea what caused the fire?

  • Nicholas Furgiuele (unregistered) in reply to Joseph

    I haven't heard an "official explanation" but I have heard that it was an electrical fault that could have actually happened at any time, it's just amazing that it happened 10 minutes after a file drill.

    Could also be foul play, but to me it seems unlikely.

  • vindico (unregistered) in reply to Nobody
    Nobody:
    I was waiting for the molten slag of a shelf with a tag reading "Backup Tapes - Do not Touch".
    Check out side the server room at 10pm.
  • (cs) in reply to Winslow Theramin
    Winslow Theramin:
    Any dates and locations so we can verify this against police/fire reports? Or is this just the usual made-up Daily WTF crap?

    Yep. It happened the day you dropped from the sheep's womb into the barn stall. Research your own birthday.

    Jacka&&.

  • (cs)
    What, exactly, is the point of storing half a dozen acetylene tanks anywhere near anything else?

    Or is the OP just anonymised beyond chemical belief?

    I guess it's for chemical synthesis, and welding. I didn't ask though.

    I'm guessing they didn't keep a spade in the server room?!
    Nor did they keep a fireproof cardboard box in there. The shovel, I asume, wasn't originally in the room.
    I hope they have a good insurance company.

    The simple fact of having insurance doesn't seem to be enough anymore.

    I don't think they cover this. I recall the budget being horribly tight ever since the "incident".

  • StMarc (unregistered) in reply to florida

    No offense, but hurricanes are often quite a bit more than a hundred miles wide.

    Granted, the odds that a hurricane would completely destroy both buildings are small, but take one out and disable power/connectivity to the other? I can see that happening. If you have the need for that much redundancy, you need more redundancy than that.

    M

  • Ilya Ehrenburg (unregistered) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    SeekerDarksteel:
    AccessGuru:
    What would Jesus do?

    Jesus saves. The servers, however, still would have taken full damage.

    [/ripped off joke]

    Badly ripped off, I believe.

    The original is "... and Kenny Dalgliesh scores on the rebound."

    For ignorant Yanks, substitute Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson for Dalgliesh.

    Fie! Shame on you, his name's Dalglish. And that's not the original either, I've already heard it about George Best.

  • jk (unregistered) in reply to AccessGuru
    AccessGuru:
    What would Jesus do?

    Matthew 6:19 Lay not up for yourselves <backups> upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

    John 14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

    just hope your server doesn't crash on Sunday...

  • jk (unregistered) in reply to Edward Royce
    Edward Royce:
    floorpie:
    That's nothing,

    I worked at a place where the server room was under the bathroom from the floor above... until the neighbours shower sprung a leak...

    Amusing isn't it?

    I worked at a place that had a hermetically sealed server room completely enclosed in glass. Very attractive, very contemporary. With a huge 20+" water main running right through the server room, glass enclosures and all, from one side all the way through to the other.

    I had a lot of questions about that.

    to provide coolant, right?

  • (cs) in reply to Ilya Ehrenburg
    Ilya Ehrenburg:
    real_aardvark:
    SeekerDarksteel:
    AccessGuru:
    What would Jesus do?

    Jesus saves. The servers, however, still would have taken full damage.

    [/ripped off joke]

    Badly ripped off, I believe.

    The original is "... and Kenny Dalgliesh scores on the rebound."

    For ignorant Yanks, substitute Michael Jordan or Magic Johnson for Dalgliesh.

    Fie! Shame on you, his name's Dalglish. And that's not the original either, I've already heard it about George Best.
    Fie indeed ... but then, I'm a Villa fan, so what would I care? I have difficulty enough spelling Andy Gray's name correctly.

    As (not very elegantly) pointed out above, it's a rip-off anyway. Minimal research suggests that the original is Phil Esposito, presumably between 1969 and 1974. (And not Wayne Gretzsky, just in case any Canucks out there are foaming at the mouth.)

    I suppose it might have been George Best, but I can't find a contemporary reference to the phrase. I don't rmember the phrase "rebound" being quoted much in football commentaries of the early seventies either ... much like other flea-brained imports such as "assist." Euch.

  • Steve (unregistered)

    They violated rule #3 of the Tao of Backup:

    http://www.taobackup.com/separation.html

    The novice asked the backup master: "Now that I regularly backup all my files, am I enlightened to the Tao of Backup?"

    The master replied: "By regularly backing up all your files you are on the path to enlightenment, but you will never achieve enlightenment until you scatter your backups to the four corners of the earth. Does the dandelion drop all its seeds at the base of its stalk? Does the cuckoo lay its eggs in one nest? So long as your backups are in one place, you are vulnerable to the fortunes of the world."

    But the novice did not listen, and that night the building burnt down, destroying the novice's computer and all his backup tapes. The novice, went to the master and said: "Master, I have lost all of my files. What shall I do?"

    The master said, "Do not despair, for yesterday I took one of your backup tapes and posted it to my brother in China. He will return it."

    It was only later that he told the novice that he had posted it by sea mail.

  • Simon (unregistered)

    Perhaps they should have had a label saying "Primary Server Room - Do Not Combust"?

  • Aaron552 (unregistered) in reply to Quango
    Quango:
    Indeed. I also am waiting for a fanboy to come along and tell us they wouldn't have this problem if they'd used LINUX.

    But it's true! Don't you know about the "make-my-pc-indestructible" linux app?

  • pooka (unregistered) in reply to iMalc
    iMalc:
    I'm guessing they didn't keep a spade in the server room?!
    In the states, that's been against the law for some time - the civil war, I believe.
  • veering off topic (unregistered)

    A year or two ago I was at some small carnival event with my kids. In the "kids tent" where they were handing out helium balloons and toys the helium tank was just standing there in the middle of the concrete floor.

    I got really upset at them as I explained that if it fell over and the head cracked than the flying cylinder parts would kill several people.

    I threatened to call the Fire Department if they didn't secure it immediately.

  • Vermis (unregistered) in reply to ac
    ac:
    Outlaw Programmer:

    I worked at a company that was prepared for those scenarios. They would send a CD with the latest source code to an off-site facility built located deep within some mountain. They had an agreement with their clients that, in the event NYC was vaporized, this company would send out copies of the source code and the clients could continue to develop the software themselves. I guess it's too bad the software didn't really work in the first place...

    So the obvious solution was for the clients to pool funds and have NYC nuked, after which they'd be in a position to fix the software.
    I think we've just uncovered the truth behind 9/11!

  • Wyrdone (unregistered)

    Three little words: Disaster Recovery Site

    All organizations should have an offsite recovery location. If your company can't afford a full DR Site, there are several companies out there offering DR site services that you ship servers to and setup a process to ship them backup tapes or replication link.

    It's all about RTO and RPO. (aka how much pain can your business/service units afford due to downtime.)

  • Failing to plan is planning to fail... (unregistered)

    Simple amazing. First rule of contingency planning is to have a backup "OFF SITE". as in a different building, off the campus, somewhere else, geographically.. Personally, id fire you and everyone responsible for not having a sound off-site contingency/backup plan which resulted in business downtime, major loss of assets and overall lack of logic.

  • Adrian Pavone (unregistered) in reply to Aaron552
    Aaron552:
    Quango:
    Indeed. I also am waiting for a fanboy to come along and tell us they wouldn't have this problem if they'd used LINUX.

    But it's true! Don't you know about the "make-my-pc-indestructible" linux app?

    Ahh, yes, good old mmp (which is of course the shortname for the linux app, as we linux users are too lazy to type anything in full, even with tab complete.

  • Alex R (unregistered)

    TRWTF: The Firewall did not work.

  • SimonTewsi (unregistered) in reply to Quango

    Wasn't around for the Bishopsgate bomb but I was working in the City on 9-11. Always thought it was a bit weird all the City DR sites were in the Docklands, just down the road (more or less). All those empty DR office blocks just sitting there - obviously the companies that leased them had more than enough money so why not pay for a DR site in, say, Bristol? Somewhere that wouldn't be on the same power grid and not likely to be affected by the same dirty bomb or whatever the disaster was.

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