• (cs)

    Sadly, ALL server rooms resemble a jungle of wires. I have been in many Server Rooms and Telephone Wire Centers and there really is no such thing as ORGANIZATION! It is simply not possible in the daily operation.

  • Freedy Bob (unregistered)

    That place sounds familiar but the place I worked wasn't called Foo Corp (that's close though) and there weren't labels on the servers. Fist!

  • (cs)

    So the WTF is that this division chose the cheap-but-it-works approach instead of the we-spent-an-extra-20000-on-racks-and-round-cables-but-look-how-pretty-it-is approach?

  • (cs)

    I think the worst thing is that the parent companys room is tidy and theirs is a mess. Did they not hire the same people to set both up (probably not, the parent company probably did their own work.) Still, it shows how much pride(or lack of) some people take in their work.

  • (cs) in reply to pitchingchris
    pitchingchris:
    I think the worst thing is that the parent companys room is tidy and theirs is a mess. Did they not hire the same people to set both up (probably not, the parent company probably did their own work.) Still, it shows how much pride(or lack of) some people take in their work.

    It could show the affects of being the child company. The parent may not be providing proper funding for anything other than wire shelves to hold their machines. On top of that try buying a proper server for the price of an e-machine.

    It's amazing what happens when the parent company controls all the money and severely limits the funding to the child company. I've seen this far to often.

  • (cs)

    Geez, what a mess. You'd be surprised how much easier it is to deploy, shut down, and move servers when you have an ounce of documentation and some discipline. It doesn't take a genius to pull a cable the right way.

  • Older than thou (unregistered) in reply to ParkinT
    ParkinT:
    Sadly, ALL server rooms resemble a jungle of wires. I have been in many Server Rooms and Telephone Wire Centers and there really is no such thing as ORGANIZATION! It is simply not possible in the daily operation.

    THAT is the real WTF!

    I work in a gov't organization and daily operation is accomplished on a skeletal crew (2 for 100 servers) WITH clean wiring. Lazyness is no excuse for improper server room maintenance and upgrading.

    "gotcha", indeed.

  • (cs) in reply to Pap
    Pap:
    So the WTF is that this division chose the cheap-but-it-works approach instead of the we-spent-an-extra-20000-on-racks-and-round-cables-but-look-how-pretty-it-is approach?
    Do you also believe that spaghetti code with thousand-line procedures using GOTO for flow control is a "cheap-but-it-works approach"? This is the hardware equivalent of spaghetti code, where you have no idea what stuff does and no idea where to look if something breaks or what will break if you change anything.
  • (cs) in reply to ParkinT
    ParkinT:
    Sadly, ALL server rooms resemble a jungle of wires. I have been in many Server Rooms and Telephone Wire Centers and there really is no such thing as ORGANIZATION! It is simply not possible in the daily operation.

    I do know what you are talking about, and I hate to burst your bubble, but there are some. My current employer has a very neat, clean server room. Also, back when I was a contractor, I did see a neat, clean server room every now and then. They do exist.

  • IHaveNoName:-( (unregistered) in reply to Critter
    Critter:
    ParkinT:
    Sadly, ALL server rooms resemble a jungle of wires. I have been in many Server Rooms and Telephone Wire Centers and there really is no such thing as ORGANIZATION! It is simply not possible in the daily operation.

    I do know what you are talking about, and I hate to burst your bubble, but there are some. My current employer has a very neat, clean server room. Also, back when I was a contractor, I did see a neat, clean server room every now and then. They do exist.

    Liar!
  • no way (unregistered)

    I can't believe you guys actually get servers. Any time we need a server in my office we just get a shoddy old desktop that isn't in use at the time and lock it in the airing cupboard with all the other dinosaur machines that are supposed to be servers.

  • null reference (unregistered) in reply to IHaveNoName:-(
    IHaveNoName:-(:
    Critter:
    ParkinT:
    Sadly, ALL server rooms resemble a jungle of wires. I have been in many Server Rooms and Telephone Wire Centers and there really is no such thing as ORGANIZATION! It is simply not possible in the daily operation.

    I do know what you are talking about, and I hate to burst your bubble, but there are some. My current employer has a very neat, clean server room. Also, back when I was a contractor, I did see a neat, clean server room every now and then. They do exist.

    Liar!

    I too, have seen a clean server room. As a matter of fact, one of my responsibilities as the Information Systems Intern was to keep the server room organized by labeling and documenting every single cable. It wasn't fun, but it made the department's job a whole lot easier.

  • (cs) in reply to null reference
    null reference:

    I too, have seen a clean server room. As a matter of fact, one of my responsibilities as the Information Systems Intern was to keep the server room organized by labeling and documenting every single cable. It wasn't fun, but it made the department's job a whole lot easier.

    Wow interns really do have a use beyond personal cigar holders!

  • - (unregistered)

    Colour coded cables are your friends :-)

  • (cs)

    Sadly, they don't happen often enough. Say you want to clean it up. Say you put in your own time. Say you spend a Saturday cleaning, moving cables, and documenting everything. Say you do all that.

    Then say you cry because some S.O.B. decides it's too much effort to check the docs before putting a new server in place, routing the wires, and plugging it in.

    I did say it, because I've been there. I'm a programmer. I've seen the spaghetti code, and I've seen the spaghetti wiring. It ain't pretty. And there's not a danged thing you can do to change it.

  • -gary (unregistered)

    Sounds exactly like where I'm sitting right now except my company, for some unknown reason, uses Greek god names for the servers that leave no clue as to what they are or what they do.

  • null reference (unregistered) in reply to -gary
    -gary:
    Sounds exactly like where I'm sitting right now except my company, for some unknown reason, uses Greek god names for the servers that leave no clue as to what they are or what they do.

    My company does that too ... the only one that kind of makes sense is Hermes, our Exchange server.

  • (cs) in reply to Older than thou
    Older than thou:
    ParkinT:
    Sadly, ALL server rooms resemble a jungle of wires. I have been in many Server Rooms and Telephone Wire Centers and there really is no such thing as ORGANIZATION! It is simply not possible in the daily operation.

    THAT is the real WTF!

    I work in a gov't organization and daily operation is accomplished on a skeletal crew (2 for 100 servers) WITH clean wiring. Lazyness is no excuse for improper server room maintenance and upgrading.

    "gotcha", indeed.

    That's two more people than some shops have. Here, we've got about 30+ servers, and zero people dedicated to supporting them. Small company, no budget for a full-time admin.

  • Jasmine (unregistered)

    Unfortunately, that's not even a WTF... it's totally normal. I have seen nicely-kept server rooms, but I'm not sure they were real.

  • Scott (unregistered)

    I work at a very new company that has just enough equipment for the three of us that started with the company. We're still waiting for a bigger switch and more cables ("on order"), so for the meantime, when we need to test some network attached equipment in the lab, we have to disconnect something else, such as the printer, or a rarely-used server, or ___________.

    This will really suck in a week or so when two new employees start and need to be on the network full-time. I hope that order comes in soon because the nearest BestBuy is a half-hour drive...

  • mh (unregistered)

    Sad reality is that for a lot of organisations business needs have grown exponentially in recent years, but they're still stuck with the same server rooms as they always had. Those blighters have to go somewhere, so hence the mess. You could try putting multiple roles on a single box, but if you have a modicum of common sense you do not want to do that ("I can't upgrade my Proxy Server because it means I'll have to take down my email, file server and backups"). Trying to get a relatively new technology (like virtualisation) past an overly cautious and overly conservative management can be a nightmare too.

    The real WTF is that the company feels the need to remind itself of it's own name by prepending it to it's server names!

  • (cs) in reply to no way
    no way:
    I can't believe you guys actually get servers. Any time we need a server in my office we just get a shoddy old desktop that isn't in use at the time and lock it in the airing cupboard with all the other dinosaur machines that are supposed to be servers.

    <obligatory>Bah, you're lucky to get a shoddy old desktop! We have to run the whole company on a dusty abacus with 2 beads missing! And we're thankful for that!</obligatory>

  • Jasmine (unregistered) in reply to -gary

    If they are Athena, Zeus, and Apollo then you are at my old company, and there was a reason for that naming, but as the company got bigger, the reasons made less sense over time.

    Athena for example - originally kept all of the customer data. Athena being the god of wisdom and protector of the city, this seemed to make sense for a customer-oriented database server.

    Overall it's kind of stupid and hearkens back to the days when geeky code names almost always came from some other geeky interest, like mythology or comic books. There's a whole lot of servers out there with copyrighted names.

  • (cs)

    Wow.

    You mean some companies have separate rooms for their servers?

  • Email (unregistered)

    pix plz kthnx

  • (cs) in reply to Email
    Email:
    pix plz kthnx
    To paraphrase Melvin Udall, people who talk in abbreviations ought to shampoo my crotch.
  • WyrdOne (unregistered)

    I have worked in both environments.

    I used to work at a small software development company with not budget and had to "Franken-box" everything. We have one rack that was already full and two large wire racks on ether side crammed full of desktop and rackmount machines. We never had the time, space or cash to reorganize the environment. The server area was basically an unused office that happened to have an external window (which I myguyver engineered an exhaust system for). It was inelegant, but worked

    I now work for a larger corporate company with a full raised floor server room, all racks with a seperate Network group who manages all the wiring (all color coded, tagged & managed). Our system engineering lab is a lot like my old employer, but since systems turnover in there in a matter of days usually it's not worth trying to keep everything "perfect" and is what a system engineering lab is meant for.

  • M.G. (unregistered) in reply to Critter
    Critter:
    ParkinT:
    Sadly, ALL server rooms resemble a jungle of wires. I have been in many Server Rooms and Telephone Wire Centers and there really is no such thing as ORGANIZATION! It is simply not possible in the daily operation.

    I do know what you are talking about, and I hate to burst your bubble, but there are some. My current employer has a very neat, clean server room. Also, back when I was a contractor, I did see a neat, clean server room every now and then. They do exist.

    They sure do. I sit about 50 feet from a nice clean data center. Even the telephone guy keeps his corner really nice.

  • (cs) in reply to null reference
    null reference:
    -gary:
    Sounds exactly like where I'm sitting right now except my company, for some unknown reason, uses Greek god names for the servers that leave no clue as to what they are or what they do.

    My company does that too ...

    Same here (and not just for the servers, also for the employees' desktops and laptops), but I don't see it as a big problem. The company is tiny, and the servers mostly aren't dedicated to just one task. You can't fit all information about the server in the name anyway, and uses change. A meaningful name that's misleading is far worse than a meaningless one.

  • Thom (unregistered) in reply to Jasmine

    So, you prefer lusd3621, ldsd3125, p2pridspr and lpsd2127?

  • Bruce (unregistered)

    I like the fact that they left room for 99 more "Unknown" servers.

  • Sharkie (unregistered)

    The easiest and most effective way to address this issue is two-fold:

    1. Fire the lazy slobs that feel comfortable adding to the mess and don't take enough pride in their jobs to run wiring cleanly. There IS no valid excuse for messy wiring.
    2. Take your marketing rep for a two-martini lunch to instigate a rumor that future prospects would like to tour the server room.

    #1 takes care of the human resource problem. #2 takes care of the budget problem.

  • dkf (unregistered) in reply to Thom
    Thom:
    So, you prefer lusd3621, ldsd3125, p2pridspr and lpsd2127?
    Why not just use the manufacturer's serial number? Guaranteed unique, and won't be misleading at all.
  • dkf (unregistered) in reply to null reference
    null reference:
    the only one that kind of makes sense is Hermes, our Exchange server.
    I read that as if the mail server was called "Herpes", and thought that that made perfect sense...
  • rgz (unregistered) in reply to codemoose
    codemoose:
    Email:
    pix plz kthnx
    To paraphrase Melvin Udall, people who talk in abbreviations ought to shampoo my crotch.

    y? u mean like wtf? stfo!

  • (cs) in reply to ParkinT
    ParkinT:
    Sadly, ALL server rooms resemble a jungle of wires. I have been in many Server Rooms and Telephone Wire Centers and there really is no such thing as ORGANIZATION! It is simply not possible in the daily operation.

    That is a Lie, every company worth 2 cents here in my country have clean server rooms... even with backup AC ... I've worked in no less that 5 companies and that is always the rule.

    We are very serious about structured server rooms and technology procedures.

  • (cs)

    We embedded all kinds of useful information in our system names:

    geographical region (e.g. continent), city, server architecture, our "group", OS (windows or solaris mostly), server usage (e.g. server, domain controller, virtual host, virtual server, network device)

    So you would end up with something like afsoxclwv001

    It looks cryptic but most of the systems we worked on were in the same location, architecture, os, and group. So you memorized the theme after a few days.

  • (cs)

    This is precisely the type of DailyWTF article I hate.

    Get over your mistaken belief that the writing on this site is inherently humorous. It's bad enough when you write a long-ass article where the actual funny thing is drowned in your lame attempts at humor in the form of flowery, over-dramatic prose... But today we get nothing BUT the crappy, overreaching writing. The "story" boils down to:

    "There's this guy, and at his job, they have a really bad server room. I mean REALLY bad! Things are, liked, stacked on each other! And look at some of the names of the servers! They're really ridiculous!"

    Your lame-ass attempts at humor through hyperbole add zero entertainment value to the crappy story that some retard puked out of his ass. F minus.

  • WTFNamingException (unregistered) in reply to brazzy
    brazzy:
    ... and uses change. A meaningful name that's misleading is far worse than a meaningless one.

    Amen. Thank god I no longer have to work with servers called "MyCompany-Sharepoint" that do email and "MyCompany-SQL-01" that run sharepoint and "MyCompany-EXCH-01" that do VMWare.

  • (cs)

    I spent about 30 minutes looking for Rack #101 today. Turns out it was right between Racks 34 and 78....

    Those things used to be sorted.

  • null reference (unregistered) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    null reference:
    the only one that kind of makes sense is Hermes, our Exchange server.
    I read that as if the mail server was called "Herpes", and thought that that made perfect sense...

    ROFL. That would be even funnier if it was a Lotus Notes server.

  • WTFNamingException (unregistered) in reply to IQpierce
    IQpierce:
    This is precisely the type of DailyWTF article I hate.

    Get over your mistaken belief that the writing on this site is inherently humorous. It's bad enough when you write a long-ass article where the actual funny thing is drowned in your lame attempts at humor in the form of flowery, over-dramatic prose... But today we get nothing BUT the crappy, overreaching writing. The "story" boils down to:

    "There's this guy, and at his job, they have a really bad server room. I mean REALLY bad! Things are, liked, stacked on each other! And look at some of the names of the servers! They're really ridiculous!"

    Your lame-ass attempts at humor through hyperbole add zero entertainment value to the crappy story that some retard puked out of his ass. F minus.

    Unfortunately, this is precisely what I thought when I realised the end of the article was actually the end. There was me, waiting for the "Government Inspector" to turn up and unplug all the wires on account of planing permission or some such... but no.

  • Arrrggghhh!! (unregistered) in reply to rilarios

    Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus!

    In all honesty, I've seen rooms that were a bit on the cluttered side - but at least:

    1. The servers/routers were mounted solidly in racks.
    2. The cables from the racks went neatly to patch panels - where the actual spaghetti cable mess was contained.

    I have never seen servers covered in cables that snaked from one rack directly to another (or across a walkway between rows), and never seen servers balanced precariously on shelves. I have seen pictures of this - but have not encountered this in person (yet).

    My home network is contained on a baker's rack, and even that is relatively neat (I tie-wrapped the cable runs onto the frame - and set it up so I can roll it out without shutting the systems down to do work on it).

    I can see having a bit of a mess during a project - if you are actively doing it. But not for any extended length of time. The key is to make sure that who runs the computer room is also in charge of anyone who works in the computer room. He/she can then establish standards, and provide rewards/punishment for performance. In all the computer rooms I've worked in, I did not get to decide where my machine was going to go, or how it was going to be wired to the network. The network department made that decision and did the work - and everything was neat and tidy before I stepped in to do my job.

    Ultimatly it depends on the culture of the company/organization involved. If no one is made responsible for it, it will continue to deteriorate.

  • (cs) in reply to null reference
    null reference:
    -gary:
    Sounds exactly like where I'm sitting right now except my company, for some unknown reason, uses Greek god names for the servers that leave no clue as to what they are or what they do.

    My company does that too ... the only one that kind of makes sense is Hermes, our Exchange server.

    -gary:: I've started naming new computers with mythological names - but that relate to what they are. The people "in charge" of setting up computers around here are unimaginative and, surprise, use the user's name. My first one was ENG-PANDORA for our source repository. I've actually had to explain to many how the name relates. My current computer is going into dry heaves and having seizures, so I commandeered a new computer as a replacement. I named it ENG-PROMETHEUS. I'm waiting for the Engineering VP to get what I'm saying.

    null:: I'll have to remember that one for when I get around to re-doing ours.

  • Drone (unregistered) in reply to WTFNamingException
    WTFNamingException:
    IQpierce:
    This is precisely the type of DailyWTF article I hate.

    Get over your mistaken belief that the writing on this site is inherently humorous. It's bad enough when you write a long-ass article where the actual funny thing is drowned in your lame attempts at humor in the form of flowery, over-dramatic prose... But today we get nothing BUT the crappy, overreaching writing. The "story" boils down to:

    "There's this guy, and at his job, they have a really bad server room. I mean REALLY bad! Things are, liked, stacked on each other! And look at some of the names of the servers! They're really ridiculous!"

    Your lame-ass attempts at humor through hyperbole add zero entertainment value to the crappy story that some retard puked out of his ass. F minus.

    Unfortunately, this is precisely what I thought when I realised the end of the article was actually the end. There was me, waiting for the "Government Inspector" to turn up and unplug all the wires on account of planing permission or some such... but no.

    Worst. Episode. Ever.

  • (cs) in reply to Jasmine
    Jasmine:
    Overall it's kind of stupid and hearkens back to the days when geeky code names almost always came from some other geeky interest, like mythology or comic books. There's a whole lot of servers out there with copyrighted names.

    If it's a small company, like ours, it's amusing. It's something to get away from the madness of everything else. It also confuses anyone who has no clue when they start poking around in Network Places.

    I can understand wonky naming conventions (ehsfdhwetzzea01-32) if there are hundreds of computers, but when they whole place has less than 100, why not have a little fun?

    And if you think naming a computer with a copyrighted name is something, you should check out a very large Board of Education office complex in GA (not naming names). Their computers, and even user logins, are named so wonky it makes my head spin. They tag every single hallway, door, and cubicle with names and numbers that make me think of the Dewey Decimal System. HOWEVER, I passed one in the IT section that was labeled with something from the Enterprise (I can't remember what the actual label was). So, anyone visiting that area would see this professionally embossed sign, complete with Braille, that contains a copyrighted Star Trek term.

    In case you wonder why I was there, it's because we are a vendor of theirs.

  • (cs) in reply to IQpierce
    IQpierce:
    This is precisely the type of DailyWTF article I hate.

    Get over your mistaken belief that the writing on this site is inherently humorous. It's bad enough when you write a long-ass article where the actual funny thing is drowned in your lame attempts at humor in the form of flowery, over-dramatic prose... But today we get nothing BUT the crappy, overreaching writing. The "story" boils down to:

    "There's this guy, and at his job, they have a really bad server room. I mean REALLY bad! Things are, liked, stacked on each other! And look at some of the names of the servers! They're really ridiculous!"

    Your lame-ass attempts at humor through hyperbole add zero entertainment value to the crappy story that some retard puked out of his ass. F minus.

    You think you can do better? So are you volunteering your time to help out and write some articles? Are you starting your own WTF-like site? No?

    Then you have two options:

    1. Stop reading WTF.
    2. Quit your bitchin'.

    Personally I like the variety in WTF. You get the server room-from-hell, the idiot manager, the arcane C++ snippet, the VB noob mistake, the Javascript does everything, the GUI nobody can use.... It's all Worse Than Failure, it's all curious perversions in Information Technology.

    -Me

  • (cs) in reply to WTFNamingException
    WTFNamingException:
    brazzy:
    ... and uses change. A meaningful name that's misleading is far worse than a meaningless one.

    Amen. Thank god I no longer have to work with servers called "MyCompany-Sharepoint" that do email and "MyCompany-SQL-01" that run sharepoint and "MyCompany-EXCH-01" that do VMWare.

    WTF? Do none of you completely format a computer and make a clean install before assigning it to another job? Even if you don't, renaming a computer is such a minor task. Geez. I'd much rather be able to find a computer by browsing than have to break out my Super Hi-tech Information Technology decoder ring.

  • Matthew (unregistered) in reply to brazzy
    brazzy:
    Pap:
    So the WTF is that this division chose the cheap-but-it-works approach instead of the we-spent-an-extra-20000-on-racks-and-round-cables-but-look-how-pretty-it-is approach?
    Do you also believe that spaghetti code with thousand-line procedures using GOTO for flow control is a "cheap-but-it-works approach"? This is the hardware equivalent of spaghetti code, where you have no idea what stuff does and no idea where to look if something breaks or what will break if you change anything.

    Certainly some of the cabling issues could probably be solved by simply being more disciplined, but it sounds like they are also severely underfunded. No A/C, for example. If nobody is going to pay for A/C, racks, cable management, and the time to put it all together correctly, what can you do? I doubt there was one person who made it a mess who you can blame. The kind of mess described in the article develops over time.

    Same can go for bad and/or unstructured code. Sometimes clients/managment demand a solution NOW and don't give one the time to properly structure, test, and comment software... even if it is a waste in the long term.

    So really, this isn't a WTF at all. It is just a shame.

  • Matthew (unregistered) in reply to AbbydonKrafts
    AbbydonKrafts:
    WTF? Do none of you completely format a computer and make a clean install before assigning it to another job?

    It is all about reinstalling and rebooting with you Windows admins, isn't it? :-)

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