April 11, 2007

When Servers Die

When servers die, especially unexpectedly, the server caretakers suddenly have pressure, panic, and lots of "That's not acceptable" flying around. Of course, the server that went belly-up was the one with the most amount of data on it... And learning that the controllers and power supplies for the server are so old that they aren't made anymore, well, that was fun too.

This is why regular backups are important, people. Even if it's "old stuff" that you may think no one wants anymore, back it up. Because as soon as it's unavailable, you'll find out just how many people are looking at it. Much scrambling has been done to get the data on a different server and back accessible to the public again; we seem to be in decent shape now, but there's still a lot of work to be done. At least folks are getting web sites again instead of "Site not found"! Thank heavens terabyte storage is coming down in price. We're gonna need some more on the new system.

But, hey! It's not an EDMS crisis (everyone actually seems happy right now, which makes me nervous). Nice to have something different to stress about for a while. (OK, not so much.)

It's a gorgeous, sunny 80° outside, with a light breeze. Aaah, springtime in the desert!

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