Your Turn to Share

Now, it’s your turn to share with the community your own experiences of datacenter horror.

Reply here, and I’ll moderate as best my time permits.

What started this

This is the scarcely-edited IM message with a colleague of mine, Greg Richards, that made us realize that this blog was needed:

****

Greg Richards [2:34 PM]:
you brought it all back.
i neglected to mention the inevitable skinned nuckles

Dan Hitchcock [2:34 PM]:
Ouch. Yes, metal edges not machined.
I sliced my hand open mutiple times on old Compaq server rails.

Greg Richards [2:35 PM]:
…not to mention the dropping of racked boxes on toes

Dan Hitchcock [2:35 PM]:
The original Dell rails were the worst – freaking razor blades

Greg Richards [2:35 PM]:
yeah, those sharp edges sucked *ss
and it was always *freezing*!!!!

Dan Hitchcock [2:36 PM]:
my butt hurts just thinking about the 16 hours sitting on the floor, rebooting UNIX boxes and moving patch cables.

Greg Richards [2:36 PM]:
yep. and no way to call the person on the other end to see if what you’d just configured actually worked…no cell signal.

Dan Hitchcock [2:36 PM]:
hahahaha
yup
the cold stopped after you went numb at about 3am, and a strange uneasy warmth settled over you. A combination of delerium and mild hypothermia.
We should write a book – I could also cover Post-Traumatic On-Call Disorder (where your leg buzzes even when there’s no pager in your pocket)

Greg Richards [2:37 PM]:
yeah, but it was very disconcerting to know in the back of your mind that the datacenter security staff probably wouldn’t find you for a week or so…

Greg Richards [2:38 PM]:
Definitely a blog that should be started…and I’m sure the call for entries would spawn a *huge* response…

Dan Hitchcock [2:38 PM]:
Fun starts at 3am

Greg Richards [2:39 PM]:
ick. i always went in during the day…started early when the sun was shining, left after it had gone down.
no idea what kind of weird creepy spooky <<stuff>> happens after the witching hour in the DC…I can just imagine all of the weird noises that start taking place as drives start spinning up in unison to do the synchronized midnight backups…
…the lights start flickering because of the sudden power draw…

Dan Hitchcock [2:40 PM]:
the eeriness actually comes more from the fact that it is exactly the same, 24/7, like a sensory deprivation chamber

Greg Richards [2:41 PM]:
…and failing drives start clicking out of synchronization, so you don’t know if what you’re hearing is echo or more than one thing click-click-clicking its way towards you…
yeah, true. no sense of day or night in there, just hell

Dan Hitchcock [2:41 PM]:
eventually “the voices” become louder than the HVAC, which is the first sign of jungle madness.
yes, a palpable sense of hell

Greg Richards [2:42 PM]:
and no cell signal and a locked door that you have to get the attention of the always-missing DC security staff to let you out. (shiver)

Welcome to Datacenter Gulag!

This blog is dedicated to the countless thousands of IT professionals around the globe who have endured(negatively) life-altering experiences in the cold, dry, isolated, chairless, halon-filled sensory deprivation chambers we euphemistically call “datacenters.”

I welcome all comers to share their story of datacenter suffering with the community. Have at!

Cheers -

Dan