365 Main - an operators' nightmare?

Wed Jul 25 20:38:23 UTC 2007

Or:

"So I'm working at this place that is really cheap... Our CTO  
believes that it is stupid to pay for electricians that have  
experience working in datacenters, because after all, power is power,  
right?

So, he calls a bunch of people in the Yellow Pages and hires the  
cheapest guy he can find. Said person arrives and looks a little  
goggle eyed at all the power stuff -- I wander back in a few hours  
later and he is sitting in the middle of the floor reading the Users  
Manual for the UPS..

Anyway, he manages to run the three new circuits for us without  
killing himself (although for some reason keeps switching the UPS  
between online and bypass), and then starts walking out the door...  
He stops at the door, looks at the big red glowing switch marked  
"Emergency Power Off" -- and then pushes it..... Everything goes  
quiet, apart from Rob got startled and dropped the shelf he was  
mounting onto his foot.

After we got things turned back on we ask the electrician what  
exactly he was thinking... "Well, I figured the light was on because  
you were running on Emergency Power..."

W

>
> I believe this happened to an Internap facility in Seattle a couple of
> years ago: http://community.livejournal.com/lj_dev/670215.html
>
> I was told it happened in our colo facility about a month before we
> moved in. Some unfortunate remodeling of previous data center space  
> had
> left an EPO switch in a janitor's closet. The maid knocked loose the
> protective covering, which of course made an alarm start  
> screaming...so
> she hit the EPO to stop the noise. Thankfully, the switch has been  
> since
> removed...
>
> Anyhow, any story involving an EPO at 365 Main seems plausible...
>
> -J
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu] On  
> Behalf Of
> Jim Popovitch
> Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 8:59 PM
> To: Rusty Hodge
> Cc: Nanog at Merit. Edu
> Subject: Re: 365 Main - an operators' nightmare?
>
>
> On Tue, 2007-07-24 at 19:26 -0700, Rusty Hodge wrote:
>>> Think that's good?  It gets better....
>>>
>>> http://valleywag.com/tech/breaking/angry-mob-gathers-outside-sf-
>>> datacenter-282053.php
>>
>> That article states that only Colo 4 was affected.
>>
>> I'm in Colo 7 and it was affected as well.
>>
>> You're not seriously believing the disgruntled employee story are  
>> you?
>
> No. ;-)  But it is otherwise believable.  I've seen people hit
> big-red-buttons in disbelief before, doing so in anger seems very
> plausible.
>
> -Jim p.
>
> !SIG:46a6d6e0156535690315935!
>

--
It's a mistake trying to cheer up camels. You might as well drop  
meringues into a black hole. -- Terry Prachett