Famous operational issues

Thu Feb 18 16:23:27 UTC 2021

On 2/18/21 1:07 AM, Eric Kuhnke wrote:
> On that note, I'd be very interested in hearing stories of actual 
> incidents that are the cause of why cardboard boxes are banned in many 
> facilities, due to loose particulate matter getting into the air and 
> setting off very sensitive fire detection systems.
> 

I had a customer that tried to stack their servers - no rails except the 
bottom most one - using 2x4's between each server. Up until then I 
hadn't imagined anyone would want to fill their cabinet with wood, so I 
made a rule to ban wood and anything tangentially related (cardboard, 
paper, plastic, etc.). Easier to just ban all things. Fire reasons too 
but mainly I thought a cabinet full of wood was too stupid to allow.

The "no wood" rule has become a fun story to tell everyone who asks how 
that ended up being a rule. The wood customer turned out to be a 
complete a-hole anyway, wood was just the tip of the iceberg.