Why redundancy is a good thing

[SkyHog]

So - weather is nasty in Washington, really nasty apparently. The weather has caused some pretty serious issues for me at work, as we have no access to any of the tools we need to help customers, and our phone systems will not accept incoming support calls the majority of the time.

Makes for an easy day today, as we're essentially sitting around with our thumbs up the dark hole, but that is not what I get paid to do. I would rather be helping customers. I'm not upset with my company, but seriously, why would we not have redundant systems to avoid such issues?

One building in peril brings an entire company to its knees...

 

[ScottM]

but seriously, why would we not have redundant systems to avoid such issues?

One building in peril brings an entire company to its knees...

Cost vs. benefit. The cost would be so high that the there is no real benefit. better to let the rare event occur and apologize, perhaps even give a small credit to the affected users on their bill. Since no other business has the back up all will eventually be affected at one time. Also churn is a fact of life in cellular, if a few people leave that would not even be noticed and hundreds leave each day and hundreds more come in from having left other carriers. So it would be a wash.

 

[SkyHog]

Cost vs. benefit. The cost would be so high that the there is no real benefit. better to let the rare event occur and apologize, perhaps even give a small credit to the affected users on their bill. Since no other business has the back up all will eventually be affected at one time. Also churn is a fact of life in cellular, if a few people leave that would not even be noticed and hundreds leave each day and hundreds more come in from having left other carriers. So it would be a wash.

Very good points, and you're right. I'm just venting I guess. I'm not upset, this is a pretty chilled out day, but I realize that being here today is wasting my employer's money, and I never like to do that (except at Comcast).

 

[wsuffa]

One building in peril brings an entire company to its knees...

Well, from the bean-counter perspective, the mobile network still works, meaning that people can make calls and they'll get billed, so revenue continues. Customer service is, well, expendable.

At least your company is better than one I worked for. Until SarbOx FORCED a change, they had one, centralized data center where all accounting, payroll, back office, email, etc took place and product distribution was controlled. With one "pipe" in and out. The "backup" plan was to bicycle tapes/hard drives to an outsourced data center, with downtime of 2-3 days.

A redundant center would have been about $25 million plus a couple of million a year.

SarbOx fixed the issue.

 

[SkyHog]

Well, we're sort of back up now. I can take calls (but there's none coming in), and half of our systems are back up. Took about 15 hours for us to get back up.

All I have to say is thank God there were no catastrophic outages, because we would not have been able to even detect/fix them, since we were essentially bound.

 

[SkyHog]

In case anyone's curious, this is what a server room looks like when it has flooded with 5 feet of water:

 

[SCCutler]

Oh, my!

 

[jesse]

In case anyone's curious, this is what a server room looks like when it has flooded with 5 feet of water:

That looks outdoors to me--not indoors. Although it appears the water level is the same entering the building. With some luck...maybe they have really high raised floors--even so--it would totally screw you with all the cabling underneath getting submerged.

 

[ScottM]

That looks outdoors to me--not indoors. Although it appears the water level is the same entering the building. With some luck...maybe they have really high raised floors--even so--it would totally screw you with all the cabling underneath getting submerged.

I agree it looks outdoors, more to the point it looks like a loading dock. Note the door at the far end. That would also explain why the person in the foreground of the picture only has water up to his jewels while the people in the back ground are up to their waist. The ground is a ramp the is going lower as it goes further toward the door in the background. I doubt there was this much water inside the building.

 

[SkyHog]

I'm just going off what they sent me. Can't imagine they'd be lying, guys.

 

[ScottM]

I'm just going off what they sent me. Can't imagine they'd be lying, guys.

Not saying it is a lie. I am just saying it is the Internet and things get circulated and mislabeled quite a bit. The is why I remain skeptical of all things I get via 'the net'. I just raised some observations.

As I look at the picture I see fewer and fewer things that make me believe it is a computer room, the large containers on the far right are not something you see inside normally but are likely to be found in a loading dock.

 

[SCCutler]

Nick made the whole flood up, to take a day off of work.

The joke's on Nick, because it turns out that Nick's psychic powers actually caused the flood.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

That looks outdoors to me--not indoors.

Agreed... Those are shipping containers on the right, I doubt you'd be able to get one of those inside.

You're right though, it looks like the water is probably just as high inside.

 

[jesse]

Agreed... Those are shipping containers on the right, I doubt you'd be able to get one of those inside.

I doubt it's this..but these kind of things do exist:

Sun's Project BlackBox: Data Center in a shipping container.

 

[gprellwitz]

I doubt it's this..but these kind of things do exist:

Sun's Project BlackBox: Data Center in a shipping container.

Man, what do THOSE things cost?! Actually, I was thinking along the lines of portable generators or AC units, but..

 

[gkainz]

I doubt it's this..but these kind of things do exist:

Sun's Project BlackBox: Data Center in a shipping container.

The unix SA I worked closely with here just left last month to head up the architecture for that project ... yes, they do exist.

 

[SCCutler]

The unix SA I worked closely with here just left last month to head up the architecture for that project ... yes, they do exist.

I think it's ingenious.

 

[jesse]

I think it's ingenious.

The missing piece puzzle is how you power it, how you deliver chilled water to it, and where the armed guards sit that protect it from the hooligans.

 

[ScottM]

The missing piece puzzle is how you power it, how you deliver chilled water to it, and where the armed guards sit that protect it from the hooligans.

A question that I am pretty sure the answer is no, is is it bullet proof? Seriously, can you shoot it and the bullets do not go through it? For equipment enclosures that are in view of the public this is a real concern. Cellular equipment shacks are shot at all the time. The equipment houses that you see at the base of the tower or even the tower mount boxes are tested balistically to ensure that high powered projectile will not penetrate them.