[geeks] Data Center Braggage

[Peter L. Wargo]

On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Amy wrote:

> > > I need to find the URL I had once of Netcom's old LA POP.  Worst looking
> > > 'datacenter' I ever saw.  EVER.
> >
> > I remember that one... Gave me nightmares...
> 
> sphagetti, anyone? ;)

More like "Medusa's snakelike locks", for the way it paralyzed me in
fear...  I used to use Netcom for an ISP...

(I am so anal-retentive about datacenters.  If I wasn't before, working
for Sun has made me aware of just how annoying a rat's nest of unlabled
cables can be.  Especially when it is the wee hours of the morning, and
you are trying to puzzle out the SSP-to-E10K connection that was done 3
years ago by "Bob", who left the company suddenly.  Of course, he never
bothered to label the ethernet cables, 'cuz he knew where everything went.

Or, the truly nitemarish: "Hey!  Which one of these (240v, 30A) power
cables is plugged into this AC outlet?  Is it on battery?"  POP!  Followed
by the roar of 56 fans fading into a stunned silence.

"oops."

Speaking of power cables, the steller service at SGI comes to mind.  Like
- "Oh, I'll just kick this cable out of my way."  POP!  Followed by the
roar of a Challenge XL crossfading to my horrified scream as the entire
Genome Sequence Database comes slamming to a halt in the middle of the
day...

Ya know the best part?  It really takes almost *no* extra time to label
the cables as you go.  Sun provides a label kit for the E10K just for this
reason...  Just imagine a full-up system with 40 2-port FCAL cards, 10
QFE's, and sundry other SCSI, power, ethernet, etc. cables.  Tha's
something like 150+ cables coming off of ONE box...

(Actually, we did a mental excercise one day.  Assuming a 16-board domain
with one FCAL adaptor for disk and all the other slots full of QFE's,
(I can't imagine *why*) you'd have a system with 252 network cables, two
fiber cables, and 4 main power cables.  The mind boggles.  

-Pete