Great Rack Mount Mistakes #6

A long time coming, here's another story from my days long past, this one takes me to my very first serious role in an IT department, I was however just the dogs body.  The company ran many old PC's (which I actually was around to see mostly be updated to nice Compaq Pentium III's) and they had a couple of high spec Silicon Graphics workstations in the design department.

The main manufacturing control and purchasing system, as well as payroll and a bunch of other services ran on a dual 386 based mini computer, which had a custom cut of ScoUnix and a bunch of bespoke C programs comprising the actual system stack, this was accessed by a whole host or Gandalf multiplexers combining the serial connections down from a hundred or so Wyse brand terminals (I wish I'd have nabbed one of those before I left).

Anyway, it was time for this back end stack to be updated, and so a pair of Compaq Proliant servers were brought in, these were dual Pentium III class with a dedicated storage unit and a large; and importantly heavy; UPS unit.

The problem?  The IT manager I worked for (Hi Dave) didn't get on at all well with the manager at the co-location this unit was to be installed in.  Therefore in a dual effort to maintain any vestige of control and avoid the guy he didn't like, my boss ordered all the equipment to be delivered to our office... In central Nottinghamshire.... Yet its final destination once configured was to be outside Peterlee in the North East, near Newcastle.

So after around a day of setting up the equipment and (as far as I recall) three days solid compiling time - yes it took that long - the system was ready to go.

However, no-one had kept the boxes, yes it was all out of the box spread on a floor and then hand hauled over to a fire-exit and precariously piled into the back of a Hyundai estate.

Yes, that's how tens of thousands upon thousands of pounds worth of top notch equipment (for 1998) made it's precarious way 120 miles, bouncing and jostling all the way.

At the time I never questioned this, I was a lowly minion, I would of course council against such a move ever again, the installation of the physical equipment should have been done at the remote site, and they definitely should have kept the boxes and packaging in full!