UPS War Stories (was: Re: [Cialug] k12ltsp)

[Anthony Jeffries]

On Thu, May 26, 2005 8:54, Academician Kula said:
> On Thu, May 26, 2005 at 08:49:37AM -0500, Theron Conrey wrote:
>> oooh oooh and one was someone had taken the power cord out of the
>> server... Don't ask but yes that *seems* to have a negative impact on
>> client boxes ;)
>
> I learned a very good lession when I was setting up the linux lab
> in the Drake CS dept, that one should not try to work on UPS monitoring
> when your file server is plugged into the UPS, as the UPS dying tends
> to make the lab full of students in a class get a bit panicky for some
> reason....

This happened to my boss and I at Sears. We were installing two big
honkin' APC UPSen. We had the monitoring software installed on (I think) a
Windows NT server, and all the cabling (including power) was complete
except for the serial control cable.

No one told us about the software bug that causes the UPS to freak out and
shut down when you first connect the cable. It shut down our server room
for several minutes and made ~100 call center reps either very happy or
very upset ("I'm sorry ma'am, our systems are down and you'll need to call
back later").

-- 
Anthony Jeffries | ajeffri@loopysite.org
Amateur Radio: N0NRO
I am not a conservative. I am a Christian.