Reboot the Data Center

Some days you just know things aren't going to go your way...Like when you get to the lab and the UPS is screaming at you. Every five seconds, two short, ear-piercing high-frequency beeps. Annoying as hell.

So you try to figure out what's wrong and realize you don't know a thing about UPS', but hey - you'll play with the little buttons anyway. And then ... you reboot the entire 'data center'.

It's very quiet in the lab when NWC Inc. is shut down.

You turn power back on and let things start booting up. Then you spend the next 10 minutes freaking out because you realize there is a username and password on the KVM and that you don't know what they are. You try to call the editor that set it up, but he's off the grid and you realize he's not going to get back to you any time soon.

You've got less than one hour before Oracle shows up for an on-site installation for a review and you can't get at the machines for the test.

You finally figure out the username and password, because in the lab you always try to make things easy to figure out, and then spend another 30 minutes making sure systems come up correctly; starting those pesky Exchange services that never seem to start correctly even though they're marked as "Automatic" and then wonder why your laptop can't get an IP addy from the DHCP server.

(It helps to turn it back on after you've accidentally shut it down)

Apparently the entire comm rack containing the GB lab equipment is also on that same UPS. So it powered off. 45 minutes later NWC Inc is up and running, but the UPS is still screaming every 5 seconds. All you managed to do was give yourself a heart attack by simultaneously powering down every piece of equipment in NWC Inc's four APC racks.

You finally call the Server and Storage editor and he tells you what to do. Only when you pull out battery R3 and push it back in and you hear a loud popping sound followed by the acrid smell of electronics burning.

Oh crap.

After you spend 5 minutes sniffing around the racks you determine that nothing is actually on fire, but you've just managed to fry one of the batteries - and that ear piercing screech has not stopped. So you tell the Server and Storage editor, "You better get in here...".

And when he does the end result is a fried battery that needs to be replaced and he stops the screeching by unplugging the console from the UPS. It doesn't change the fact that we're down a battery and had to turn off about 1/3 of the machines in the rack...But at least it's quiet.