DFUs kept forgetting their passwords or typing them wrong and locking them. I really wonder if the stats have changed and the number of unlock/reset requests have dropped. As an admin it is really frustrating, having to type 16 character passwords in everywhere. On a daily basis I will log into a number of different servers as well as set up new services and applications all requiring authentication. On an odd day I could easily see myself authenticating a few hundred times.

The irony of the whole situation is that admin/super-user accounts have actually become even more simple. Where previously we would use something like “~@dm.5vc!” we now use something like “passwordpassword”. The most common password (even for admins) appears to be “1234567890asdfgh”. The kicker to my whole story here, is that we actually had a 3rd party auditing firm (KPMG I believe) recommend this as part of our “security” audit.

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This year my company has gone on what appears to be a really aggressive cost cutting push, slashing budgets across the board (or so I’ve been led to understand) and retrenching employees from many of our business units. IT got hit quite hard, having 5 CIOs retrenched and only replacing them with 2 positions available as part of the corporate restructuring. Add to this an entire department was dissolved and quite a number of people resigned seeking greener pastures; people who I’m not sure will ever be replaced forcing the work to be distributed amongst the rest of us. The scary thing about all this is that very little information has come down from the top, leaving us “workers” mostly in the dark forced to contemplate the outlook and have the blanks filled in with typical water-cooler and smoking balcony talk. Leaving your people in ignorance in matters such as these is not good for employee and company morale.

But anyways, back to my story. This background is like this: one of our company’s core business functionality runs almost exclusively on 2 application servers (glorified PCs really — lets call them OldA and OldB); each performing a different role. If either of these servers were to tip over there would be a rather large crisis and a lot of screaming people. Thus it was decided a DR solution had to be built and implemented. This task mostly fell to me as a learning experience with the aid of my team. So we had 2 older servers (I’ll call these BeefA and BeefB) that were just lying around, not being used, earmarked to replace the 2 existing servers (don’t forget — glorified PCs) making the existing servers the backup. If you’re still following: BeefA replaces OldA thus making OldA the backup, and BeefB replaces OldB making OldB the backup.

BeefA and BeefB are both decently specced servers. Dual CPU, Dual core, 6x 72GB scsi300 drives, dual gigabit nics; BeefA with 6GB ram BeefB with 2GB. Aside from the RAM either servers is specced well enough to serve both OldA and OldB’s functions; which ultimately was the plan… until yesterday that is. The servers are physically identical, so we could easily move hardware as well. OldA’s\BeefA’s core function was to be done away with and the server decommissioned later in the year, this means that any peripheral functionality would eventually be migrated from BeefA to BeefB, enabling BeefA to act as backup for BeefB. Until the time that this happened OldA and OldB would stand as part of the DRP.

In step the powers that be, and hence I have a brand new server delivered to me along with a “request” to set it up. What? Did I forget to mention that yesterday was also the first I’d even heard of this brand new server? Yea, I really love it when they forget to inform the people doing the actual work. Judging by the forwarded email I received, this server has been in the pipeline since February. Right, so my natural response was “WTF?!” and then “what’s this for?”. Then I find out what this server is actually for, it’s to replace OldB. But wait, what about BeefA and BeefB and the work going into making those the live servers and OldA and OldB the backup?

Bear in mind how I started this post, we now have a nice shiny R60k doorstop. And, all this happening amongst serious budget cuts. I seriously don’t know how this stuff gets past? Unfortunately I’m just a peon, someone who does what he’s told, who hasn’t even been at the company for a year and essentially just a trainee. My opinion doesn’t really count for much, and I’m not about to get myself embroiled in the corporate politics surrounding such decisions.

This is a prime example of some seriously broken communication. Had someone bothered to CC me into the emails (peons aren’t part of the managerial decision circulars) I could have had the opportunity to tell them they’re wasting their money for no good reason. I do hope I’m wrong in all this and this server actually has a different purpose, but I’m pretty sure I’m on the money in this regard.

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However, It’s a good thing we haven’t had too much rain lately because I’m sure some of these runnels would have become veritable canyons by now. As it is, many of them are increasingly nearing the level of outright road-hazard that desperately need to be filled in. I actually managed to slide both wheels over one of these things on my bike; though that was mostly due to the giant sand dune that had been piled on top.

Similarly there is now a nice ditch cut out of the road on my daily route. And by nice, I mean, bloody huge. It’s probably about 3″ deep now and about the width of an average sized car wheel. In other words, if you hit that thing at a decent speed, you’re likely to pop some tyres and buckle your rims. I’m just glad I saw them cutting it a week ago otherwise I would probably be buying 2 new tyres about now.

Of course this situation begs the question; what the hell are these guys doing? They tell me it’s booked in with Microsoft, but I somehow have my doubts since I know that Microsoft do an immediate swap for this particular issue. All they need to do is plug it in and turn it on to check. So where is this thing? Sitting on some shelf at HifiCorp or sitting on someone’s desk at Microsoft?

I can at least give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt considering how rife modding is. I’m sure Microsoft are wont to check these things nowadays. Still, 2 weeks?

My original stay in Cape Town was going to be till 24 March; I chopped the original 15 days down to 5 as I rebooked my ticket to 13 March and then again proceeded to extend it again to 18 March. A pointless and costly affair; I’ll avoid repeating my mistakes now. On returning to Joburg, I was looking forward to firing up my Xbox and playing some of the new games I acquired while away. So much for that idea, as 1 minute into my game my console froze and then I was presented with a most delightful sight… 3 red lights. Yep, red ring of death as so many 360 owners affectionately call it. So my 360 lasted a year and 4 months; not too bad a lifespan all things considered.

So now I wait for my replacement; been waiting a week so far. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish my games before the replacement fails too.