I’ve worked through four pretty significant IT disasters over the years.
The most interesting and avoidable one was the following:
There was a simple move planned for a computer mainframe system from one data center to another on the same campus. Easy, right? What could go wrong?
The computer movers showed up at 6AM on Saturday, and quickly loaded the 18-foot truck with the processor units, controllers, tape and storage systems, no problem.
One tiny detail was missed.
One of the movers stopped to have a smoke.
He was the one who normally closed and latched the back door of the truck.
As the truck pulled up the loading ramp from the loading dock, the rear door swung open, and several million dollars worth of IBM disk arrays slid off the back of the truck, falling about four feet to the pavement.
A big ‘oh shoot’ moment.
24 hours and a restore-from-tape later, things were working.
