Electronic Death
It all started Wednesday afternoon... A massive lighting storm hit Brisbane QLD, any by the purest worse luck of all a lighting strike hit our Office Building :-)
This is where everything started to go down hill very fast --- actually immediately. The lighting strike fried out UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply), at least it saved all the servers and network equipment.
Well yesterday morning it was scramble time. the UPS was dead, had a horrible smell to it - "Electronic Death" and I had to think fast on the feet how on earth can I get all our servers up & running we only have a few wall GPO points and yet we are looking at 60 + power cables to feed.
Thankfully we have a local cable supplier that had adapter cables and power rails that could be used, the tricky part was sharing the load across several power points and mixing it between 10Amp & 15 Amp outlets. It looks like a dogs breakfast and is not the best / safest cabling but its temporary.
Now roll onto today, we have 2 new UPS units being delivered, new cabling and we will be covered with redundancy by having the 2 units sharing the load. At least today wont be a long day like yesterday. Only a few hours to go now before I can start tidying up our cable mess.
O' the joys of being in IT....
Recent Comments
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So true Sami, it didn't take much. I thought I had seen everything after going through the 2011 floods and the building being out of action for several days and running off a generator, I never expected the building to take a lighting strike. O well life goes one... :-)
Paul
I have a terrible mess of cables in my computer room which have accumulated over time. If a lightning strike were to take those out, I can't imagine how long it would take to replace all of them and get the system back to where it is today. You are an "accept it and fix it" kind of guy with patience.
It was a matter of how can I get all the systems up with what I have situation. Stay calm, think outside the box and in the end make it work - sometimes pushing the normal boundaries.
:-)
That was an excellent outlook! Not everyone can think outside the box in a situation that requires quick, if not immediate, fixes.
Hohoho....looks like my masterly cabling!!
Glad you got yourself back into online civilisation quicksmart.
Mark
Yeah we had to get everything back online as fast as possible as we supply communications to a few very remote locations where we have staff. All good now though.
Paul
Brisbane never does it by halves. I applaud your fixing major problems. Our storms here in Utah over the last two days dropped first snow on the mountains, and chilled the rest of us: it was summer last week. As I have interests in both parts of the world, WA appears to be the way to go for news. Larry
Yep I recon WA lets you get up to date news from around the world :-)
So true about Brisbane not doing things in halves... I am dreading this coming summer, in the long range forecasts there is high possibilities in some pretty bad storms.
Stay worm in Utah hey.
Paul
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Hey Paul - this is hilarious! I think it should be added to the 'Worst Electrical Jobs in the World' website! My sparky husband would have a fit! I see you are in Brisbane - nice to meet another Aussie! We have two girls in QLD - one in Bundy, one in Brisbane. Hope you have this all sorted!
Yeah it was a disaster, but we have it all fixed now with redundant UPS systems in place and all the cables have been cleaned up, no more hazards of tripping on cables.
Where abouts in Perth are you, my son & wife live in Rockingham.
We're in Bedfordale - just up the hill from Armadale.