Servers are the heart of a digital network. Good technicians have a creed when it comes to racks, servers, and IT rooms: “Leave it better than you found it.” Despite best intentions, sometimes chaos reigns. We were recently reminded of this during a recent project: a scary server room that could only be described as a cable nightmare.
The techs had been to the location before and knew the server room. But on this visit, the cables were not as neatly arranged as they had left them. Instead, the cables w
ere jumbled like after a catfight; power was now haphazardly run through an extension cord and non-rated power brick—a dangerous fire situation if the server generated too much power. And, looking at the state of the server room, the techs assumed proper power calculations were NOT made.
The techs began untangling the mess. One technician set about removing unused patch cables cluttering the rack while another carefully examined the power setup, ensuring that power supplies were carefully managed to avoid any risk of frying the rack. It was delicate, to say the least: poor cable management (paths, unsecured, no labels, no color pattern, etc), overburdened power setup, tight quarters, and all supporting mission-critical production servers.
The technicians were professionals and knew their craft: don’t rush, take no shortcuts, label everything, clear pathways and secure all cables, double-check power (including grounds), etc. At the end of the day, order was restored.
Mercury Tech Partners always leaves a server room better than we found it.
