I remember the fun times when people brought new equiptment to our colo...

 

I have seen the same thing happen after a power outage from an ice storm. Everyones heat was wanting to come on at the same time and the circuit couldn't handle it. The power company blocked out sections and brought them back on line in smaller bits, took a couple hours longer that way, but they were all back on. The curcuit couldn't handle the surge, sounds like what was going on at FTE server center.

John

 

They're already on a UPS. Problem is, the circuit breaker is between the servers and the UPS. If you attempt to draw too much current from the UPS, the local (in the cabinet) breaker will trip.

Ken, I've done the *exact* same thing before. I am real familiar with that sinking feeling you had when all the little green lights in that cabinet went out at the exact same time - and probably a few of the curse words too.

 

I am just glad this is worked out. Thanks ken this site is zooming.

 

Concerning Andy's comments.... how true!

At one point we installed a UPS in our rackspace even though the facility had a generator --- because a generator doesn't cover you in all cases. Sadly, as our use of rackspace increased it became harder to justify paying for an extra 3U of space for the number of UPS's needed to cover all the systems.

 

Glad we are up and running quickly again. Now I can appreciate my cable modem speed once again.
Thanks Ken, for all of your hard work, time and money that you put into the site to keep it going. It does not go unnoticed

 

I know the server center has an UPS, but in this case an UPS may be needed at the server like Ken had before. Unfortunately space is very expensive.

I too have seen those little lights go out at the same time in a rack of equipment. It usually didn't happen too often to me since I checked all of the equipment draw before I plugged anything in and fired it up. Back in the old days tho some equipment got modified without updating rating tags. -OOOPS! Where I was working there were life safety issues involved and a computer going down could mean someone could die. I really sweated the monthly generator and UPS unit tests for several reasons. Pulling those big disconnect handles willingly and listening to the howls, generator startup, and transfer contactor banging was intense. If something went wrong that whole power room might go up with me along with it. Plasma burns are a bad thing.

 

Ken....

long way from a 386 and running an email list eh ???

thanks for providing the best site on the net (IMHO) your are appreciated !

john

 

386???? Try racks full of S-100 Z-80's talking to 6502's!! My first BBS ran on a 68000 with a 286 as a data concentrator. That 68000 was some machine.

 

Hey Ken... No worries. The AMD K8 chips are gonna get phased out in 2007. Are you ready for native quad core K8L chips from AMD? These things are gonna smoke this site. They shouldn't even cost as much as what you put down for those Opteron 290's.

Ryan