It only takes one

IT director pilot fish has just finished installing a new server rack completely loaded with several new state-of-the-art servers and a multi-terabyte storage-area network, all in a brand new climate-controlled server room.

"The new server configuration ran flawlessly for months," says fish. "Then one day the primary Exchange server shut down suddenly for no apparent reason.

"After checking everything, I pressed the power button and the server came back up without any problems."

Fish and the network admins comb through the log files on the system, check the UPS records and finally give up trying to figure out what happened -- but they carefully watch the system for the next week. Nothing happens.

But a few weeks later, the server powers off again for no apparent reason.

Fish goes ballistic. He contacts his vendor rep, who advises that fish replace the UPS, the power supplies for the server and then finally the system memory.

For a month, the server runs flawlessly. Then one day it stops again.

Fish pulls the server and replaces it with a similar server that has been running for months with no problem. He personally reinstalls the operating system and Exchange, and restores the data from tape.

As he's finishing up, fish is standing at the side of the rack looking over his work. And as he watches, he sees something he can hardly believe.

A small drop of water falls from the air-conditioning vent above the rack, and falls straight into one of the small ventilation holes on the top of the server.

The server immediately shuts down.

"I just stared -- then screamed a few expletives," fish says. "When I pulled the server, I discovered no evidence of the water.

"I reported what I observed to the CEO of the company. The CEO's response: 'Yeah, right. Have you been drinking?'

"I put a board on top of the server rack. The systems have never gone down since."

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