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'The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry...' Thus the paraphrase goes of the words of the great Scottish poet Robert Burns. These words ring very true to me this morning. You see, my software company has leased a server for almost three years now, at a hefty monthly fee. This server has hosted a number of websites for various clients and has really been a great, if somewhat expensive, asset. Finally, however, I decided that it was time to bring this in-house, as they say. So, I got some office space, a phone line, and a business-class DSL line that would provide more than enough bandwidth to serve what I needed. I then converted a powerhouse PC into a web server to host some web sites owned by my company, Centrant LLC. For web hosting clients that need more than what DSL service can provide, and for purposes of redundancy, I have a number of partnerships that allow me to provide the service level that is required. All the bases were covered. All set with my arsenal of cost saving new toys, I was almost ready to make the switch from my leased server to the new one sitting in the corner of my new office. I had spent hours installing software and configuring the server. It was almost ready. Already locked down tight so hackers would have a very tough time trying to break in, all that was left was to install anti-virus and anti-spam software to protect those who would use the server for email. The result of around 40 hours of work was at hand, and I would finally be able to stop paying those outrageous monthly bills for a server located half a country away. Now, I know better than to leave any piece of electronic equipment unprotected. Believe me, I've learned that mistake the hard way. A few times. So, I made sure that all the equipment was under the constant watch of a quality surge protector. The server itself, since it is so valuable, was even removed again from other equipment so that an intermediary device would have to first succumb before the server was hit by a surge of electricity. Not bad planning, huh? Pretty slick, right? I thought so too. And, well, it was good planning. And it was pretty slick. But remember the words of the old Scottish sage. 'The best laid plans...'
Over the weekend, Saturday night to be exact, we were hit by a very forceful storm. Lightning and thunder came crashing in and seemed determined to destroy as much as possible before moving on. And destroy they did. As I came into the office on Sunday afternoon to do some work, I noticed that the network router was dead. Then I noticed that the phone was dead. Then the server that I had spent so much time installing and configuring and losing sleep to get ready was, you guessed it, fried.
Does this stop me from moving the server? Nope. It only means that it will take a little longer to get it going, and it will take a little more money to replace some things. I'll have to pay for that leased server one more month maybe, and this time I will make sure that there are redundant surge protections in place. Did I lose any data? Again, nope. I've learned to make backups often. Did any site go down as a result of this? Nope. Everything is working great as far as my clients are concerned-- remember that there are partnerships in place that I can utilize to protect against any loss of service. It was a big personal let down, however. I put a tremendous amount of work into something and now have to start over. But, it was neither the first nor the last time that I've had to start over, and this time I'll do it faster and better. What's the point of telling you all this? Where's the 'Tech Tip', you might wonder. The tip for this week is that, even when you do everything right, sometimes things just go wrong. Every phone line and Internet connection in the entire building that houses my new office space was dealt a lethal blow. A direct hit can wreak havoc on any computer system. You know, now that I think of it, this applies to life in general, not just computers. Hmm, interesting. As always, if you have any questions or suggestions for future articles, please email me at mike@mikebryant.com. Mike Bryant has worked as a professional software developer for over ten years. A born entrepreneur, he currently owns Centrant, LLC, a software consulting firm specializing in custom software for small businesses. He currently resides in Jackson, Kentucky with his wife, two kids, and five computers. For more information, please visit MikeBryant.com.
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