Submission + - Data flows faster downhill (infoworld.com)
CaptainTact writes: "Found this on InfoWorld's page, under the Tales From the Trenches section:
"It was the peak of the dotcom boom and I worked for a travel agency that was buying out Mom-and-Pop travel shops from Seattle to Miami — mid-1999, if I remember correctly. I was part of the traveling network team that was responsible for acquisition network and server reviews and employee evaluations of said acquisitions.
I was sent off to our recently acquired sister site in Seattle, a mega travel company that had about 10 smaller sites and a supposedly superior sys admin — or so I was informed. Eric was the only IT guy for this company, and he had just gotten his CCNA AND MCSE. It was my job to review Eric and the site to determine whether he should stay or go and what other changes might be necessary.
Eric walked me through the impressive datacenter (or server room at the time), which was a pristine room reflective of a man who took pride in his work. Cables were run in cable trays, zip ties kept them bunched neatly, and each rack was arranged in the same fashion, hinting at consistency and forethought. The site was not typical of a Mom-and-Pop shop with Kmart network gear everywhere — this was a true IT operation. He took time to give me specifics on the networking setups, spanning tree-enabled or not, and their redundant setups (rare in that day). He also described each server and its function (file, mail, and so on). This guy seemed to know his stuff, and I like to think I'm not easily impressed.
After that impressive tour, we sat down in a conference room to discuss the future of the server room and the remote sites. Our first enterprise initiative was to move the sites onto MS Exchange, so I asked him which server was least utilized and running NT4 SP6 to which he proudly replied, "Oh, sorry, we only run the stable version of Windows 95 on our servers here. NT4 is the worst thing ever from Microsoft."
Wait. What? I sat in disbelief as I listened to Eric describe these servers, all the while his manager nodding her head in agreement. He failed to mention this to me in the walk-through, and I just couldn't believe this guy with the enviable server room had just said such a thing. I chuckled and said, "Funny guy. You had me going there." I proceeded to ask again which server was ready. Eric looked at me, contempt now plainer on his face, and told me matter-o-factly: "I would never joke about something so serious. Windows 95a, NOT THE B CRAP or 98," he said at a higher volume, "is the best OS for a server environment. Windows NT will soon go away and those idiots who installed it will run back to 95. You'll see."
"OK, we'll cover that topic at a later date," I said, thinking it best to move on. "We can build out a spare server and rack it with the company-required NT4 install and put it in the open section at the bottom of the last rack."
It was Eric's turn to laugh next as he told me, "Well that's fine, if you want the e-mail to be really slow."
Confused, I ask him to explain, expecting to hear that one of the switches was an older model 10MB Ethernet or 4MB token ring or something. Those weren't all that much slower, but some people didn't know that.
"See," he said in a voice rich with condescension, "data flows faster downhill. You should always put servers at the top of a rack with switches below. That way the data from the server is faster to the user."
Wow, did I miss that physics lesson when I was taking my networking class all those years ago? Did the instructor reveal this important tidbit while I was out on a bathroom break? This time I laughed hard. Really hard. "Eric," I said, "you are either pulling my leg or you genuinely believe that crock of bull." His manager then piped up to inform me that Eric's skills were not in question and my review of his knowledge would not determine whether he kept his job and would I please stop insulting him.
So for value-added entertainment and lack of anything else constructive to do under the circumstances, I called my boss and team lead for a conference call. I started out happily, telling them about the server room and its layout, seamless design, and work of art, blah blah. I watched as Cathy, Eric's manager, smiled that I-told-you-off-and-you-had-to-listen smile. Then I hit on the Windows 95A servers and location of said servers with data-flow technical details. There was silence on the line. My boss was furious that I'd bothered him with such idiocy, and nobody seemed to think it was funny.
"If you know better, then you run it!" threatened Eric. Challenge accepted: My boss told him to pack up his things. During the next few months, we unearthed thousands of problems (virus, file corruption, and so on) and a nice stash of porn on those Windows 95 servers as we converted them. Seems Eric's pretty server room was much more impressive than his grasp of gravity.""
"It was the peak of the dotcom boom and I worked for a travel agency that was buying out Mom-and-Pop travel shops from Seattle to Miami — mid-1999, if I remember correctly. I was part of the traveling network team that was responsible for acquisition network and server reviews and employee evaluations of said acquisitions.
I was sent off to our recently acquired sister site in Seattle, a mega travel company that had about 10 smaller sites and a supposedly superior sys admin — or so I was informed. Eric was the only IT guy for this company, and he had just gotten his CCNA AND MCSE. It was my job to review Eric and the site to determine whether he should stay or go and what other changes might be necessary.
Eric walked me through the impressive datacenter (or server room at the time), which was a pristine room reflective of a man who took pride in his work. Cables were run in cable trays, zip ties kept them bunched neatly, and each rack was arranged in the same fashion, hinting at consistency and forethought. The site was not typical of a Mom-and-Pop shop with Kmart network gear everywhere — this was a true IT operation. He took time to give me specifics on the networking setups, spanning tree-enabled or not, and their redundant setups (rare in that day). He also described each server and its function (file, mail, and so on). This guy seemed to know his stuff, and I like to think I'm not easily impressed.
After that impressive tour, we sat down in a conference room to discuss the future of the server room and the remote sites. Our first enterprise initiative was to move the sites onto MS Exchange, so I asked him which server was least utilized and running NT4 SP6 to which he proudly replied, "Oh, sorry, we only run the stable version of Windows 95 on our servers here. NT4 is the worst thing ever from Microsoft."
Wait. What? I sat in disbelief as I listened to Eric describe these servers, all the while his manager nodding her head in agreement. He failed to mention this to me in the walk-through, and I just couldn't believe this guy with the enviable server room had just said such a thing. I chuckled and said, "Funny guy. You had me going there." I proceeded to ask again which server was ready. Eric looked at me, contempt now plainer on his face, and told me matter-o-factly: "I would never joke about something so serious. Windows 95a, NOT THE B CRAP or 98," he said at a higher volume, "is the best OS for a server environment. Windows NT will soon go away and those idiots who installed it will run back to 95. You'll see."
"OK, we'll cover that topic at a later date," I said, thinking it best to move on. "We can build out a spare server and rack it with the company-required NT4 install and put it in the open section at the bottom of the last rack."
It was Eric's turn to laugh next as he told me, "Well that's fine, if you want the e-mail to be really slow."
Confused, I ask him to explain, expecting to hear that one of the switches was an older model 10MB Ethernet or 4MB token ring or something. Those weren't all that much slower, but some people didn't know that.
"See," he said in a voice rich with condescension, "data flows faster downhill. You should always put servers at the top of a rack with switches below. That way the data from the server is faster to the user."
Wow, did I miss that physics lesson when I was taking my networking class all those years ago? Did the instructor reveal this important tidbit while I was out on a bathroom break? This time I laughed hard. Really hard. "Eric," I said, "you are either pulling my leg or you genuinely believe that crock of bull." His manager then piped up to inform me that Eric's skills were not in question and my review of his knowledge would not determine whether he kept his job and would I please stop insulting him.
So for value-added entertainment and lack of anything else constructive to do under the circumstances, I called my boss and team lead for a conference call. I started out happily, telling them about the server room and its layout, seamless design, and work of art, blah blah. I watched as Cathy, Eric's manager, smiled that I-told-you-off-and-you-had-to-listen smile. Then I hit on the Windows 95A servers and location of said servers with data-flow technical details. There was silence on the line. My boss was furious that I'd bothered him with such idiocy, and nobody seemed to think it was funny.
"If you know better, then you run it!" threatened Eric. Challenge accepted: My boss told him to pack up his things. During the next few months, we unearthed thousands of problems (virus, file corruption, and so on) and a nice stash of porn on those Windows 95 servers as we converted them. Seems Eric's pretty server room was much more impressive than his grasp of gravity.""