As a member of a technology company, who hosts-manages and delivers mortgage software over the internet, I have had the opportunity to visit many offices across the country. During these onsite visits, I often have the opportunity to see their "in-house server room". I am amazed on how creative some organizations are when building their internal "server room".
When we get involved it is usually when their systems are not running right. Many times the organization has outgrown their current office size and are at the point of putting computers/servers wherever they can. While it may seem perfectly reasonable to the individual to the outsider it may seem amusing.
I wanted to put together a quick list of some of the environments/scenarios I come across. If you the reader has an "ooh ooh" moment of self-realization. Get started on fixing your potential for disaster.
While thinking of how to compose this, I must have "channeled" one of the "Blue Collar" comedians. "Jeff Foxworthy". Which is why I am calling this;
"It may be time to hire a mortgage software hosting company if":
Your Server Rack is next to your 5 gallon "Sparklets" water dispenser.
I kept thinking; how do they change the 5 gallon water jug without splashing the server rack?
Whenever you heat up lunch, your company server resets.
This group had their company computer/server plugged into the same circuit as their microwave. Every once in a while the circuit would get overloaded and trip. By the way the computer area was spread around their break room.
Your computer room is in the basement or first floor.
Normally this would not be such a bad thing. Basements are usually cooler. In most cases this is where your utilities come into the office. But in this case the office was located in New Orleans and the (hopefully) once in a lifetime event happened "Katrina". Everything was lost. Of course it may not have made a difference if it was on the second floor either.
Your back-up Tapes/Discs are stored in your office desk.
See previous item. If there is a flood, fire or ? and you keep the backups in the same location, all can be lost.
Your "IT Department" consists of the one person whose qualification is, they were able to set up their own wireless Modem in their home....so they must know what they are doing.
I have talked to so many individuals who are running their organizations computer systems because out of everyone in their company they were the most comfortable with computers. Qualifications consisted of their ability to set up a wireless modem. This is not to slight their abilities, after all, if the boss asks you to do something, you do it to the best of your ability right? They had things running but overall the company had no true thought or vision for bringing all the pieces together. Note: I am running into this situation less often, thank goodness.
Your server room also doubles as your bathroom.
Ok, I have not seen this yet, thank goodness. But I am pretty confident that it exists.
I will be adding to this list in later Blogs.
I hope this was helpful, thanks for you time,
Chris
(Photo from "Internet MLM marketing Secrets" web site)