Introduction

Once upon a time the Data Center was a familiar and comfortable place separate from the rest of the world. It was a retreat to which Server and Network gurus (and a select few software engineers) could escape from mainstream corporate culture and commune with the machines. These were the same Good Old Days when servers had distinct personalities and names to match. Machines and the software that operated them required tender care, gentle coaxing, and the occasional brutal whack to keep them in working order.

Alas, those glory days are over. The Data Center is now a sterile environment, completely lacking a sense of humor. Servers once named after members of the ancient Greek pantheon have been replaced by "boxes" with uninspired names appended by integers. It has become a popular tourist spot for corporate leadership. Soft drinks, snacks, and music are strictly banned.

All in all, the Data Center has become a hostile environment for its former denizens, a place to be avoided at all costs (that's why remote management tools became popular). If a company's Data Center ever has more than two technical occupants, there is a better than even chance that their entire management chain is on its way to demand status updates on whatever crashed so hard that it required that the techs actually show up. That, my friends, is the kind of pressure that inspires Panic in the Data Center!

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This Blog is all about designing and implementing IT systems and infrastructure that allow rapid (and frequent) implementations while minimizing the likelihood of crisis situations.

About the author: I have performed almost every function common in Information Technology: desktop technician and server administrator, application architect and maintenance programmer, manager and whipping boy. In every role I have seen examples of both wonderful uses and atrocious abuses of technology. I have developed an almost Quixotic passion for righting the wrongs and encouraging liberal application of forethought in building IT systems and the teams that build them.