Tommy Tulate's* project team was testing and implementing a disaster recovery solution for a client.
After diligent lab tests, the big day arrived -- it was time to install the tested software on the live backup server.
A few minutes into the installation, the phone rang. It was an urgent call for Tulate. "I have to take this. Can you continue the install?" he asked a colleague who had helped him perform initial testing in the lab.
"Sure thing," replied his colleague, who had been out for a "big night on the town" before that morning's installation attempt.
A few minutes later, Tulate came back into the room to check the replication settings. To his horror, he saw that his colleague had set replication for the c:winnt folder.
"Stop! You're doing it wrong!" he said.
"No, this is right. This is how we tested it in the lab, remember?" his colleague replied, while matter-of-factly clicking the OK button.
Ouch.
The disaster recovery server had suffered its own disaster -- a hung-over, sluggish-brained IT guy with an itchy trigger finger.
Luckily no damage was done. But since the client ran its production line seven days a week, completion of the project was delayed for two more months. Had the client's primary system failed during that time, it would have cost around $40,000 a day in downtime penalties from active customers.
Tommy Tulate's words of wisdom -- and warning to future moonshine happy, sleep-deprived
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colleagues: Put your social life on hold the night before critical work.
*Name changed to protect the innocent.
Share your bloopers with us. E-mail them to editor@searchsap.com. Read more of our past IT Blooper Series, which originially appeared at SearchWin2000.com, part of the TechTarget network.
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