| Author |
Random Server+ Q for Beginners
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| namrak 2002-09-18, 4:51 pm |
| Time to throw out another Server+ question to the rampant flood of people through this forum. 
MegaWatts, Inc. a company located somewhere in the midwest specializes in producing uninterruptible power supplies. Being a high-tech internet company of the 21st century, the company is planning to upgrade their servers and support systems while continuing to use their underground, fiber optic Internet connection. Data shows that many of their online transactions have come over the weekend.
MegaWatts contracted a team of consultants to put together a fault-tolerant and scalable network with a monitoring system able to notify techs by either paging or through email notification of any issues. By Friday, everything was installed and all could go home satisfied. As bad luck would have it, a lightning storm struck the next evening. On Monday, employees came into work and found literally smoking PCs and ruined equipment.
Management is asking the tech department how come no one was notified or aware of this debacle?
Choose appropriate scenario(s) that may have prevented notification.
A) the servers were not properly grounded
B) UPSs were not hooked up to protect the phones
C) company routers and switches were not protected by UPSs
D) the servers were turned off for the weekend
E) SuperTech was not part of the consulting team, thus the project was doomed from the start
** It was only a matter of time before I use member names in my scenarios  | |
| Supertech 2002-09-18, 5:19 pm |
| A & E
All surge suppression systems require an adequate ground grid. If the lightning strike is direct, you are pretty well screwed anyway. UPSs provide minimal surge protection. | |
| twister166 2002-09-18, 9:08 pm |
| F. Go buy a lotto ticket and hire SuperTech
If the equipment is smoking, that is probably a direct hit... Nothing will save it... Answer A & E | |
| Tech Ranger 2002-09-19, 7:10 am |
| My book says "E". But, I believe "A" is also a valid part of the answer. | |
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| Ah Yes! But your disaster recovery manager has a monitoring system set up at the help desk across town that senses no activity from your buildings router and an automatic page goes off or a manual one. No rest for the weary. Although once you get to the building, all you can do is say "that's nice" and turn around and go home.  | |
| namrak 2002-09-20, 12:05 am |
| The best answer for the question is (A).
As much as I would like to say (E) is part of the answer, I'd have to see with my own mortal eyes, Supertech stopping a 25,000 volt lightning bolt.
In anycase, like Supertech alluded to, if it was a direct lightning hit, even a highly rated consumer market surge suppressor wouldn't have protected the machines.
Its interesting to think had I worded the question slightly differently, it would have changed the answers. Consider this. Say the issue was just a random power loss and the local utility plant could not fix it for an hour and there is no lightning storm in the equation. What would prevent notification of the tech team?
The answer would not be "A", but now (B) and (C) because no phones would be available for paging the techs and no email would be able to transmit through the downed network. It all comes down to the wording of the problem.
Thanks for everyone's input. Come again. | |
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| THANKS Namrak - Good Scenario! | |
| Supertech 2002-09-20, 9:02 am |
| If the phones lines are dedicated lines (which they should be), they would not be dependent on premises power. | |
| Tech Ranger 2002-09-20, 6:28 pm |
| I believe in lab. Couldn't we just implement the scenario and observe the result? | |
| namrak 2002-09-22, 6:53 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by Tech Ranger
I believe in lab. Couldn't we just implement the scenario and observe the result?
LOL!
I wouldn't mind smoking a few TRS-80s, an Apple IIe or a few Commodore 64s! |
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