Confessions of an IT Manager_Phil Factor
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292 S<strong>an</strong>ta's SLA<br />
revenue days for the comp<strong>an</strong>y in the entire year, as people phoned home.<br />
Putting down my sherry-glass, I rummaged around the store cupboard to slot<br />
<strong>an</strong>other one in. There wasn't one. I phoned the DBA at his home. "Hello, it's<br />
<strong>Phil</strong> here. I'm at work." There was a scream <strong>of</strong> overexcited children in the<br />
background, blowing <strong>of</strong>f <strong>an</strong> e-number binge by quarrelling noisily.<br />
"Ah yes," he said wistfully.<br />
"18 Gig SCSI drive gone tits," I told him, lapsing into esoteric jargon.<br />
"Ooh," he exclaimed hopefully, "do you think I ought to come over?"<br />
"No need." I responded, cruelly. Christmas, as I've already explained, does<br />
that to me. "Just tell me where the spare 18 Gig SCSIs are kept. Even I know<br />
how to hot-swap a drive in a RAID array."<br />
"Hmm. No spares, we don't carry them <strong>an</strong>y more. We were hoping to get a<br />
new RAID array with larger-capacity drives after Christmas."<br />
"So what is the solution?"<br />
"We have a service-level agreement with the supplier that guar<strong>an</strong>tees a twohour<br />
response time. Just give them a ring <strong>an</strong>d let them do the worrying".<br />
After a long wait, ringing the supplier, then probably the largest providers <strong>of</strong><br />
Enterprise-level servers in the world, a voice <strong>an</strong>swered.<br />
"Hello," said the voice irrelev<strong>an</strong>tly.<br />
"I'm with xxxxx Comp<strong>an</strong>y, <strong>an</strong>d we have a mainten<strong>an</strong>ce agreement with you<br />
for our servers." I quoted the reference numbers.<br />
"Mo," There was a tapping on a keyboard at the other end after which he<br />
came back <strong>an</strong>d asked what the problem was.<br />
"18 Gig SCSI drive has h<strong>an</strong>ded in the dinner pail. It has croaked."<br />
"Oh, I'll just put you on hold while I put you through."<br />
Then the 'calming' music ...<br />
… When it snows ain't it thrilling<br />
Though your nose gets a chilling<br />
We'll frolic <strong>an</strong>d play<br />
the Eskimo way<br />
walking in a winter wonderl<strong>an</strong>d …<br />
Aaargh!! Any residual pining to be celebrating a festive Xmas in the bosom<br />
<strong>of</strong> my family died at that moment. A 'Bob Cratchitt' chill entered my heart.
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