Diary of a DMS Guy

I'm Simon Verona, I’ve been writing and implementing DMS systems for over 35 years.  Over the years, the best parts of my job have been solving unusual problems.

For example, back in 1988, we had a customer in Cardiff. We were only a few years into the build-up of our customer base, so we knew our customers well.

Power Cuts are not good for fileservers

This particular customer had had a power cut.  Computer systems in the late 80’s generally didn’t like the power being suddenly removed, and sadly the battery backup for the server had not failed. This resulted in a corrupted file system on a Saturday afternoon..

No major problem, we can just reload the operating system from floppy disk and then restore the previous night’s backup….

The only obstacle, the elderly accounts lady who agreed to come in on the Sunday morning to do this. 

I'm up to this ...!

It’s ok.  I’m up to this task.

“Molly, if you look up on the shelf on the account office, you will find a small 5 and a quarter inch sized box labelled ‘Operating System’, can you get this down”. Molly found the box and takes it down finding the 3 operating system floppy disks in.

“Fantastic Molly, now take disk one and hold it gently by the label on the top and hold it so that it is vertical with the label facing the window”.  

“perfect, now put it into the vertical slot on the front of the machine that is the same size as the disk and close the lever”

“Brilliant. Now switch the machine on and it will start the reload sequence”

“Floppy disk error did you say ? “  - we tried this a few times… “You are sure you are holding the label towards the window, it’s quite important”

Still nothing.

So, we got in the car, and drove the 180 miles to Cardiff to find out what had happened.

Never assume anything is as you left it....

Only to find that someone had, in their wisdom, turned the server to face the other way (so pointing towards the window had the disk in upside down!).    15 minutes on site and the system was back up and running, and we left to do the 180 mile trip home.

If only it had been today....

It’s a far cry from the technology today, where I can completely reload a server and reload a backup in about 5 minutes from my mobile phone!    

In reality, the problem doesn't occur. Our data centre has completely uninterruptible power using both battery backup and generators. It's also resilient to loss of phone lines (it has multiple providers with satellite backup)

Technology has come a long way.

Fortunately, whilst the years have gone on and we are much bigger than the company I was working for in 1988 we strive to always go the extra mile to provide a truly 5* customer service.

Comparing to the technology of yesteryear, if you're interested in current Navigator technology, click the button below.