On IT!!

I had my phone on voicemail, my door locked and a quickly printed a sign that said "I am on IT!!!" Though the whole system was down I managed to get it back up in under two hours. That was not so much skill or knowledge (I will admit to my failure in a bit), but mostly preparation.

Test... everything

Let me admit my failure first: I had failed to test this system update. Even though I had all the hardware I needed, I hadn't tested it. That complete IT systems went down today is because of that same problem. Don't have all your systems on auto update. But test if the update actually works properly.

Have a back up plan... that actually works

Have measures in place in case things go wrong... is a rule to live by today (even more so than 30 years ago when the situation I discribe took place). And no, don't depend on the supplier's servers to provide you with a roll back of their faulty update. Common sense that now goes by the name of IT and/or Operational Risk Management.