Today we’ll have a little lesson in how not to run a datacenter. I was going through my old images from my trip down to the datacenter of a company I used to work for and found these little gems.

The first photo is clearly the best of them all. Yes ladies and gentlemen, that right there is a LIVE IN USE server (actually, it was one of the major SQL servers if I remember correctly) with a phone sitting INSIDE THE SERVER, and the cables interfering with the fans from running. No Joke, I shit you not, this is how I found the server when I went to the datacenter. I mean, come on, who does things like this?

These next two photos aren’t SO bad, but they just demonstrate the virtues of proper cable management, and not to mention color coding. Could you imagine if someone was like “yeah joe, please remove that grey cable over there” – yeah right!

Hey Joe

So that concludes our little lesson of the day. If you work for a place that has it’s own datacenter facilities, please make sure you’re not using these guys, which I can’t mention names obviously for contractual reasons or something. Check out your facilities before ever agreeing to work for someone or with someone. Saves a whole lotta trouble in the long run. Trust me!