Crash-d-ay

Today happened to be an eventful day for me in both office and home. It was a great alternative to the usual boredom I am facing in office for the past few weeks. Everything runs fine in our project and my work got limited to sending schedule changes and status reports. So when a server crash occurs, it gives more joy than worries about resolving it. One can not forget the server crash that happened during the labor day long weekend last month. Though everyone's holiday plans inlcluding my colleauge's trip to a beach with his family turned out to be a disaster,( He was working from the Starbucks nearer to the beach), it was a delight to me as I did not have any plans for the weekend. Its not that I anticipated the incident to happen. It is that I never plan for things to happen. Because things never happen when I plan. So with no plans for the weekend, I was just thinking how to pass the three days. And there came the Production server to my rescue. The system which did not have any problems for the last 82 days, went down the Abyss and was determined not to come back to the surface for three days. The unix and oracle admins were left to blame one another for the issue while I was left to watch the fight shouting high and enjoying the show. Even with the IBM and Oracle Titans(Direct support) pulled into the picture, no one was able to provide a solution. With no other choice, it was decided on the third day to Kill the server, wipe out its memory and then provide soul to a new one. At the end, destroying and creating a new life happened to be simple than saving an existing life.

And what did I do all the days?

• Listen to the conference calls that ran all day long.
• Keep my phone charged all the time.
• Escape from cooking and cleaning for the whole day owing to the tiring calls(thats what my roomies thought)
• Started and tested the application server once the system was brought back to life.

Last but not the least, got an appreciation letter in hard copy from the client for sacrificing the three holidays and being the savior of the project.

PS: Does anyone know how to use the 25USD American Express gift card attached to the appreciation letter? And dont worry about the 25USD AMC entertainment card. "3:10 to Yuma" was a good movie to watch and "The Kingdom" may be a good choice for the show next week.
PPS: Oops! I forgot to tell about the Crashes of the day. May be it will come as the sequel to this post.