Horror stories about hardware from IT support.
One customer I had thought themselves clever and thought they had found a way to lock away their device while keeping it cool. “Did they put an air conditioner in the room?” you might ask. Oh, if only it was that simple. They drilled a hole through the wall to the outside, and inserted a PVC pipe into the wall. This way, they thought, cool, fresh air would circulate into the room. Clever, yes. Effective, no. The room and the hole they drilled faced the company parking lot, so sand, dust and debris filled the room. The dust clogged the machine and made an ugly mess.
When we think of support, most of us think of software to start. We rarely assume the problem we are having is with the hardware we purchased. After all, hardware’s just the mechanism for delivering the software functions. However, things can go wrong with the hardware, and in many cases these issues can be prevented.
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The physical security of network devices is important to most organizations. Often, these devices represent a significant investment in infrastructure, and having one stolen or tampered with can be damaging for the network. As a result, companies tend to lock their security devices in a back room, away from foot traffic and prying eyes.
Keeping the device physically secure is a great idea, but putting it in any random back room is not. Why? Because it may not be ventilated or cooled properly, and the device will overheat.
Of course, I’ve also seen my share of dropped, kicked, and manhandled hardware, too. While most devices are created to withstand a reasonable amount of abuse, reasonable is the word to keep in mind. At some point, the hardware will break.
Broken hardware can be more damaging than a configuration issue or other trouble with the software. When a user calls in with a software issue, I can usually walk them through the fix, or remote into their machine and fix it myself with minimal downtime. Unfortunately, if it is the hardware that no longer works, it can take a day or sometimes more to fix it because there isn’t much I can do other than send the user a new device. We don’t yet have a teleportation device, so we have to depend on FedEx, UPS or the United States Postal Service like everyone else, meaning it will take at least a day to get the device to the customer and some time to set it up. Luckily, we can usually copy the images from the original device so the deployment won’t take too long, but you are still without security for a day or more while you wait for the device.
At some point, if you don’t treat your hardware the right way, it will get its revenge, probably at the most inconvenient time.
