what is it with you people and worrying about posting pictures?
Im quite baffled tbh =/
I can understand why some people are nervous, but it is a bit daft.
I can't see any security risk by taking a picture of a server. Its just a big black box with a load of flashy lights. Its not like you're going to post the address of the server and admin login details with it.
Showing photographs of servers in our data centre reveals some of the security mechanisms we use. It also would show labels giving server names. All our servers, both company ones and customer ones are labelled so that NOC don't have to play guessing games if we need something rebooted or re-patched. Knowing the name of a server puts you in a much stronger position for starting to hack into it. Plus our customers wouldn't want competitors to know what hardware they're using, or where the equipment is stored. Besides electronic hacking there is the social engineering aspect of things to consider. Knowing where the servers are physically and being able to describe them exactly could be used to compromise security if the security people are half asleep. Social engineering is what scares us more from a security perspective, that's all dependant on Wetware.
Some of you people are so lucky to have cool jobs working in a data centre. Hopefully once ive finished my degree and done 8 years or so of helpdesk/tech support work hopefully ill be able to get a job at a data centre
I think you have a glorified notion of Data Centre work. With the kind of equipment that goes into a data centre its high availability, high uptime stuff. All work required to be done on them should be able to be done remotely. Hardware should be specced appropriately so hardware upgrades are extremely rare. There are essentially three main reasons to ever set foot inside a suite:
- Server is unresponsive remotely. Console it up, 99/100 it needs rebooted. Reboot, phone relevant person or if its your own equipment do your own tests
- New equipment needs racked. Donkey work. Open Cab, put rackmounting kit in place. Clip slides onto server, slide into rack. Patch cable (neatly) to patch panel at bottom of rack. In the connectivity rack patch into router/switch/whatever. Power on. Job Done.
- Backup tapes need replaced.
None of those require much skill. The first one requires a little skill with Linux and Windows for troubleshooting should it fail to restart properly, but that's usually about it. In a big disaster and a server needs rebuilt when I was in NOC we'd usually un-rack it and bring it back into the office as it was a lot more pleasant there and a DC is a nasty place to spend any length of time in.
Data Centres are nasty places. They're loud, usually devoid of natural light and the atmosphere is heavily aircon'd, very dry and cool. Most sensible people try to avoid setting foot inside them unless they absolutely can't avoid it
HP employ minimum wage monkeys to do their data centre work, they give them step by step instructions which they don't even have to understand the import of, and that's it. Only once in a blue moon does someone more skilled have to intervene.
The guys we employ at work to do DC stuff don't have to be particularly skilled to do it. Before I joined the Data centre staff at my employers I'd just picked up my CCNA, and had 6 1/2 years experience supporting desktops, and a tiny amount of exposure to Linux. The actual DC work never required any skill
Working on customer servers remotely was where the skill stuff came in, and we teach that to the new recruits to the team, we just expect some fair skills in one or other of the two main server sides of things, either Windows or Linux; and understanding of how network traffic flows. A Comp Sci graduate could handle the kind of work required.
Before you say anything, staying awake for 22 hours solid isn't easy.![A[L]C](/styles/overclockers/avatars/7.png){kind=avatar}
