Uses For A Car Jack In A Server Room

When I take on new ICT management roles I usually have a look at the facilities IT infrastructure with a emphasis on the server room or data centre.

This happened on my first day.

One design scheme in data centres uses what we call a raised floor. This meant that there is space of about a foot from the concrete floor to the tiles that rest on a metal framework. Of course the design has an intrinsic flaw and that is how much weight it can handle before collapsing, which could be a bit of a problem. Especially when the weight is from one of those big Airedales* air con unit leaning forwards by about 7 or 10 degrees off centre.

I turned to the facilities guy and quietly say - ok...move back slowly...not a sound. He looks at me and says oh that's ok look and proceeds to walk in front of this beast of a device. I swear I could see the thing swaying. I scanned the trajectory and realised that the Symetrix storage array (several hundreds of thousands of UK pounds worth of kit) was just plumb in the way. More a disaster than a problem.

So I go to my car get my car jack as well as his and we jacked the unit upright. It was a bit iffy to start with I have to admit.

I never did get my jack back!

* not really sure the exact weight but certainly in the region of a ton. And I have to say they really did the air con job well.