Gallery: Server Snuff: 7 Videos of a Sysadmin's Worst Nightmares
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Flood: ------ Servers and water don't mix, as you can see here. This basement server-room flooding happened after a local telecommunications company running fiber optic cable though the neighborhood hit a water main.
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Flash Flood ----------- This September 2009 flash flood in Istanbul wiped out a quarter of Vodaphone Turkey's capacity. Watch it happen on a surveillance camera here. The amazing thing is that Nokia Siemens [says it restored the lost capacity within 24 hours.](http://es.nokiasiemensnetworks.com/pt/portfolio/customer-successes/success-stories/vodafone-turkey-s-flooded-network-brought-back-to-life- )
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Foolishness ----------- You know what's worse than installing a server while standing on a wobbly chair? Installing a server while standing on a wobbly chair that's on wheels. Hat tip to [ServerLift]( http://www.serverlift.com/) for this one and the next.
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Gravity ------- It doesn't take much to trash a $5,000 server. In this case: two guys, a server rack … and gravity.
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Fate ---- No matter how well you plan, sometimes fate simply decides to deal you a raw hand. That's what happens here when a fire extinguisher blows up, "tripping the emergency power shutdown valve and all fire alarms," according to the video's description on YouTube
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More Fire: ----------- The best thing about this video is how the poor sysadmin, just seconds after having the bejeezus scared out of him by a fireball explosion, has to deal with the flood of text message telling him that the servers are down.
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Think of a typical server room and what do you see? Racks of machines organized into endless rows. Tightly packed boxes of metal and wire stretching across one of those massive data centers that powers the internet. It's big and it's cold and it's sterile. In July, we catalogued the many ways that a data center can go down in our groundbreaking report [Guns, Squirrels, and Steel.](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/07/guns-squirrels-and-steal/ ) This time around, we give you honest to goodness video evidence of mayhem in the data center. There's fire and floods and foam. And a few embarrassed techs. So enjoy the chaos. And if you have more video of servers being trashed, [drop us a line.](mailto:[email protected]) __Above:__ Fire ----- Our first culprit is fire (see video above). You can tell that the guys at this Moscow company don't want to dust their server room with a fire extinguisher, but when this fuse box blows and catches on fire, they have to pull the trigger. Not before a helpful staffer first tries to swat out the conflagration with a magazine.
