[geeks] The Gravity of a Situation (was: Re: Oops they dropped the F12K)

[Michael Kaegler]

Working in IBM country, I hear some stories. I have not attempted to 
independently confirm this story, but here it is.

IBM, as you may know, makes an enterprise DASD called the "Shark". Its 
essentially a boatload of SSA drives hooked up to two (or more?) 4-way 
RS-6k machines with something on the order of 16GB of RAM a piece which 
are in turn hooked up to...whatever you have it hooked up to.

So "a major insurance company" was building a new building in Connecticut. 
Groupthink had decided that the machine room would be on the 4th floor, so 
when IBM contractors arrived with the fully loaded Shark (12TB at the 
time) they had to use the service/freight elevators. Unfortunately, since 
the elevators could not lift the Shark, it had to be dismantled and 
brought up in pieces. So over the next few hours, the shark arrived on the 
raised floor bit by bit, and when everyone was done, they stepped back to 
admire their work.

Someone miscalculated or just didn't take into account the effect of the 
6,000lb+ fridge. The floor began to creek. Another step back. Uhoh. Bam! 
The raised floor gives way, and 6,000 of DASD falls through. Everyone 
standing on the raised floor is thrown to the ground by the sudden 
structural failure. And with the 12 inches of momentum it got between the 
floor and the concrete, managed to punch through the fourth floor. Extra 
momentum...third floor. Second. First. Basement. Splat.

Noone hurt; the building was still in the final stages of construction. No 
word on what happened to the building, the designer, the install team, or 
the fin. IBM, of course, recovered what they could from the downed shark 
and used the pieces in building new sharks. As to what insurance company 
it was, we rattled off a list of possibilities, and the storyteller had a 
reaction to the name Etna. The old salt may just have had poor luck with 
that company, though.
-mKaegler

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Michael Kaegler, Grid Programmer, Information Technology
Marist College, 3399 North Rd, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601
Phone: 845-575-3128
Michael.Kaegler at Marist.edu

Beware of quantum ducks. Quark, Quark.