neurological dryer lint

the saga of my company's dealings with hosting other people's servers has been really sad.

my company makes an IIS-based web server version of our software. there's a large software company that decided it'd be too much trouble to devote a server in their network to running it... so they made a deal with us - they give us free stuff and we host a server here for them to use, and we admin it for them. trouble is they have thousands of people who are going to be using this thing, and the pitiful little Athlon 700 with 128MB on our pitiful little saturated T1 isn't enough for them. so we suggest, do it your frickin selves. they say, hey how bout we buy a server and colo it (i.e. put it in a colocation facitility, a managed network run by a third party with admins that massage and tell stories to your servers at night and cook them nice meals). we're like, ok, good solution.

then they say - buy the server off ebay. we found some cheap ones there. and then host it at this hosting company. they're cheap. i'm like, you want to buy a PRODUCTION server off ebay. used. yeah, good call. absolutely no guarantees on that crap. but they're insistent. so we play along.

we buy a compaq server, dual P3/933, 40GB scsi uw2 array, 640MB RAM, 1U. nice little box for like $800, from some little web development company on ebay. i'm still cautious that the thing will be made of cardboard or something when we get it (probably an outdated luddite mindset on my part). we get a hosting deal for $50 a month from the colo place for a decent amount of monthly throughput and what sounds like great management. i get the server in the mail last week and fire it up. works great. i install win2k server, our software, lock the box down, and sit and smile like a magician after a particularly impressive trick. the server we bought on ebay actually works, wow.. satisfied that we're looking good, i pack the server back up and we ship it to the colocation place. it gets there two days later. they plug it in and fire it up.

it won't boot.

apparently it's no longer finding the disk array. AT ALL. the array is powered, the disks are powered, everything's plugged in and seated fine, it just won't see the disk array. the admin dude at the colo facility hacks away at it for a while, to no avail. i tell him power it down and wait about an hour, let's see if it magically gets fixed like things tend to do in this industry. no go. it still won't boot. so i decide that monday when i get back into the office i'll have it shipped back. maybe it was damaged during shipping or maybe the colo place screwed it up... or maybe we should have bought the server from, oh i don't know, a COMPANY THAT MAKES SERVERS.

so monday i get in and call their admin guy again. the 800 number goes straight to a sprintpcs voicemail box. lovely. so i call their 24/7 support number. here's the basics of that conversation. this is not exaggerated.

phone system: welcome to cihost technical support. this call may be monitored for quality assurance. please select from the following options. if your server is managed in texas, please press one. if your server is managed in los angeles, please press two. if your server is managed in chicago, please press three.
me: *3*
phone system: please wait while your call is transferred...
guy on other end: good morning.
me: hi, i'm justin hall with the sant corporation. we have a server colocated in your chicago facility that we need -
guy on other end: i'm sorry, who are you with?
me: the sant corporation, that's S-as-in-sam - A - N - T. we have -
guy on other end: uh, WHO are you trying to reach?
me: um. well. i picked the chicago colo facility from the menu...
guy on other end: ....
me: so... uh... i was.. uh.. i thought this was CIHosting?
guy on other end: (in best smurf voice) WELL MISTER, YOU THOUGHT DEEEEAD WRONG. *click*

so i'm stunned. i did call back again though, and got another sprintpcs voicemail box. i left a message to the smurf-man i had just gotten verbally berated by and apologized and told him to call the hosting company because he might get some more confused calls from people like me. then, i called their general sales line and get a hold of some random sales guy and explain what just happened. his response: 'hmm. that's weird. well here's our actual support department, hold please.' the guy at that support deparment - who was, surprisingly, an employee - was a flunky at a desk in dallas that couldn't help me either. i finally give up and call our original salesperson and they agree to ship the server back. of course, i found that the address they specified in their contract for the chicago facility was wrong.

so the moral of the story: i'm always right, and cihost deserves a jd power and associates award for excellent customer service. :)