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The Payroll Must Go On!
By Ron Barrett
What do you do when you have ~10,000 square
feet of computers with no electrical power, lighting or cooling and the
payroll is due in one day? Add
to that scenario the fact that the whole site is down with an estimated
up time after the deadline has passed. Well, that is exactly the
scenario we had at the Lab on Wednesday, May 18.
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SLAC
electricians convert 480v from diesel generator to 120/208v to
be used for power in Building 50 to bring network and servers
back temporarily. Shown left to right: Brandon Mai, Fikrit
Alisic, Francisco Castillo, Ricardo Delgado, George Quilon and
Richard Altieri.
(Photo by Ron Barrett) |
The
Solution Decide how many
systems you actually need to get the payroll run and sent to the banks.
Then, call in electrical planning to figure out how to safely bring in
enough temporary generator power to make the systems work.
If you received your paycheck on time following the
surprise power outage at SLAC, you can thank the electricians and the
planners for their dedicated efforts.
Following an evaluation of safety and electrical needs,
13 electricians and other essential professionals worked many long hours
into the night on Wednesday to safely restore electrical power via
generators, temporary transformers and distribution cables to payroll
dependent services.
Electrician Team:
Fikret Alisic (CEF)
Richard Altieri (CEF)
Richard Boushey (CEF)
Francisco Castillo (CEF)
Brad Catania (CEF)
Raymond Cuadrado (CEF)
Gabriel Diaz (CEF)
Ricardo Delgado (CEF)
John Healy (CEF)
Brandon Mai (CEF)
Ray Manuel (CEF)
Doug Mitchell (CEF)
George Quilon (CEF)
Satwinder Singh (CEF)
Cliff Whitton (CEF)
Planners:
Dino Amador (CEF)
Perry Anthony (CEF)
Phil Cutino (CEF)
James Kang (CEF)
Liam Robinson (CEF)
Tom Sherry (CEF)
John Weisend (CEF)
Jim Winstead (CEF) Once the
power was restored for these machines additional staff members worked
through the night to bring the services on-line and run the payroll
system. The payroll system finished running at about 1:30 a.m. and data
was sent out at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday morning before the deadline.
The folks working directly with payroll software were
Ernest Denys and Jeanne Pierre. A very thorough understanding of the
network and everything else by Gary Burhmaster made it possible for the
systems to talk together. Commitment to getting it done and creative
solutions were supplied by John Weisskopf.
From Friday night through Sunday most computer systems
were brought back to life by staff working long hours, carefully
documenting and fixing the requisite hardware.
SCS staff included—but was not limited to—the following
people: Computer Services:
Neal Adams (SCS)
Yemi Adesanya (SCS)
Karl Amrhein (SCS)
Ron Barrett (SCS)
John Bartelt (SCS)
Jon Bergman (SCS)
Chuck Boeheim (SCS)
Matt Campbell (SCS)
Bob Cowles (SCS)
Renata Dart (SCS)
Teresa Downey (SCS)
Shirley Gruber (SCS)
Mike Hogaboom (SCS)
Ricardo Kau (SCS)
Randy Melen (SCS)
Len Moss (SCS)
Ian MacGregor (SCS)
Richard Mount (SCS)
George Maclin (SCS)
Lance Nakata (SCS)
Sean Roberts (SCS)
Bill Weeks (SCS)
Lois White (SCS)
Wei Yang (SCS)
Bonus Quiz
Question: Can you guess how many total systems on the
second floor in Building 50 were restored following the payroll system?
Answer: 3,211 servers |
