We resumed my training today, spending a little bit of time learning about the database (where we store all of our important information), how to work the phones and a few things about our marketing department – which basically consists of |me|.
Here’s what I learned about our database: I think that, technically, the database is our server, but I could be wrong… either way, we call this mega-machine “applecrisp.” I’m not really quite sure why, but just about everything in our office is named according to the ‘Can It Be Found in an Oven?’ Scale. I heard a rumor that, when Bruce first got started consulting (back in the college years), he built his first network server in an abandoned oven. Whether there’s any truth to that story or not… hmmm? I guess we’ll just have to ask the source.
The server has its own special room… very much like the walk-in refrigerator at any big restaurant. It seems to be climate-controlled, fairly well-organized, and clearly houses the essential elements of Dynamic Edge. Our server is pretty big (at least, I think so…) I couldn’t tell you what type of RAID backups it makes, but it’s about as tall and a little wider than your average telephone booth; and it has LOTS and lots of buttons, switches and cables.
…And then, there are the tapes.
I always thought that people called their backups “tapes” because humans are creatures of habit and we continue to call things by their original name, even though the mechanism changes dramatically. Like movies, for example. When “cool people” talk about movies, they never call them movies – they always call them “films.” Anybody want to guess the last time they actually put “film” in one of their cameras? Exactly. That’s why I’ve always thought that when people talked about their backup tapes, they meant something else: like a data DVD or an external hard drive. I had no idea there were actual tapes! That they were still being used, and how surprisingly similar they look to an eight track tape…what an eye-opener.
