Editors Note - December, 2001

The Spy, the Wizard, and the Data Center

I used to skulk about data centers. In fact, my team and I charged serious money for this skulking, back in my Microsoft Consulting Services days. And it was a bargain for our customers.

We had a number of consistent findings, most of which had relatively easy fixes. That's where the bargain came in.

At the end of this column I'll outline four of these suggestions, with no consultant's bill.

Over time, I also identified a number of archetypes of the folks who ran these data centers, although it's only recently that I've put names to them. There was James Bond. There was Harry Potter. And there was the late George Harrison.

Who's running your data center? Take a moment to look at these three models and think about which most closely matches your world.

Bond, James Bond

Remember 007? Slick, smooth, could talk his way into and out of anything, but prone to disaster – and he often needed rescuing from Felix Leiter in the last reel. He was incredibly fond of the latest gadgets, too, supplied by Q, the "armorer."

Do you have a spy in your data center? I don't even think it matters which side the spy is on; as with Bond, the bill for damages to the "good guys" is always large.

Is your data center in need of bailouts at the last minute to keep things running? Are you always on the edge of disaster? Are you using gimmickry to try and save the place? Does it take superhuman effort to move forward —or sometimes just to survive?

In the movies, Q's gizmos were never real tools but rather these ridiculous one-off things that somehow wound up being the right device at the right time. (Remember the passenger ejector seat in Bond's car?) In the real world, Q's stuff doesn't ever quite work. In general, the one-offs you've got hanging around will likely fail when you need them, too.

Harry, Snape, and Voldemort, Inc.

Do you need magic to keep your data center running? Do you sometimes think of the folks there as young wizards?

In the magical world of Hogwarts, there are three forces vying for balance, or imbalance. On one end, there are kids, Harry, Hermione, and Ron, who are learning — at great cost and with significant collateral damage — the arts of wizardry. On the other end is Voldemort — sorry — You-Know-Who. He's engaged book by book in tearing the place down, and he's getting stronger. In between is the Potions master, Severus Snape, whom we presume is aligned with Vol… You-Know-Who, but whom we're learning is really a wild card in the game.

It's an intriguing balancing act. It takes all of these forces, working together, to make J.K. Rowling's world go. Personally, I'm betting that in the seventh book Snape will be the factor that makes the difference. But I wouldn't bet my data on a hunch like that.

Nor would I want to bet my data on a team comprised solely of eager, smart, and inexperienced folks.

Yet I've seen too many data centers in this same tenuous balance, where brilliant but inexperienced people struggle mightily against the Dark Arts of downtime and disaster. Snape is played by the unexpected event, the last-minute user need, the failure that you thought could never happen. In the real world, there's little chance that Snape will turn out to be on your side.

In each of the books so far, the teenage wizards somehow come through at the end, with a combination of courage, luck, and of course magic.

I, however, am a muggle. I bet you are too. Magic doesn't work for us.

George, the Quiet Beatle

I'd been trying to finish this column on and off for a week, struggling to find the right third archetype, when I heard the news that George Harrison had died. As I reflected on his life and career, it occurred to me that George — or at least our common perceptions of him — represented all that's good about well run data centers.

George was the "quiet" Beatle, albeit with a wicked sense of humor to balance John's edginess. He wasn't known as a great improviser, at least in Beatles days, but he'd take a day or so to work out a guitar solo and deliver something perfect, four or eight bars that absolutely made the song work. He was enough at peace with himself that when his close friend stole his wife — after writing a hit song about it! — George appeared as best man at the wedding.

I'd want George in my data center. I want a team with little to prove, with enough of an ego to care that work is done right but with that ego otherwise under control. Rather than needing great improvisers, I want a team that will chew on a problem quietly while they figure out the right thing to do — and then do it. A sense of humor about life doesn't hurt either; it helps everyone get through the tough times.

Hang a picture of George Harrison in your data center. Make him an inspiration. Maybe play Here Comes the Sun or While My Guitar Gently Weeps on your CD player. But don't put that CD player on your server!

(Okay, a quick obscure George Harrison story from the old-timer's mental trivia bin. Eric Clapton had written one last, unnamed song for Cream as the group was breaking up, and he asked George to play guitar on it. In the studio, George said the song needed a bridge — a middle section to build musical tension before the last verse — and so he penciled in some additional lyrics on a copy of the song lying around. By the time he finished, Clapton had gone off somewhere. George stuck the lyric sheet where Clapton would find it, and scrawled "Bridge" at the top. Clapton found it later on, and not only dug the bridge but thought George had found a title for this otherwise nonsensical song. He couldn't quite read George's handwriting, though. And this is why Cream's final single was titled Badge.)

Some Guitar Licks From the George Harrison Data Center

As promised, here are four suggestions we used to make about data centers. As they say, I only play a doctor on TV; your mileage may vary, and there's no warranty here. Nevertheless:

1. Write it down. Implement change control — and enforce it. This is easier in a new center, where you have clean installations. Better late than never, though — start today. Expect it to take months or years before the change-control mentality is ingrained as a way of life.

2. Dump the games. I bet we found games in 90% of the data centers we visited. Drop the screensavers and MP3 players too. Get 'em off the machines entirely; otherwise, some well-meaning soul will turn them back on one day. A well run data center gives folks plenty of time to play games, but get an Xbox! (Or read a book.)

3. The "duck rule" does not apply. (If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.) Yes, Windows 2000 and NT Server look like your desktop. A guy down the block from me looks like Paul Newman, too. Don't treat a Windows server like your desktop.

4. Windows 2000 is like Unix, only better. If you're arguing with the screen (or laughing at what you think is my hubris), you're missing the point. I saw lots of interop data centers where the Unix side was run at clean-room standards and the Windows side was an unweeded garden. If you know how to run a Unix data center right, the knowledge is transferable; run the Windows data center to the same standards. (Cross-pollinate the people, too.) These standards include command-line scripting as well; just because Windows has a nice GUI doesn't mean you have to use it in the data center. Look here (click on The Command-Line Tool under Topics) and here (scroll down to the section on Cscript.exe) for some ideas.

I left out "back it all up" and a bunch of other key points, but the suggestions above underlie the others. In fact, if you look at these suggestions closely, you'll recognize that numbers 2, 3, and 4 are pretty much the same thing — and number 1 isn't very different. Run it professionally, as if your business depends on it.

Here are some other good links to get you started, from Windows Server System Reference architecture to security best practices to assorted admin HowTos. The Windows 2000 and Windows NT Resource Kits also contain great information; they're valuable and underused resources. (Click the links and then find individual sections using the left-hand navigation tree.) Finally, there's an excellent tips-and-tricks article in the December issue of MCP Magazine.

So think about who's in your data center. Is it James Bond and his gadget-master? Is it Harry Potter and his young friends? Or is it the legacy of George Harrison?

As the man sang, "think for yourself." And then send us your own tips and tricks for running a great data center.

Steven B. Levy
Microsoft TechNet