From a work-related viewpoint, it has been an intense beginning of 2022. The last two weeks have been exhausting and frustrating. We are working on an It-strategy for the next three to five years, and because of missing communication from management, it has created a lot of confusion and misunderstandings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This weekend it was time to upgrade our two SAN systems. Our regular consultant comes and does all the upgrading, and it usually goes without a hitch. All servers attached to the two SANs need to be shut down, which is my job. Then our consultant upgrades out two SAN systems. The process took a lot longer than usual because we hadn't upgraded the SANs for some time because of COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the consultant had upgraded the two SANs, I began to start all the servers. Everything seemed to be working. I checked our mail system, SQL, our intranet, and so on, and everything was working as expected. Suddenly I noticed that all virtual systems on a Hyper-V host weren't starting, and then the problems started to appear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first problem I discovered was that the server had lost its Windows license. I never found out why. It took a couple of hours before I found a solution for activating the server license by telephone. Normally, I would activate the server online, but it was not possible to give the server internet access. To do that, I needed access to the firewall management server, which was inoperable because it was hosted on the problematic server.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After activating the server license, I was still unable to start the virtual systems. It was getting late, and I wanted to go home. But before I went home, I wanted to be sure that I was able to reinstall the server from home if necessary. That required a couple of trips between my office and the server room with a cable before I was sure that I could reinstall the server from home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got home and had something to eat before I started to debug the problem. When I went to bed, I thought the problem was with the server hardware. The next day I debugged some more, and now it looked like the problem was with the SAN. I contacted the consultant, hoping that he could help. Together we concluded that the SAN wasn't the problem either. Back to the debugging board. Finally, I found that the problem was with the SAN drive attached to the server. Or more precisely, the problem was the replication of the SAN drive between the two SAN systems. As soon as I deleted the replication everything started to work as expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Phew, it was a long weekend, and it was exhausting because I had to work seven days in a row. Unfortunately, my next day off isn't until Friday, so it'll be an extra looooong week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n