Data flows faster downhill

It was the peak of the dotcom boom and I worked for a travel agency that was buying out Mom-and-Pop travel shops from Seattle to Miami -- mid-1999, if I remember correctly. I was part of the traveling network team that was responsible for acquisition network and server reviews and employee evaluations of said acquisitions. I was sent off to our recently acquired sister site in Seattle, a mega travel company tha

It was the peak of the dotcom boom and I worked for a travel agency that was buying out Mom-and-Pop travel shops from Seattle to Miami -- mid-1999, if I remember correctly. I was part of the traveling network team that was responsible for acquisition network and server reviews and employee evaluations of said acquisitions.

I was sent off to our recently acquired sister site in Seattle, a mega travel company that had about 10 smaller sites and a supposedly superior sys admin -- or so I was informed. Eric was the only IT guy for this company, and he had just gotten his CCNA AND MCSE. It was my job to review Eric and the site to determine whether he should stay or go and what other changes might be necessary.

Eric walked me through the impressive datacenter (or server room at the time), which was a pristine room reflective of a man who took pride in his work. Cables were run in cable trays, zip ties kept them bunched neatly, and each rack was arranged in the same fashion, hinting at consistency and forethought. The site was not typical of a Mom-and-Pop shop with Kmart network gear everywhere -- this was a true IT operation. He took time to give me specifics on the networking setups, spanning tree-enabled or not, and their redundant setups (rare in that day). He also described each server and its function (file, mail, and so on). This guy seemed to know his stuff, and I like to think I'm not easily impressed.

After that impressive tour, we sat down in a conference room to discuss the future of the server room and the remote sites. Our first enterprise initiative was to move the sites onto MS Exchange, so I asked him which server was least utilized and running NT4 SP6 to which he proudly replied, "Oh, sorry, we only run the stable version of Windows 95 on our servers here. NT4 is the worst thing ever from Microsoft."

Wait. What? I sat in disbelief as I listened to Eric describe these servers, all the while his manager nodding her head in agreement. He failed to mention this to me in the walk-through, and I just couldn't believe this guy with the enviable server room had just said such a thing. I chuckled and said, "Funny guy. You had me going there." I proceeded to ask again which server was ready. Eric looked at me, contempt now plainer on his face, and told me matter-o-factly: "I would never joke about something so serious. Windows 95a, NOT THE B CRAP or 98," he said at a higher volume, "is the best OS for a server environment. Windows NT will soon go away and those idiots who installed it will run back to 95. You'll see."