It happened quite quickly, as if in a dream:
A supervisor engine just died with a scream.
The standby stepped up and it handled the mess,
but the active supervisor expired from stress.
Vendors were called and replacements were sought,
but none could be found, it all was for naught.
For it seems, you see, this part was EOL,
and for all our best efforts, we were SOL.
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But there was a new option, a possible fix:
We could throw a new supervisor into the mix.
But it wasn't that easy, for it lived in slot five,
and slot one was home to the other (when alive).
But there wasn't a choice and upgrade it would be,
so the switch was shut down, the bits were set free.
Four modules just brimming with full copper ports
were wrestled around and thrown all out of sorts.
The new supervisor was placed in slot five,
the switch was then started, and the sup came alive.
The console was humming with messages many
and the reconfig of the switch was quite heavy.
But a line then appeared on the screen o'er my hands:
The new supervisor wouldn't work with these fans.
The fan tray in the chassis was the old one, you see,
and the new supervisor simply couldn't be.
"O woe!" I cried, my efforts were spoiled.
I could not upgrade, the procedure was soiled.
The only thing that I could see to be done
was to reseat the modules, one (sigh) by one.
With very much struggle, they were set anew,
and the good supervisor was shoved in slot two.
But this left a problem -- the original crisis:
What of the backup, the standby devices?
But then, on a shelf, what is that I do see?
Why, it's a spare supervisor, 1A-2GE.
It seems that somewhere in the depths of this scuffle
the original spare had been lost in the shuffle.
With obvious glee I slid the spare in slot one
and it fired right up and started to run.
All was again well, though the upgrade was dashed,
but that didn't matter since the bits they could pass.
Frustrating? Indeed, though a lesson was learned:
Keep track of your parts, else your problems be earned.
For had we known of the spare on the shelf,
this shan't have been a problem -- at least for myself.
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Download now »Paul -- excellent verse. It's odd how driven we can become in the face of adversity.... One note: I remember seeing this as "The RIME of the Ancient Mariner" from my high school days.
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