Go Team!
I work with the smartest people! I don't want to go too detailed, but I do want to convey how amazing it was to find this, because the brain power surrounding this was HOT, baby!
An application I support (and helped build) broke a few days ago. The symptom was that our job used to be able to connect to the Unix server on the other side of the "fence" (our company was created by merging 2 together - each still has separate networks at the moment). This connection has worked for 2 1/2 months and then suddenly didn't. All the usual suspects were checked - and everyone claimed they hadn't done anything last week to cause the problem. Riiiiiiight.
We thought we had it figured out yesterday (a Microsoft update) but that turned out not to be the case. But we nailed it today and got it working again. YES!!! The true culprit? Are ya ready for this? Someone unplugged a server used for email.
*blink. Huh? That's like saying it broke because someone had pickles for lunch. They are COMPLETELY unrelated. Or are they... Well, yes, yes, they are completely unrelated! So what the? Turns out that the same "name" used to describe Company 1's network domain was also used by Company 2 to refer to the mail server (that no one has used for ages). So when they unplugged the mail server, it freaked out our job which wasn't smart enough to keep looking and find the 2nd, still valid, definition. The guys got it squared away and ta-dum! A working application.
Holy frijoles. This was SUCH a beast to troubleshoot, yet satisfying to solve. I Love Brain Power!!! Is there anything hotter (or am I just a geek?) .. ok, don't answer that.
An application I support (and helped build) broke a few days ago. The symptom was that our job used to be able to connect to the Unix server on the other side of the "fence" (our company was created by merging 2 together - each still has separate networks at the moment). This connection has worked for 2 1/2 months and then suddenly didn't. All the usual suspects were checked - and everyone claimed they hadn't done anything last week to cause the problem. Riiiiiiight.
We thought we had it figured out yesterday (a Microsoft update) but that turned out not to be the case. But we nailed it today and got it working again. YES!!! The true culprit? Are ya ready for this? Someone unplugged a server used for email.
*blink. Huh? That's like saying it broke because someone had pickles for lunch. They are COMPLETELY unrelated. Or are they... Well, yes, yes, they are completely unrelated! So what the? Turns out that the same "name" used to describe Company 1's network domain was also used by Company 2 to refer to the mail server (that no one has used for ages). So when they unplugged the mail server, it freaked out our job which wasn't smart enough to keep looking and find the 2nd, still valid, definition. The guys got it squared away and ta-dum! A working application.
Holy frijoles. This was SUCH a beast to troubleshoot, yet satisfying to solve. I Love Brain Power!!! Is there anything hotter (or am I just a geek?) .. ok, don't answer that.