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Finding Lost IT With RFID
CWmike writes "Vendors are increasingly trying to sell users on the idea that they need to stick RFID tags on IT equipment to keep track of it. Users are interested in this technology because they would much rather automate inventory tracking then go server-to-server with a bar code scanner and clipboard. But the new push for RFID tags in data centers also hints at a larger issue: There may be a significant amount of equipment that can't be located. And while out-of-sight, out-of-mind is not always bad, there's a least one nagging problem: 'Ghost server' systems, which may still be drawing power but perform no work and may be difficult to locate. One vendor at the Afcom data center conference suggests IT shops get some 'GPS for your assets.'"
2) Stick RFID tag to rack...
3) ???
4) Profit!
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Obligatory bash.org quote:
#5273 +(30069)-
<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.
[alk]
And there's Sheldon, putting RFID tags on all the mice and keyboards in the server room (after he finishes RFIDing his socks).
"With all due respects, Dr. Cooper..."
Free Martian Whores!
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=6505527
By John Rendleman
InformationWeek
April 9, 2001 06:58 AM
The University of North Carolina has finally found a network server that, although missing for four years, hasn't missed a packet in all that time.
Try as they might, university administrators couldn't find the server. Working with Novell, IT workers tracked it down by meticulously following cable until they literally ran into a wall. The server had been mistakenly sealed behind drywall by maintenance workers.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
That's nothing. I once heard of a Win2K server that hadn't been rebooted in over 2 weeks.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Sounds like a submission to "Mythbusters" if I ever heard one!
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Starts with the boss explaining, "This is an important server, don't take it home and use it for games. I'll be watching!" Ends with the Boss following the RFID signal into the tape safe.
We had this problem in the mid-90s. We had a Sun server in the building which was regularly used by remote logins (I think it was a build machine so just used to build the Sparc version of the software), but one day we had to find for a hardware upgrade and no-one could remember where the heck it was... we eventually had to get it to play music so we could walk around the building and listen for it.