Disaster at the Devil's Tower

“Never update your system on Friday, 13th or on Halloween”. I knew the rule, I remembered it – but decided to ignore. I went ahead and began updating a few systems on October 31. I started the procedure late and with the last-minute requests and unruly users, my day has got away. I knew the update would go late into the night.

The sun was already down, and a light rain mixed with the wind created a gloomy atmosphere outside. Dark shadows mixed with swaying trees were not for the faint of heart. Then, the sky suddenly lit up as if it was in the middle of the day! It was so unusual that I dropped everything and ran outside.

It was a meteorite – and I swear I saw it hitting right in the center of the Devil’s Tower that I can see from my office window. “Wow”, I thought. “It probably jolted those monsters living in the mountain my grandmother told me about!” I chuckled, and went back inside to my hourglasses and rotating circles.

Some stories are just stories. This wasn’t just a story, and yes – I should have listened to my grandma! I didn’t realize that the monsters have already reached our server room! There was nothing I could do. Like in a slow-motion DVR replay, they were scratching, chewing, breaking, tearing, groaning and howling – destroying the room, servers, and network — everything I spent so much time, effort and sweat to build.

At that time, I did not think of servers – I was thinking of my own life. Luckily, Jack – our security guard (and a great friend) – grabbed me in the corridor and dragged me to the car park. We jumped in his truck and hit the road as fast as we could.

Once we reached the highway, he turned on his trusty police scanner, and we realized the magnitude of the situation. Heavy artillery and National Guard were on their way, but at least, the incident was going to be contained.

“There is one more thing,” I said to Jack. “I forgot to restart my servers.”

“What servers? They were all destroyed!” he exclaimed.

“They were. But I have virtual copies in the Acronis DR Cloud”, I said calmly, pressing the button on my tablet. In less than 15 minutes, the servers were up and running in the cloud. I was safe, and my company systems were safe too. The rain and wind have stopped, and the bright moon was almost showing us a path to safety.

The nightmare was over.