# Do I blame our admins for these server problems?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [April 11, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885 "2016-04-11T14:46:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/1 "2016-04-11T14:46:36Z")

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Three times now in the last year my organization’s mail server has crashed as the result of a power failure in our building. Each time, I have been told that the fault “corrupted the server” and they had to rebuild it–costing us a full day of productivity.

Obviously, these guys don’t control the building’s power (though I’m thinking we need to have a talk about housing our server off-site). But does the fact that any power failure crashes our email for 24 hours mean anything about the quality of their setup? Does it suggest they are not using a sufficiently robust server OS or filesystem? I don’t know the technical details of the setup beyond it being a Windows Exchange server running on some kind of Dell box.

What questions should I ask to determine whether we need new tech support?

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**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/2 "2016-04-11T14:51:53Z")

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I would think, not being a sysadmin, that any server should at the very least be connected to a UPS.

edit: and if the server is not in a restricted access room, put a sticky note on the outlet so the cleaning people know not to unplug it to run the vacuum.

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**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/3 "2016-04-11T14:54:43Z")

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> [@Inner\_Stickler](#):
>
> I would think, not being a sysadmin, that any server should at the very least be connected to a UPS.

Right, and if the power outage is long enough the UPS should be able to tell the server to shut down gracefully. There should be a backup of the server (separate from the data) and/or an image so that it can be rebuilt quickly. I would ask whether or not they have those things in place, and if not, why. The answer could very well be budget – it’s easy to get money for a new server, it’s harder to get money for a decent backup system or replacement batteries for an aging UPS, depending on how amenable management is to maintaining their IT systems.

eta: In my experience exchange can be very fickle, and sudden power outages can and will bork the database. But dealing with hardware failures is a basic part of administration. It could be incompetence, or it could be that management considers a 24-hour rebuild time “good enough” and isn’t willing to give IT the budget they need.

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**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/4 "2016-04-11T14:55:40Z")

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Tech support, the guys who answer the phone when you have a problem, has nothing to do with the problem. From the sound of it either the upper level admins have a horrible design for their exchange environment, possible, or they don’t have the budget to support their exchange environment, likely, or a combination of the two, very likely.

In an ideal exchange environment, 2010 higher, you should have at least two sites, preferably three, that replicate the data between them so that if one site goes down the others take over. These sites should be far enough apart to ensure they use different power, network, etc.

Unless your company has a very good reason, unlikely, your IT people should be transitioning their exchange environment to Office 365 which should completely eliminate the issue of the servers being down and causing problems.

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/5 "2016-04-11T15:03:08Z")

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> [@Inner\_Stickler](#):
>
> I would think, not being a sysadmin, that any server should at the very least be connected to a UPS.

Our does not have this. What kind of expense are we talking about? \<$200?

> [@steronz](#):
>
> There should be a backup of the server (separate from the data) and/or an image so that it can be rebuilt quickly. I would ask whether or not they have those things in place, and if not, why.

Will do.

> [@drewder](#):
>
> Unless your company has a very good reason, unlikely, your IT people should be transitioning their exchange environment to Office 365 which should completely eliminate the issue of the servers being down and causing problems.

Does Office365 use cloud servers, or what?

I think the only factors for us are expense and security. We do sensitive legal work, so any offsite server would have to be reasonably secure (both from third parties and from the corporation administering the server).

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**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/6 "2016-04-11T15:07:25Z")

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You’ve got something very wrong here. It’s total lunacy to have a physical server in an office as a mail server. That just shouldn’t be. It’s also a really bad idea to run your own e-mail server. You shouldn’t do it without a really really really good reason. Things like, we’re a credit card processor and have extreme security needs. Your organization isn’t one of these.

Migrate to a cloud hosting service like one of these:

> **[Compare Microsoft Exchange Online Plans](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/exchange/compare-microsoft-exchange-online-plans)**
>
> You can buy Exchange Online as a standalone email service or as part of a Microsoft 365 business plan that includes SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, and more.

> **[Email Solutions from the Industry Leader | Rackspace Technology](https://www.rackspace.com/applications/email-productivity)**
>
> Boost productivity across your organization and focus internal resources on your core business while we manage your email solutions. See how.

> **[Get more done with Microsoft Office 365 from GoDaddy](https://www.godaddy.com/business/office-365)**
>
> MS Office 365 is easy to set up and manage from virtually anywhere. GoDaddy's Office 365 Pricing makes it affordable for businesses of any size to access enterprise-class productivity at low everyday prices.

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/7 "2016-04-11T15:12:20Z")

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That’s what I was thinking. I guess I need to research the legal implications. Our ethics board has advised lawyers that they may be breaching ethical duties by putting client documents in Dropbox. I think that’s completely irrational, but I’m not sure how a cloud-based email server is different.

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/8 "2016-04-11T15:17:38Z")

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You shouldn’t be blaming the admins at all but the infrastructure management for letting power outages have this effect in the first place.

The questions you should be asking are business-related: questions like “How much has this service interruption cost us?” and “How much do we need to spend to prevent it?” It may well be a business decision that the status quo is just fine.

And don’t fall for the Office 365 / cloud / remote server sales patter. All are vulnerable to the digger in the street, are subject to security concerns, etc. A remote server as a backup is a good idea, though. Something I’ve seen before is where a company’s mail goes through a third-party who primarily filter out spam, block malware, dodgy attachments, and the like, but will also hold mail if your server is not working, and they have a web interface to the mail.

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/9 "2016-04-11T15:21:50Z")

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Understand the scale here. I’m using “admins” here sort of colloquially. The relevant players are my small office (\<10 users), the building management from whom we lease the office and get our power, and the tech company we contracted to deal with all of our IT except phones.

Expense is definitely an issue. But as far as I know, they have never even recommended upgrades to us even after the last two failures.

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**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/10 "2016-04-11T15:29:33Z")

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> [@Richard\_Parker](#):
>
> That’s what I was thinking. I guess I need to research the legal implications. Our ethics board has advised lawyers that they may be breaching ethical duties by putting client documents in Dropbox. I think that’s completely irrational, but I’m not sure how a cloud-based email server is different.

Yes office 365 is cloud based. It’s run by Microsoft. Well I can’t speak for your specific company’s legal needs but I’ll tell you that if your IT environment is so underdeveloped that it’s experiencing multiple power outages a year than I suspect the security isn’t that great either and would be much improved by switching to cloud.

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**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/11 "2016-04-11T15:44:12Z")

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Our server stack (four VMWare hosts running about 30 guest servers), is protected by two separate UPSes, which can power the stack for about 30 minutes. The computer room is on the building’s emergency generator, so the UPS technically only has to hold the stack for the few seconds it takes to spin up the generator.

It may be fair to blame the administration for not taking similar steps, or it may be that they have requested funding, but have been turned down by the Powers That Be.

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**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/12 "2016-04-11T16:51:52Z")

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The primary problems have already been addressed well, so I don’t have much to add there.

> [@Richard\_Parker](#):
>
> That’s what I was thinking. I guess I need to research the legal implications. Our ethics board has advised lawyers that they may be breaching ethical duties by putting client documents in Dropbox. I think that’s completely irrational, but I’m not sure how a cloud-based email server is different.  
> …  
> Understand the scale here. I’m using “admins” here sort of colloquially. The relevant players are my small office (\<10 users), the building management from whom we lease the office and get our power, and the tech company we contracted to deal with all of our IT except phones.

Dropbox is not analogous to using cloud email or other cloud services. Cloud is quite secure and is being used by a number of entities with sensitive data, including the federal government. I know of several government agencies that regularly deal with personal identifying information (PII) like social security numbers, financial and medical records, etc. that are transitioning most or all of their data to the cloud. For a small office, it just doesn’t make much sense to maintain your own hardware when you can generally get better availability and performance and never have to worry about power outages or hardware failures at similar or even lower prices. This is especially true for email.

Anyway, you would do well to research that. And, really, your IT guys should be eager to look into it too since those sorts of skills are going to be more sought out for career growth in the future.

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**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/13 "2016-04-11T16:59:58Z")

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> [@Richard\_Parker](#):
>
> That’s what I was thinking. I guess I need to research the legal implications. Our ethics board has advised lawyers that they may be breaching ethical duties by putting client documents in Dropbox. I think that’s completely irrational, but I’m not sure how a cloud-based email server is different.

Do you encrypt them at least? Acrobat allows you to password protect PDF files quite easily.

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/14 "2016-04-11T17:00:02Z")

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> [@Richard\_Parker](#):
>
> I think the only factors for us are expense and security. We do sensitive legal work, so any offsite server would have to be reasonably secure (both from third parties and from the corporation administering the server).

With regard to legal issues, don’t forget to consider the jurisdiction in which the server resides, the jurisdiction governing the offsite corporation, and much more. Just look at the recent issue of Microsoft Ireland and the US.

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**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/15 "2016-04-11T17:10:32Z")

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> [@Blaster\_Master](#):
>
> Dropbox is not analogous to using cloud email or other cloud services. Cloud is quite secure and is being used by a number of entities with sensitive data, including the federal government.

Can you elaborate? What makes a cloud-based file storage service like Dropbox less secure than a cloud-based email server? I thought both were approximately equal assuming they both properly implement SSL and your password is strong and secret.

> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> Do you encrypt them at least? Acrobat allows you to password protect PDF files quite easily.

I don’t generally upload anything sensitive. I use encrypted USB drives. But I don’t do that out of the belief that it would not be secure (or that it would be substantially less secure than ordinary security practices in this kind of work). I do it out of the belief that the authorities governing me think it is not secure.

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**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/16 "2016-04-11T17:38:44Z")

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> [@Richard\_Parker](#):
>
> Understand the scale here. I’m using “admins” here sort of colloquially. The relevant players are my small office (\<10 users), the building management from whom we lease the office and get our power, and the tech company we contracted to deal with all of our IT except phones.

It sounds like you’re a small office who’s getting lackadasical service from an IT company but not paying a lot for it. The IT company could put a UPS on the server, and if the lack of UPS is their decision I wouldn’t use them any more - it’s generally less than $300 for a UPS that will give an hour run time and shut the server down cleanly for a longer outage. Letting the server crash and rebuilding it sounds like they’re milking you for money (since you probably get charged for the rebuild time). Unless the server is doing more than just email, it’s silly to try to run a dedicated server for email in a 10-man shop, they should offer an email service or you can look at various cloud sources. I’m not willing to put the blame entirely on your IT company because whoever handles contact with them may have insisted on doing things this way, but I suspect it really is their fault.

Also, unless you enter some kind of special contract for it, building management people are just going to give you power from the power company, they’re not going to make any kind of guarantee that power never goes down unless you pay them for it. Also the power company isn’t going to care about complaints from a 10-person office. You really can’t attack the problem from the power angle unless you’re willing to pay a lot of money.

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**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/17 "2016-04-11T18:26:58Z")

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> [@Richard\_Parker](#):
>
> I don’t generally upload anything sensitive. I use encrypted USB drives. But I don’t do that out of the belief that it would not be secure (or that it would be substantially less secure than ordinary security practices in this kind of work). I do it out of the belief that the authorities governing me think it is not secure.

Well, the thing is ordinary security practices in this kind of work are abysmal. Lawyers are really, really bad at this stuff. Even worse than doctors (“please send medical records via a secure communication method, like a fax.” :smack:)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/18 "2016-04-11T18:38:09Z")

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> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> Well, the thing is ordinary security practices in this kind of work are abysmal. Lawyers are really, really bad at this stuff. Even worse than doctors (“please send medical records via a secure communication method, like a fax.” :smack:)

True.

But my understanding–which is admittedly shaky, and subject to correction from Blaster Master–is that Dropbox security is pretty similar to SSL/TLS-protected email.

It’s unclear to me by what standard we might find Dropbox to be insufficiently secure, but would allow the sending of the same files over email.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/19 "2016-04-11T19:17:09Z")

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Cloud at Dropbox or cloud at another provider can be different, or the same. Cloud is simply hosted. There can be layers of security or not and still be hosted. With the size of your firm I would expect them to consider third partying out the IT infrastructure. Plenty will support security and be PII and HIPPA compliant. Both the Gmail for business (paid) and Office 365 will have robust enough security to be HIPPA compliant.

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**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-i-blame-our-admins-for-these-server-problems/751885/20 "2016-04-11T19:17:30Z")

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> [@Richard\_Parker](#):
>
> True.
> 
> But my understanding–which is admittedly shaky, and subject to correction from Blaster Master–is that Dropbox security is pretty similar to SSL/TLS-protected email.
> 
> It’s unclear to me by what standard we might find Dropbox to be insufficiently secure, but would allow the sending of the same files over email.

Sending information or unencrypted files via e-mail is definitely not secure so don’t do that.

The issue with Dropbox is that it encrypts the files for you. This means Dropbox can read your files and anyone who breaks into Dropbox can as well. Ideally, the files would be encrypted client side (i.e. on your computer or phone). That means Dropbox can’t read your files and it wouldn’t matter if someone broke into Dropbox because they wouldn’t be able to read your files.

That being said, Dropbox does encrypt the documents and provides two factor authentication. Those provide a very high level of security assuming Dropbox doesn’t screw something up.

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