Forging a Team of Technical Professionals
Over the last year, I’ve had the pleasure of watching DataYard’s Technical Operations team work under intense pressure. On the surface it may seem oddly sadistic for me to talk about it being my “pleasure” watching the team perform under these conditions, but I mean it with the deepest respect and admiration. The difficult conditions, the pressure, has done its work perfecting the diamond.
Over the last year I’ve had the pleasure of watching DataYard’s Technical Operations team work under intense pressure. On the surface it may seem oddly sadistic for me to talk about it being my “pleasure” watching the team perform under these conditions, but I mean it with the deepest respect and admiration. The difficult conditions, the pressure, has done its work perfecting the diamond.
In the years leading up to 2012 we talked and dreamed frequently about building a new facility. We’d been in our previous facility for nearly ten years, but we outgrew it at least three years earlier. Planning began early in 2012 for a new office space and data center, and the Technical Operations Group got involved in the process from the very beginning. They participated in design, oversaw construction of the data center, and began an aggressive test and checkout phase of the data center as soon as it became available.
We moved into our new facility at the end of October 2012, and began moving production server and network equipment into the new data center a few weeks later. Like all projects of this size and scope we encountered problems in the first phase of the migration, which lead to delays implementing our migration plan. An already compressed schedule became additionally compressed, and the increase in our collective stress level was palpable.
Earlier in the year, I gave the team the charge to complete the technical services migration before the end of the 2012. Two primary data centers running in tandem meant two sizable rent payments, two sizable electrical bills, and twice the facility maintenance burden — obviously, a situation that we didn’t want to continue a day longer than was absolutely necessary. As construction continued the likelihood of a schedule slip in the facility completion date became more apparent. It would have been easy for any other group facing a similar situation to lower expectations, to justify a schedule slip of their own lasting another month or two. Instead, this group pressed on.
The mettle of DataYard’s Technical Operations Group has been forged in fire over the last month. They’ve worked tirelessly to delicately migrate services over one by one — in the very early morning hours, in the very late evening hours, and over weekends — whatever it took to get the job done for the group with the least amount of impact to our customers. They’ve been careful, professional, and selfless, helping each other at every turn. I haven’t seen this kind of esprit de corps from a group this size since my days in the military.
DataYard’s Technical Operations Group is the finest team of technical professionals in the Dayton region, and we are honored to have them on our team.
