Cunningly camouflaged cable routed round WAN-sized gap in venture funds

On Name Welcome as soon as once more, expensive reader, to On Name, The Register’s weekly reader-contributed tales of tortuous tech assist traumas and triumphs.

This week, meet a reader we’ll Regomize as “Leif” who, again within the day, was given fairly a problem: a vendor’s European workplace expanded into an adjoining workplace constructing, however the transfer would take months – and the community in each buildings wanted to be related all through, and preserve working throughout the buildings they served.

This was not a simple job. Within the unique workplace was an ageing Token-Ring community that served an AS 400, and within the new one was shiny new Cisco equipment.

At this level readers could also be questioning why Leif did not simply order a WAN connection and be performed with it.

Leif investigated simply such a connection. “However as with many initiatives throughout this time, the timeline goalposts weren’t simply cellular however motorized, and no definitive costing might be obtained,” he instructed On Name.

So whereas a WAN was an apparent reply, open questions on cash meant it wasn’t an choice.

Leif and his fellow techies due to this fact hatched a plan. The buildings had been so shut collectively – with timber between the 2 services – certainly it will not be onerous to simply throw an ethernet cable from one to the opposite?

Whereas this resolution was crude, and dangerous, two components made it appear possible: spring was imminent, and inexperienced Ethernet cable was out there. Leif and his colleagues thought they might string the cable by the timber, and nature would take its course to supply camouflage.

Their rickety repair would due to this fact do the job and no person exterior IT would ever discover.

“The IT division stayed late one night to carry out some ‘system upkeep’ and started working,” Leif instructed On Name. “String and cable had been weighted, thrown, taped and pulled and by Monday morning we had a working IBM >Cisco community, with a Token-Ring to Ethernet Bridging swap making all of it attainable.

“Backs had been slapped, congratulations had been handed out all spherical, there might have even been an worker appreciation reward card or two given out,” Leif wrote.

The group even gave this rig a reputation: “Wireline Bridging.”

And the plan labored. Lengthy earlier than the leaves fell later within the 12 months, the workplace transfer was full, and the camouflaged cable was coiled and stowed with out anybody being the wiser about timber having made the migration attainable.

Have you ever hidden cables to make networks go locations they should not? In that case, click on right here to ship On Name an electronic mail and your story may bloom right here on a future Friday. ®