Every year as the holidays get closer and closer, and I see more and more Christmas decorations being advertised and sold in stores, I start to see striking correlations between a fully decorated Christmas tree and a horribly maintained datacenter.

1. You are often standing in the cold when you are looking at one.

2. They both consume enormous amounts of non-critical power.

3. There is always one thing that has been in there forever, that will never go away.

4. Both are extreme fire hazards.

5. When you look at one, you just want a hot (often alcoholic) beverage to help you relax.

6. They are both exciting to look at, with bright, shiny colors criss crossing in every direction, wrapped around every protrusion.

7. Each are shrouded by an array of colorful, blinking lights.

8. Nobody wants to crawl underneath them to plug anything else in.

9. Trying to figure out why only the first 5 lights come on, is always a frustrating task.

10. Often times they are thrown together by in a real big hurry, with no plan for maintenance.

11. The ticking clock in your head telling you that if this doesn't all work on time, lots of people are going to be very "disappointed".

12. You are always excited when someone else offers to clean it up!

This holiday season, Silverback Migration Solutions is offering a 10% discount on all Data Center Cleanup and Re-configuration services. Please contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 925.407.4704 for more information!

Photo courtesy of Cell105 per flickr Creative Commons license.