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Hacker News Comments on
Moving online webserver using public transport

Sascha P · Youtube · 14 HN points · 5 HN comments
HN Theater has aggregated all Hacker News stories and comments that mention Sascha P's video "Moving online webserver using public transport".
Youtube Summary
Five guys moving a server to a new datacenter without shutting it down. Without cutting it off from the internet. And as using a car would have been too easy, they used public transport.
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Hacker News Stories and Comments

All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this video.
Oct 12, 2022 · 2 points, 0 comments · submitted by garritfra
These sysadmins moved a webserver across their city while keeping it powered and connected to the Internet...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ5MA685ApE
walkingriver
That's so cool. Thanks!
A real classic comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ5MA685ApE

Moving a running server about 7km through public transport without downtime.

Aug 05, 2020 · 1 points, 0 comments · submitted by warrenm
Reminds me of this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ5MA685ApE

'Moving online webserver using public transport'

zomglings
In the rain!
salzig
had the same thought :)
tyingq
The Indiana Bell building move is pretty impressive. http://www.paul-f.com/ibmove.html
joncrane
Wow this is literally the exact same thing as the OP but for an entire building. Insane.
sschueller
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNqul9TfJwI
Oh for sure this is possible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQ5MA685ApE

the devices that do it without doing what these guys did is quite pricey though https://www.cru-inc.com/products/wiebetech/hotplug_field_kit...

jwr
> the devices that do it without doing what these guys did is quite pricey though https://www.cru-inc.com/products/wiebetech/hotplug_field_kit....

It's somewhat interesting how this company can sell a product which obviously violates pretty much any electrical safety regulations (a plug with exposed prongs that can become hot). I'm guessing this is sold as a kit, not as a complete product.

lexicality
In the grand scheme of things, $600 is nothing money to a company.
bouke
That requires the computer to hotswap to be plugged into a power strip. It doesn't work if the computer is plugged into the wall directly. (Well leaving aside modifying the house's electricity / opening up the wall obviously.)
dijit
you can do it pretty easily if you have a dual socket wall socket because it follows the exact same principles. But you have to be very careful.

In these cases it's probably worth doing it though.

https://media.screwfix.com/is/image//ae235?src=ae235/38040_P...

FWIW I do not endorse doing this, just stating that its possible and would work, it's not electrically safe and is dangerous for not only the hardware but for you too.

Defenestresque
Incorrect. See this video[0] from the product stage. They have two ways to hotswap if it's not plugged into a powerbar: 1) plugging in their device into the adjacent power outlet then removing the socket assembly and 2) an adapter that can splice leads into the power cable

https://youtu.be/-G8sEYCOv-o

Pretty ingenious, tbh. Though I'm a bit concerned about how much you end up handling energized plugs.

bouke
Well that’s what I meant by “opening up the wall”.
blackrock
I was thinking more along the lines of a single power input like your home desktop PC. That you would need to splice into this power cable while it’s still hot.

For servers I expect that they would have redundant inputs, that you can easily hot swap it.

The second link had a video on how to do that. With multiple ways to achieve a power re-route, including a tool to easily splice into the wire. The easiest technique was to just use a sheath to touch the metal prongs on the cable.

But the surprise for me was the power strip technique, where he plugged in his battery source into one of the 6 outlets, thereby simulating a power input. I didn’t even know that was possible.

ZenPHP
Hot swapping servers with redundant power supplies is great, until you discover the hard way that some nimrod plugged both power supplies into the same UPS. And not just once, but on every server in both racks, one UPS per server.
jlokier
> For servers I expect that they would have redundant inputs, that you can easily hot swap it.

This is true, but there is still a real risk that the dual power input on the server fails when you actually do the swap.

For example, the second PSU may not work, or it may have failed in the past and then be forgotten about, or connector or cable internally may be flaky, or the component that combines power from both PSUs may fail (although I think that's quite rare).

If it's a really critical service, those risks may be unacceptable.

Sep 13, 2015 · 2 points, 0 comments · submitted by angersock
May 14, 2015 · 1 points, 0 comments · submitted by rendx
Sep 13, 2013 · 4 points, 0 comments · submitted by aeno
Sep 05, 2013 · 2 points, 0 comments · submitted by salzig
Oct 08, 2010 · 2 points, 1 comments · submitted by phreeza
tantalor
I thought YouTube had closed captioning now?
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