(Story starts here…)

12:00pm - I took a walk down to the IDF that our video server plugs into and opened the door.  WHOA.  Blinking lights everywhere.  According to the “blinkey light test method,” there appears to be something very wrong here.  BOTH switches in the IDF are completely lit up, and when I checked the second IDF, I found the same thing.  Is it related to the backup server?  Maybe.  It it still an issue?  Absolutely.

12:15pm - After cutting off the links between racks, it’s pretty apparent that our “talker” is connected to the first IDF.  I disconnected the link between the #1 and #2 switches, and bingo… loads of traffic is still pouring in from somewhere on the #2 switch.  Even more curious now, I decided to start disconnecting one link at a time until the switch showed that things were calming down.  As soon as I pulled the first cable, every light on the switch stopped flashing.  What luck.  I plugged it in again, and sure enough, the traffic began to pile up on the switch.  A quick trace showed that the culprit was a wireless access point in one of our venues.

12:40pm - Back at my desk, I attempted to run a backup from our video server with it connected to our primary LAN… still no luck though.  Now it appears we have 2 issues to deal with, though the access point is probably just a configuration issue (one can hope, anyway).  In any case, I’ll deal with it later.

1:20pm - I’ve now reduced the network to only the core switch and the gigabit switch that the video server is connected to.  Still no luck getting backups to run.  This leaves me a little perplexed.  WHAT is causing this miscommunication between the 2 servers.  Furthermore, HOW can the servers ping each other but still not connect?

1:50pm - A trip back to the IDF reveals some interesting stuff.  I am unable to get a link established between an unmanaged switch and the patch to the video server…I’m going to try to move the connection between the backup server and video server to a different physical network, but first I need to be able to get a link.  A look at one of the NICs in the video server reveals the problem:  It was set to a certain link speed instead of auto-negotiation.  While this doesn’t cure the root issue, it does allow me to link the 2 servers together without a VLAN.

2:20 - After putting the video server’s “backup NIC” on a completely different physical network, I am still unable to start a backup stream in Galaxy Express unless I disconnect the server from the primary network.  This pretty much kills my theory about the switch/VLAN configurations being an issue, and also rests the blame back on the video server itself.

So the question now is “what’s the problem with the server?”  It has 2 Intel Pro/1000 GT cards in it.  The IP settings are correct, and the MAC addresses aren’t even close to similar.  A trip to Staples might be in order today to pick up a non-Intel card to see how it functions.  I’ve run into issues before with printers where having two same-brand printers hooked to one machine caused some serious funk.  It this possible with NICs?  For the record, I HOPE that it’s that easy at this point.