Since we had some issues with one of our Cisco 7206 “core” routers, we ordered a replacement NPE-400 for it. We also ordered a RAM upgrade kit to 512M, which was seperately delivered. So, we opened the bags, take the old ram out, put the new chip in, and boot it up. “128M’. Turned out our reseller already upgraded the RAM on the newly ordered puppy, and put the “old” ram back in the bag the 512 came from. Nice service, but they forgot to remove the tag saying -that- memory module was the upgrade. Oh well ;)

Anyway, last night we went to replace the board. Access to the refinery was already arranged, and a colleague would pick me up at around 1:45 AM. After he showed up, we went to meet the 3rd person to be working tonight at the gate at Isla. Then a few minutes drive around the refinery, followed by a 5+ minute elevator trip. The work itself was pretty easy: Open door, pull cables, pull router out, take old card out, put new card in, router back, cables back. Then, we did some tests to make sure everything worked correctly again. Apart from one DS3s RX/TX being switched, everything turned out well :)

But, we yet had to face our greatest challenge of the evening. Apparently, the refinery is cutting on the amount of guards during nighttime, as both the main gate and side gate entrances were closed. No one there, and a big ugly iron construction in front of it. After some driving back and forth, we finally found one of the guards, and she opened the gates for us. Woo!