We have a VPN server at work. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Our VPN server is running on a Dell Poweredge 2650 that also runs our web server. It is massively overpowered for what it's doing right now, but that's because it was retired from its original job just after The Boss started. You know, after he spent all of his honeymoon budget on new HP servers that are even more overpowered. It is, in short, a real server designed to do real server things. It has been dead-on reliable for over two years now (in its role as VPN server).

Webby has been doing a lot of work for The School.

The School, if I haven't talked about it enough, is where The Boss originally worked. He is their IT director in addition to being our IS director. We used to (pre-this boss) be compared to The School's IT, despite their network being smaller and their effectively limitless budget. They never had any problems and everything was always sunshine and fucking roses over at The School. Not surprisingly, as we've gotten to know The Boss and his network better, it turns out that's not really the case. The perceived perfection at The School is a combination of The Boss snowing the shit out of his boss, and his boss wanting to cover up the things The Boss can't hide so that everyone thinks The School is perfect.

Anyway, back to Webby. He's been having all sorts of trouble keeping a stable connection to The School's VPN. This is obviously a problem with my network, since everything is always sunshine and fucking roses at the school. Despite my investigations showing no problems on our end, every time Webby has a problem I'm re-tasked with finding what's wrong with my network. Never mind that, on the average weekday, there's five or so telecommuters who would be screaming bloody blue murder if they were being disconnected every thirty seconds.

Last week The Boss was chatting with us while Webby was up-and-down on the VPN. He mentioned how he was having trouble staying connected to The School all weekend, then he told me to find out what was wrong with my network that was causing Webby to disconnect. Resisting the urge to leap across the room and throttle him, I suggested that maybe The Boss should do some investigating to rule out problems at The School. No need, he assured me, everything was sunshine and fucking roses over at The School.

Yesterday I found out that The Boss is running his VPN (and a couple of other things) on a retired desktop with an integrated NIC. He has been having trouble with all of the other things he runs on that box.

Today I'm at home, since my son is sick, and my VPN server is doing fine. Sunshine and fucking roses.