Part of my job is to conduct a failure mode evaluation analysis, or FMEA. I know its just another acronym and sounds like just another excuse to shuffle paper - or in the case a electronic document. However, there is a very specific value to this process, and today's world events prove it.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/01/31/dubai.outage/index.html

I was working on a FMEA for a project and added several entries regarding internet failure. From something as simple as a local hardware failure to regional and continental outages. The PM on this project scoffed at this requirement. Ultimately I "won" and the entry was added. Each entry includes an expected response to any particular failure. Today, as India lost significant internet access due to a possible cable breech in the Mediterranean, that PM is secretly happy I won instead of her, and there are several other highly important people that are openly happy that we have a mitigation plan.

Unfortunately, none of those people will probably ever know it was little old me that insisted we require a redundant circuit across the Pacific as well as leased access to satellite relays.

I definitely earned my pay today.