This week, San Diego suffered through far too many fires. Fortunately, neither my house or work were directly at risk. Not surprisingly, however, the air quality was quite poor. It was so bad on Thursday evening that facilities and senior management decided to shut down non-essential HVAC units which required the closure of our office for Friday.

There are advantages working in a high-tech industry like video games. One of them is that most of the work is on the computer and, as such, work can be performed almost anywhere. So, when the notification went out Thursday night that the office would be closed and that people should work remotely, if possible, I wasn’t concerned.

The next morning, I got a call from one of my guys that the VPN service (that we’re responsible for) had hit its 100 simultaneous user limit. We’ve never hit that limit before, but this was far from a normal situation.

I’m happy to say that after working with our reseller (CDW) and the vendor (Juniper Networks) they gladly provided a very generous license good for two months while we work out a more permanent solution. Support like this is exactly what one needs when the time comes. They both came through and that counts for a lot.

With the fires brought under control over the weekend, it’ll be work as usual tomorrow. Now to start a purchase for additional licenses…