Your Server Lives Under the Receptionist's Desk and Other Horror Stories
Wanjiru had been the receptionist at a busy clearing and forwarding firm in Mombasa Road for three years before anyone told her that the warm, blinking box by her left foot was "the server". She had assumed it was a heater. She used it as a footrest. Once, she put her lunch on it to keep the githeri warm. Welcome to IT infrastructure in Kenya's small offices, as it really is.
That box held every invoice, every client file and the accounts for the last six years. Nobody had looked at it properly since the cousin who installed it moved to Qatar.
If this sounds familiar, pole. You are not alone. Half the small businesses in Kenya have a version of Wanjiru's heater. Here are some of the horror stories we hear most often, and what to do about each one.
Horror story one: the server with a day job
The classic. The server is under a desk, next to the cleaner's mop bucket, plugged into the same extension cable as the kettle. When someone boils water for the 10 o'clock chai break and the power dips, the server reboots. Everyone blames "the system".
Servers need a few simple things to be happy:
A cool, dry place, away from feet, mops and spilled tea
Its own power socket, ideally protected by a UPS
A door or cabinet that locks, so not everyone can press the big button
Enough space around it for air to move
None of this needs a fancy data centre. A small lockable cabinet in a corner that does not get direct afternoon sun will already put you ahead of most offices on Ngong Road.
Horror story two: the password is on a sticker on the box
Otieno, the office manager at a small accounting practice, once proudly showed us how secure their server was. "Only admin can log in," he said. Then he turned the machine around. The admin password was written on a yellow sticky note on the back, next to the Wi-Fi password and somebody's phone number.
Physical access is access. If anyone walking past can touch the machine, read its password and plug in a flash disk, then your firewall and antivirus are just decoration. Lock it away, change the default passwords, and keep the real ones somewhere sensible, like a password manager that only two trusted people can open.
Horror story three: nobody knows what it does
This one is quieter but scarier. The server works. It has always worked. Nobody knows what is on it, which programmes run on it, or what would stop if it switched off. The person who set it up is unreachable, and the only documentation is a WhatsApp voice note from 2019.
Spend one afternoon writing down the basics. Even a single page helps:
What the server is used for: files, accounting software, email, the CCTV recordings
Who has an admin login, and who should not
When it was bought and whether it is still under warranty
Who to call when it misbehaves
Keep a printed copy somewhere other than on the server itself. Then the server dies and the instructions die with it, like a very sad soap opera.
Horror story four: the backup is also under the desk
Some offices do take backups, which is wonderful. Then they keep the backup drive plugged into the same server, in the same room, under the same desk. If there is a fire, a flood from the burst tank upstairs or a break in, both the original and the backup leave together, holding hands.
A backup that lives next to the thing it is backing up is not really a backup. Keep at least one copy somewhere else: a cloud service, a drive that goes home with a trusted director every Friday, or both.
Rethinking your IT infrastructure in Kenya: do you need a server at all?
Here is the twist. Many small businesses no longer need a physical server at all. Shared files can live in a cloud storage service. Email can be hosted. Accounting, HR and school management systems increasingly run in the browser, with the provider handling the hardware, power and backups for you.
That does not mean every server should be thrown out tomorrow. Some software only runs locally, and some businesses have good reasons to keep data in the building. But if your server exists mainly because "that is how we have always done it", it is worth asking whether the cloud would serve you better and stop Wanjiru's feet getting quite so warm.
If you are not sure where to start, a short audit of what you have and what you actually use is usually the best first step. We do this kind of thing as part of our support services, and we promise not to judge your mop bucket.
As for Wanjiru, the firm moved the server into a locked cabinet in the back room. She now has a proper footrest. She says she misses the warmth, but not the day the githeri fell into the fan.
Your next step is simple: go and find your own server today, see where it lives and who can touch it. If what you find makes you nervous, talk to Philsoft and we will help you plan a calmer setup.