Oh no, we just lost a disk controller on the ERP main server! Although, the system will remain operational, throughput will suffer severely and everyone will be calling - within the next couple of minutes! OK Entire, let's get busy!

First, I compose a quick alert message on the problem and instruct Entire to send it to all the key contact people associated with the server - customers, staff and vendors. Next I pull up the contact information for our hardware support vendor and give them a call. While I'm waiting for them, I review the history notes on hardware problems and upgrades to make sure this occurrence isn't part of a larger pattern.

There doesn't appear to be any instances that would be related to this, so I alert the vendor to dispatch a tech for an immediate fix. They inform me that their tech will be onsite within two hours and the fix should be accomplished within 30 minutes of that, since they can perform a hot swap. I update Entire with the information and then compose another alert to the key contacts to inform them of the estimated time of the problem resolution - and thank them for their patience.

The entire process takes 15 minutes to complete. In the days before Entire, I would have done nothing else but deal with a full-blown crisis for, at least, the rest of the day. This would have been followed by having to explain what happened to senior management.