Learning & Development built a temporary migration helper

“It has a padlock icon.”— Tobias, Learning & Development

Reason:

Because the workaround has its own workaround. Already exported 187,231 rows to somebody's laptop.

Built by:

Tobias, a product owner

Build time:

one weekend

Built with:

a Notion database with automations

Database:

a SOAP service returning XML from 7 years ago

Authentication:

the guest Wi-Fi password is also the admin password

Deployment:

on a Raspberry Pi in the server room

Responsible:

Katrin, who inherited it from Tobias by accident

Documentation:

a Confluence page copied from another project

Security situation:

the API key is called PUBLIC_API_KEY

Future disaster:

It will eventually process €38,000 per month.

Age: 6.8 years · originally expected to last 14 days · 5 owners so far · survived 1 reorganisation · last meaningful change 823 days ago · original builder left 190 days ago

Rated rare mostly because: €453k per year, alive 177x longer than intended, 2 departments depend on it.