Chapter 30: Data Synchronization

The next day, noon.

Li Ping'an, having just finished his class, exchanged a few words with his roommates and hurried toward the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Incubation Base without a moment's delay.

Before Li Ping'an arrived, the technician installing the broadband and the after-sales support staff responsible for the servers stood chatting outside Room 201 of the incubation base. To achieve the performance of a ten-gigabit connection, simply plugging in a fiber optic cable was not enough; without the corresponding hardware, the high-speed connection would be wasted. Since they were both there to serve the same client, it made sense to coordinate.

Ten minutes later, Li Ping'an arrived, out of breath, and immediately pulled out his keys to open the door. "Sorry for the wait, class just ended."

Unlike the broadband technician, the after-sales staff from Huawei were noticeably more courteous. As their sales manager often said, "Every client has the potential to become a major corporate account; since they’ve paid, the service must be impeccable." As one of Huawei’s authorized distributors, competition was fierce, and since the market was finite, companies rarely changed their server providers once established.

After unlocking the door and ushering them into Room 201, Li Ping'an pointed to a small partitioned area to the right of the entrance. "Install all the servers in this cubicle," he instructed. "I need three of the servers networked together, while the fourth one should remain disconnected from the external network, with a single separate Ethernet cable running to the adjacent cubicle."

The experienced technician confirmed the instructions: "So, three servers networked and connected to the internet, and one server on an isolated intranet, is that correct, Mr. Li?"

"No, no!" Li Ping'an corrected him. "It’s not a local area network; just reserve one cable running to the next cubicle."

"I understand." The technician didn't pry further. Clients with such requirements usually stored sensitive internal company data on that specific machine, and asking too many questions would only be a nuisance.

With the requirements clear, it was time to get to work. Considering the client only had time during his lunch break, the team of five divided the tasks efficiently to finish the installation, configuration, and security camera setup in the shortest time possible.

In contrast, the broadband technician had an easier job. In about twenty minutes, after testing the equipment, the ten-gigabit broadband installation was complete. By the time Li Ping'an returned from lunch, the broadband technician had already left.

Time slipped away as the security equipment was installed methodically and each complex task passed rigorous inspection. Before he knew it, it was 1:30 PM. Li Ping'an personally and meticulously checked and tested everything until he was certain the servers were running stably, the security footage was clear, and data transmission was normal. Only then did he calmly pick up a pen and sign his name on the service report.

Before leaving, the support staff offered some final advice: "Mr. Li, the environment of the server room is crucial. Please keep it clean and tidy to prevent dust buildup from affecting performance. Also, given the large amount of heat generated by high-intensity, continuous operation, we recommend keeping the air conditioning and cooling systems running 24/7 to ensure the equipment stays in optimal condition."

Li Ping'an nodded calmly, his expression confident. "I’m aware of that; I’m a computer science major myself."

Once the staff left, Li Ping'an looked at the renovated server room with great satisfaction. Despite being a distributor, their service was professional and flawless. Checking his watch, he realized he had afternoon classes and needed to hurry. He pulled his laptop from his bag, his long fingers dancing across the keyboard as he accessed the artificial intelligence network defense system he had already designed.

Relying on his solid technical foundation, he focused intently, skillfully injecting code into the Huawei server's built-in firewall to construct an additional layer of defense. Thanks to his thorough preparation, the process didn't take much time. The defense code for his "Pet Elf" program had already been written and stored, so it was just a matter of copying, pasting, and making minor adjustments. The entire process was smooth and seamless.

Once the defense system was successfully established, Li Ping'an’s tense nerves relaxed slightly. He let out a long breath and moved on to the next critical task: synchronizing data from his home storage device located thousands of miles away.

With focused eyes, he controlled the computer, methodically syncing massive amounts of user data and key information to the newly installed servers via a hot update. However, there was a gap between ideal and reality. Limited by the upload speed bottleneck of his home's gigabit connection, even with the ten-gigabit dedicated line at the incubation base, the sync speed was capped at 50MB per second.

Watching the slowly moving progress bar, Li Ping'an knew that with over a dozen terabytes of data, the full synchronization would take the entire afternoon. Yet, he felt no anxiety. He had anticipated this situation long before starting. He had already waited days; what was half a day more? Besides, syncing the user data stored on the cloud servers would have taken even longer.

He simply needed to be patient. After carefully setting the sync parameters and triple-checking everything, he closed his laptop. He stood up, locked the server room door with a crisp *click*, and then moved to the stainless steel door of Room 201, pulling the handle firmly to ensure it was shut tight before locking that second barrier as well. With both keys held firmly in his hand, he finally felt at ease.

...

In the classroom, his three roommates from Dorm 602 walked in. Seeing Li Ping'an already there, they teased, "Old Four, were you out with a girl at lunch? Why didn't you head back to the dorm?"