At the beginning of my career, it was typical to have servers in the office, either in a server closet, or in a proper server room. Even if we had servers off-site, the development infrastructure was often still local. It was typical for experienced developers to know how to do basic "physical" maintenance. I was a system administrator before I was a developer, so often I was the one who ended up doing it. I imagine many HN readers remember those days. I miss it a bit!