Facebook's Iowa Data Center has three phases over 6 years

Des Moines Register has a review of the 18 month process the City of Altoona went through.  

What seems interesting is a tax issue based on a three limit needed to get changed to six.

Also in March, a roadblock suddenly emerges: VanderZanden emails Durham that state rules prohibit the company from fully benefiting from Altoona’s proposed 20-year tax abatement.

The rules specify that all phases must be built within a three-year project completion window. Facebook plans three phases over six years.

“Iowa should remove as many hurdles as it can to our building the third building in Altoona,” VanderZanden writes in an email.

The issues of renewable energy shows up in the article too.

Durham says Facebook discusses a “wind farm totally dedicated to them” vs. investing in a portfolio of renewable energy.

It’s tricky territory for her. A wind farm would compete with energy Facebook gets from Mid­American, a close partner with the state in encouraging economic development in Iowa.

Eventually the plan is for there to be a 100 employees.

In the parking lot after the announcement, Durham signs the state’s finalized contract with Facebook. The state agrees to provide Facebook with $18 million in tax credits, based on job creation and capital investment.

Within days, Facebook begins filling key positions, says Kirkland, Facebook’s spokesman. State leaders believe permanent jobs will grow to about 100 when all three phases are built.

Party Stress test, 50 people hosted in our house

One thing the data center industry teaches you is stress testing and finding the limits of your design.  I was over a fiends house where 5 of us were having a nice relaxing evening last week and I said we were hosting a dinner party.  How many?  50.  Fifty, not fifteen.  Yes, five zero.

My wife and I designed our house to be a great space to entertain.  we have had about 30 people for our construction crew for a dinner party.  and 20 kids and adults for a soccer pizza party.  Last night we had 50 people over for a going away party for our ski friends from Crystal Mountain Alpine Club (CMAC), Angie and Steve.

We had a 20 x 10 tent in case it rained on the deck.  

 

Here are pictures from the party in a slide show. 

After the party my wife felt 50 was comfortable and we could easily handle 100 guests.  I then told her we don't need to have a party with 100 people to test the limit.  :-)  50 people is a big enough number and know we have head room for a margin of comfort and it is easier on the budget.

Thanks to our good friends Megan and Curtis, the event was catered, staffed, including cleaned up.  My wife is decorating wizard and she picked the flowers and all the rest of the decorating.  My job was to take the pictures.

Chicago's 601 Polk is open for co-location business

DCK has a post on 601 Polk opening its doors for co-location business.

AlteredScale Opens Doors at 601 Polk in Chicago

• By: Jason Verge
  May 17th, 2013

601 West Polk in Chicago is the home of a new data center for AlteredScale. The facility will be managed by Norland Managed Services.

601 West Polk is alive and kicking. The 100 year old structure just west of the Loop in Chicago has been through a lot over the years, including a previous owner passing through bankruptcy. After several millions of dollars worth of renovations. AlteredScale, a provider of mission critical data center solutions, announced this week that it has chosen Norland Managed Services to operate and maintain its data center at 601 West Polk.

But, this opening is not so much news as a milestone in a long process.

First the President of AlteredScale, Kevin Francis is a good friend and we have had many conversations over the past 3 years.  We've had fun at SXSW.  Discussed many changes in the data center industry, and caught up on what's up with our personal lives.  A year and half ago I went into 601 Polk when it was a shell and met many of the people who were working on the project.

About 6 months ago, Kevin said he was looking for options of who could run facility operations at 601 Polk.  There is a short list of who could do the work and you know the list.  Given Kevin is a close friend, I made an introduction to another good friend Norland Managed Services, General Manager North America Steve Manos.  You could view this as a favoritism to take care of your buddies.   Or you could see that good people working together is what the industry needs more of.  This could be the end of the process, but I know I'll be chatting with Kevin again to hear how 601 Polk is running and how Norland is able to work with his co-location environment.  And, I'll be talking to Steve Manos soon (most likely at 7x24 Exchange in Boca) as well, and thinking of more interesting ways to work in the industry.  Steve started data center socials in Chicago and LV, mine is in Santa Clara. We'll see where we go next.

It is a milestone to make the announcement, but it is not really news when I saw the space 1 1/2 years ago, and made the introductions between AlteredScale and Norland 6 months ago.

Bored of Data Center Presentations? Me too, so do something about it

It was fun catching up with Chris Crosby in LV and Santa Clara over the past couple of weeks.  Chris just posted on the issue of wishing upon a star for maybe these data center conferences would be more interesting.

In doing a quick review of some of the topical fodder that will be discussed at some of the data center industry’s upcoming confabs, I have to say that it looks like we’re stuck in a bit of a rut. Does an over abundance of Power Points expounding on the how it’s “DCiM’s time” and that the Cloud “will change everything” reflect some hidden industry wish that these things will come true? Should we cue Jiminy Cricket?

Chris closes imploring the event staff to change the formats.

While there is little that we can do about the topic’s that speakers will be covering this tradeshow season, I would ask—and I don’t think I’m alone here—that the companies that put on these extravaganzas endeavor to broaden the scope of topics before they implore us to “Join Them” in the one of the nation’s metropolis’s in the future. If I see one more product pitch presentation delivered by someone with the charisma of a newt, I may just lose my lunch. Get out on a limb and say something new. As for DCiM and the Cloud I say look to that Walt Disney classic, Pinnochio, for guidance. After all, after being turned into a donkey and being swallowed by a whale, his wish to become a real boy came true.

But, getting people to change is one of the hardest things in life.  Much harder than greening a data center and coming up with new ways to change the industry for a new performance per watt approach.  

So instead of asking for change, change yourself.  About two years ago I stopped going to AFCOM Data Center World and Uptime Symposium as media and started trying other conferences.  I started going to GigaOm Structure as a media attendee and thanks to Barton George he introduced me to Stacey Higginbotham as GigaOm needed a data center analyst.  So, I spend time (less than 20%)  as an analyst for GigaOm Pro as well as a bunch of other things (the other 80%).

In a month at GigaOm Structure I'll be moderating two panel discussions. 

One with following title and presenters

Compute everywhere: the architects behind the change

Chandra Pandey, Vice President, Platform Solutions, BTI Systems

Lane Patterson, CTO, Equinix

And the other

How infrastructure can transform business success

Cynthi Stoddard, SVP & CIO, NetApp

David Giambruno, SVP and CIO, Revlon

I could try to interject something like the above into a typical data center conference, but it is a lot of work.  The above people are presenting because of the GigaOm brand and its audience.  Also, I'll most likely be jumping into a mode of business value of IT, not data center infrastructure.

The data center infrastructure is important and many of the changes going forward are how the data center infrastructure supports business innovation which is what CIO's care about.  It will be interesting whether data center conferences can change to more than a DCIM and Cloud discussion.

I'll be at GigaOm Structure given I work for the GigaOm folks and am a speaker.  Here are some of the interesting sponsors that work in the data center industry.

 

And Open Compute Project will participate.

Facebook and the Open Compute Project are hosting their second hardware hackathon with the winners presenting at GigaOM’s Structure conference on June 19. So start thinking about your idea, and go register.

If you want to hear a different discussion of the cloud you may want to trying something different for a change, or you can keep on going to the same conferences and hope they get more interesting.

What our attendees are saying

 

• Structure has always been, and continues to be, the place with the most vibrant and provocative cloud discussion. I’ve tracked cloud for a long time and still find Structure to be an essential meeting in order to keep up.

  - Peter Christy

  Co-Founder, Internet Research Group

   

  Structure is a ‘multi-phasic examination’ report on Cloud. In two days, one gets a reading on the state of the technology, the commercial aspects, and the ability to engage in conversation with the people most influential in its evolution.

  -Rich Miller

  CEO, Telematica

   

   
• Structure has always been, and continues to be, the place with the most vibrant and provocative cloud discussion. I’ve tracked cloud for a long time and still find Structure to be an essential meeting in order to keep up.

  - Peter Christy

  Co-Founder, Internet Research Group

   

  Structure is a ‘multi-phasic examination’ report on Cloud. In two days, one gets a reading on the state of the technology, the commercial aspects, and the ability to engage in conversation with the people most influential in its evolution.

  -Rich Miller

  CEO, Telematica

   

   
• Structure has always been, and continues to be, the place with the most vibrant and provocative cloud discussion. I’ve tracked cloud for a long time and still find Structure to be an essential meeting in order to keep up.

  - Peter Christy

  Co-Founder, Internet Research Group

   

  Structure is a ‘multi-phasic examination’ report on Cloud. In two days, one gets a reading on the state of the technology, the commercial aspects, and the ability to engage in conversation with the people most influential in its evolution.

  -Rich Miller

  CEO, Telematica

Looking at a Double Rainbow, colors are inverted

I've been traveling a lot and about to start another burst.

The nice thing come home is the view.  Here is one of a double rainbow.

One interesting fact of a double rainbow is the color are inverted.

While a primary rainbow is visible when light is reflected once off the back of a raindrop, a secondary and usually dimmer rainbow is spotted when light is reflected twice in a more complicated pattern.

The colors of the second rainbow are inverted, with blue on the outside and red moved to the inside. The second bow appears dimmer or cloudier because much more light is released from two reflections, and both bows cover a larger portion of the sky.

Zooming into the above picture you can see the colors are inverted.