2011 data center presentation slides

I found this presentation just sitting on Utah University's website for a 2011 data center project.

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Found it interesting that this was 4,000 kW facility with 2,400 kW for critical load for a 1.7 PUE in 2011.

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Here are pictures of the data center space during construction.

I can't recall where I have ever seen Generac generators at a data center site.

Generators

Generators to provide power in the event of a power outage

Brand new facility and their hot/cold aisle containment is not that impressive.  I guess that would explain the 1.7 PUE at full load.  Got to think the PUE is 2.0 during the early phases.

Finished isle

Once the racks were installed, airflow zones were created to channel cold air to the racks and contain and vent the hot air from the data center. Power is delivered to each row of racks from an overhead distribution system.

Peek at Panel Discussion with Revlon and NetApp CIO at GigaOm Structure

GigaOm Structure is less than a month a way and I am moderating a panel with Revlon and NetApp CIOs.

HOW INFRASTRUCTURE CAN TRANSFORM BUSINESS SUCCESS

 

In this session we focus in on how the right IT infrastructure can create significant competitive advantage. Understanding that IT’s job is to make systems work for people, rather than people working for systems, Revlon sought to align IT to the business with the successful implementation of a private cloud. Their resulting infrastructure turned 3.6PB of data into a business driver and runs more than 500 applications in a virtualized environment. Their initiative has demonstrated clear ROI.

Moderated by:Dave Ohara - Founder, GreenM3 and Analyst, GigaOM Research
Speakers:David Giambruno - SVP and CIO, Revlon
 
Cynthia Stoddard - SVP and CIO, NetApp 

To give you an idea of what will be presented and here is a Forbes article with Revlon CIO David Giambruno.

Revlon CIO: Simplification Equals Speed. Speed Provides Agility.

Matt ButterMatt Butter, NetApp
 
 
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David Giambruno

“Six years ago, Revlon IT was seen as an impediment to the business. My first task was simply to get IT out of the way of the business.”

—David Giambruno,
Revlon Senior VP and CIO

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are three main points made by David.

This transformation included three important milestones for Revlon:

  1. Platform simplification
  2. Global cloud deployment
  3. Global cloud production

This video discusses the transformation of Revlon IT.

VMware makes the smart move, Wholesale Lease vs. Build and Own

One of my good friends introduced me to a SW company that was going to build its first data center.  I told them why build, it is your first one.  Just lease three 2MW wholesale data center spaces.  You'll get a great price given your brand name recognition and you'll have three places to start your consolidation for the dozens of co-lo facilities around the world.  No, we've spent a lot of time with Gartner and we know what we are doing we are going to build our own. One year later I run into the consulting firm that brags they are building a 7.5 MW data center.  yeh, yeh.  you're building a small one when they have over 27 MW of space now.  One year later they finally pick a site.  One year later the IT exec leaves the SW company, and the data center is still not built.

I tell this story, because it is amazing what people will do to convince themselves that their move into data centers is to build their own data center and they don't seriously consider wholesale in multiple markets.  There will be plenty of consultants, site selection experts, analyst that will tell you why it is good to build a data center.  But, some of the smartest guys I know have figured out it is lower cost and faster time to market to lease wholesale than build their own data center.  

Case in point, VMware's announced 4 city cloud environment in Santa Clara, LV, Dallas, and Sterling will be in wholesale space. 

VMware is also in a poor position to compete by building ultra-modern data centers, as Facebook did in Prineville, Ore., and Forest City, N.C., and then offering low-cost compute cycles out of such infrastructure. On the contrary, VMware won't build anything. It will lease space from wholesale data center builders. It will then wheel in racks of servers, most likely from its Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) subsidiary, based on partner Cisco's converged compute and networking infrastructure, and throw on the switch.

With VMware going with a wholesale strategy, there may be more who understand that leasing wholesale can be more cost effective than building.  Maybe the folks at VMware after being in dozens and dozens of data centers for their VMware users have figured out their own data center market survey of what is cost effective.  The VMware guys are able to get 4 sites up and running in a fraction of time and cost compared to the executive I mentioned at the beginning who thought building a data center was the right answer.

One simple way to think about why this works is if you are brand name company with a pretty good footprint you can become an anchor tenant in a wholesale space.  Even though there are agreements that the client list is kept confidential, almost everyone knows who is connected to the inner circles find out who is in the space.  It's no different when famous people move into a high end apartment in NY.  With a stamp of endorsement that is good enough for the big brand name, the lesser known companies can be charged more to be in a space that was good enough for the rich and famous.  This is no different than the cachet that Apple has opening a retail store in a mall.  You know Apple is paying the lowest cost per sq ft, given they drive shopper traffic to the mall.

There is staff that VMware will be adding to run the data centers and here are some of the job posts.

Data Center Supervisor Job Las Vegas, NV, US May 4, 2013
Data Center Supervisor Job Reston, VA, US May 9, 2013
Data Center Engineer (Night Shift) Job Las Vegas, NV, US May 4, 2013
Data Center Engineer Job Las Vegas, NV, US May 7, 2013
Data Center Engineer Job Reston, VA, US May 9, 2013
Data Center Engineer Job Reston, VA, US May 9, 2013
Data Center Engineer Job Reston, VA, US May 9, 2013
Data Center Engineer Job Reston, VA, US May 4, 2013
Data Center Engineer Job Reston, VA, US May 4, 2013
Data Center Engineer Job Reston, VA, US May 4, 2013

VMware's first Wholesale space was in Sabey.

VMWare POD 3 - Sabey Data Center

Wenatchee, Washington

 
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Hermanson completed Full Mechanical construction for this fast-tracked installation of a new data center in shelled out space. The total project area is approximately 21,000 SF and consists of 15,000 SF of “data hall” space for IT/Lab equipment, plus electrical rooms and a grey water equipment room. The scope of work includes the installation of new self-contained package units that will include outside air economizer capability and evaporative cooling, a new grey water system, construction of hot aisle containment, with new diesel powered standby generators with exhaust pipe risers on the exterior of the building and a new diesel fuel tank. The generator room requires additional fresh air intake louvers in the wall of an existing penthouse and additional radiator discharge louvers in the existing tilt-up concrete exterior walls.

 

 

Hiding your intent in the public, cloaking technique used by teens documented

Danah Boyd post on Pew's report on report on Social, Media, and Privacy and she closes with this paragraph.

Over the last few years, I’ve watched as teens have given up on controlling access to content. It’s too hard, too frustrating, and technology simply can’t fix the power issues. Instead, what they’ve been doing is focusing on controlling access to meaning. A comment might look like it means one thing, when in fact it means something quite different. By cloaking their accessible content, teens reclaim power over those who they know who are surveilling them. This practice is still only really emerging en masse, so I was delighted that Pew could put numbers to it. I should note that, as Instagram grows, I’m seeing more and more of this. A picture of a donut may not be about a donut. While adults worry about how teens’ demographic data might be used, teens are becoming much more savvy at finding ways to encode their content and achieve privacy in public.

This technique of cloaking is not anything new.  The Chinese micro bloggers have learned to use this method to say things that don't trip censorship filters.

Pew report says

Other privacy protecting and obscuring behaviors

Many teen social media users will make the content they share more private by obscuring some of their updates and posts, sharing inside jokes and other coded messages that only certain friends will understand; 58% of teen social media users say they share inside jokes or cloak their messages in some way.45 Older teens are considerably more likely than younger teens to say that they share inside jokes and coded messages that only some of their friends understand (62% vs. 46%). Girls and boys are equally likely to post inside jokes and coded messages, as are teens across all socioeconomic groups 

In the data center world this is no different than inside jokes.

An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or in joke, is a joke whose humour is clear only to people who are in a particular social group, occupation, or other community of common understanding. It is an esoteric joke which is humorous only to those who know the situation behind it.

In-jokes may exist within a small social clique, such as a group of friends, or extend to an entire profession such as the film or professional wrestling industries, or a particular sporting endeavour. Even an ethnic or religious group may have its own in-jokes.[1]

 I often use this same cloaking technique as I can say things to a specific set of readers that to others just looks like a regular blog post. :-)