Capitol One Data Centers follow the pattern of the Innovators, 8 locations consolidated into 3

Capitol One had a data center event not unlike a Google Data Center event.  The local press covered the event in Richmond, VA.  How does this look like Google.  The VA governor and Capitol One CEO are at a data center event.  

Daniel Sangjib Min

Capital One founder, chairman, and chief executive officer, Richard Fairbank, left, and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, right, connect symbolic cables with the help of Brian Cobb, center, managing vice president of Capital One, during a grand opening ceremony of Capital One's new data center in Chesterfield County on Wednesday, March 12, 2014.

5 years ago you would never see an event like this.  Now you see data center openings as PR events.

Operations had already started there. But on Wednesday, the McLean-based company held a ceremony to serve as symbolic opening for the center, located in a highly secured facility surrounded by a wooded area and tall, reinforced fencing.

The security is important because the Meadowville site is one of Capital One’s three primary data centers where the company stores and manages vast amounts of information produced by its business providing financial services to roughly 65 million customers.

The other pattern Capitol One has followed used by Google, eBay and others for high availability is three main data centers.

Capital One is consolidating operations at its eight data centers that it has been operating because of numerous recent acquisitions of other banks and credit card providers.

The data operations are being consolidated into three centers — the one in Chesterfield, one in Henrico County, and one near Chicago.

The latency to the customers isn’t as important as the latency between the data centers. The data centers are all located East of Mississippi.

And just like other efficient data center operators the headcount is low.

The center has about 50 employees now, but the company expects it will employ more than 100 eventually.

The Lean Construction Market, Insight into those who practice and those who don't

Many of you are familiar with Lean Construction, and I bet you run into people like I do who don’t know what Lean Construction is.  Your experience figuring who gets Lean Construction and who doesn’t is anecdotal and hard to gauge.  Thanks to folks at Dassault Systemes and McGraw-Hill a survey was conducted in Sept 2013 to understand the Lean Construction Market.  You can get a copy of the study here which requires you to register and will most likely get a call from a sales associate.  I did.

One of the eye opening statistics is that 55% of the market doesn’t know Lean Construction, and those who don’t practice Lean Construction have 4X the amount of people thinking they are “efficient/highly efficient.”  So, as long as you don’t practice Lean Construction you are unaware of how inefficient you are?  How much 4X more the people.  This explains the resistance to go Lean.  People believe they are already efficient, so why would they change.

If you are in that group that believes you are already efficient and Lean Construction isn’t for you, then ignore the rest of this post.

There in depth interviews  with insights from talking to those who use Lean Construction.

Even if you practice Lean Construction you are always looking to learn more. 

You use Lean Construction for many benefits.  Here is a nice list of benefits.

Lean Construction Keynote Video by 2 Second Lean's Paul Akers

I was chatting with Compass Data Center’s Chris Crosby about Lean Construction and we were having a good laugh that the media makes it seem like Lean Construction is something new because Facebook and a few others have seen the light of Lean Construction.  Lean vs. Waste - Simple vs. Complicated.  Chris mentioned the 2 Second Lean book and I went to the website.  The company FastCap which 2 Second Lean’s Paul Akers founded is in Bellingham, WA the same city that my Woodstone Oven is made.

A local friend who works in the construction is active in Lean Construction and I saw that a conference he went to has Paul Akers Keynoting.  Below is his talk at the conference.

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Some notes I took from the video are:

Paul believes in videos to illustrate points.  Check out this F1 pit stop.

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Lean is a choice of being Simple vs. Complicated.  Simple & Fun vs. Complicated & Painful.  Most places of work are complicated & painful because management doesn’t believe in being Lean.

Lean is simply to see waste and to focus on the teaching and training of the people to eliminate waste.  This supports more quality and more value which is good for the customer and good for the business.

Paul tells the story of how he thought the answer was to be organized, but he was clueless  compared to the Toyota Production System, Lean Manufacturing, and Kaizen.  Now Paul is a speaker and author on the concept of Lean.

Lean Construction is not new.  There are probably at least 50% of the construction industry who don’t get Lean.  It is a simpler less wasteful way to do work.  Lean is greener and more sustainable.  But, many think a Lean Construction project is innovative.  No it is not innovative.  It is about time.

Seeing the Communication Gap between Data Center Teams - Design, Construction, Operations, and IT

Whenever I heard how DCIM will bridge the gap between facilities and IT I look, but question whether there is really something there that can bridge the gap.

How hard is it to bridge the gap?  Consider this video of the Oracle America’s Cup Race team Wing designer and his challenge to talk to the sailors.  WSJ has a good story on this challenge.

Do you think the answer was to install an Oracle Software solution that both would use.  No.  It took many loses to the New Zealand team to finally get the America team to try something the computer hadn’t modeled

There was little time to experiment with the new technique, and Mr. Ozanne's software indicated Oracle would easily outsail New Zealand upwind even without foiling.

Technology was a problem, not the answer.

Nobody had expected this. Had team Oracle placed too much faith in the technology? Had its enormous budget lulled the team into overconfidence? Had Mr. Spithill gotten away from the lessons he had learned in Elvina Bay?

What especially galled him was the New Zealand team's apparent contempt for Oracle's approach. The managing director of the New Zealand team, Mr. Dalton, was openly disdainful of the costly, high-tech catamaran Oracle had chosen. The Kiwi boat had a similar, but more rugged, design. Dean Barker, the opposing skipper, was the son of New Zealand businessman Ray Barker, who had founded the menswear company Barkers.

The results were achieved by challenging technology and its assumptions made by humans.  What makes me laugh is how many times people will make it seem like Technology is something magical.  No it’s not, it was created by people who just like other people make mistakes and incorrect assumptions which gets embedded in the code.

Disney's Data Centers power changes in Prices and How it Services Guests

Disney has a large Data Center in North Carolina along with Facebook, Apple, and Google.  We can all understand what the latter companies do with data centers.  What does Disney do with a big data center?  One thing Disney does is crank out calculations on its guests and park operations.

Businessweek has a couple of articles on this topic.  One is its RFID tracking system.

The answer was on the electronic bands the couple wore on their wrists. That’s the magic of the MyMagic+, Walt Disney’s (DIS) $1 billion experiment in crowd control, data collection, and wearable technology that could change the way people play—and spend—at the Most Magical Place on Earth.

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MyMagic+ promises far more radical change. It’s a sweeping reservation and ride planning system that allows for bookings months in advance on a website or smartphone app. Bracelets called MagicBands, which link electronically to an encrypted database of visitor information, serve as admission tickets, hotel keys, and credit or debit cards; a tap against a sensor pays for food or trinkets. The bands have radio frequency identification (RFID) chips—which critics derisively call spychips because of their ability to monitor people and things.

Another is Disney’s raising of ticket prices to $100 for a single day pass.

Walt Disney (DIS) is prying parental wallets open a little wider for that vacation visit to the theme park. The Empire of the Mouse is now charging $99 for a one-day park pass at its Magic Kingdom Park near Orlando, an increase of $4 that comes just eight months after the last price hike.

Behind the steadily rising ticket prices is the small world of supply and demand. People keep flooding Disney’s U.S. theme parks, notwithstanding steeper costs. The company reported a 16 percent increase in operating income, to $671 million, for the most recent quarter at its theme park division as sales rose 6 percent, to $3.6 billion. In Disney’s last fiscal year, theme park income rose 17 percent, to $2.2 billion. The company does not disclose attendance data.

What Will MyMagic+ Do for Passholders?

From FastPass+ service to the enhanced planning tools of My Disney Experience, MyMagic+ will make it easier than ever to plan, share and enjoy your next visit.