Data Center Experience

After entering through the hidden door disguised as an artistic, embossed wall, you come to another set of oddly shaped glass doors lined with stainless steel. You scan your ID beside the door and a small green light flickers on, signalling for you to press your finger against the next level of security, the bio-metric scanner. Upon positive confirmation of your identity the door opens, you step inside onto a metal plated floor, and scan your finger again at a second identical door. Finally you step through to wait at a third door. Looking around at the metallic enclosure cast with  red light, you notice a security guard to your left behind bullet proof glass attending to multiple cameras. Meanwhile the floor records your weight in a computer. Suddenly, the lighting changes to green and the final door slides open. You step out onto an industrial looking ramp in a white hallway, accented with stainless steel. It feels a lot like boarding a ship destined for a high security space colony (or the Space Mountain ride at Disneyland... ), but instead, it opens into a large, white locker room, buzzing with the hum of machines and the consistent whisper of fans and vents. Pipes and wires snake across the ceiling around black globes (watching your every move...) and barely visible sensors, disappearing into the walls.  Rows and rows of lockers extend toward the back of the room, some enclosed in black chain-link fence. The room is an amazing example of infrastructure - the culmination of intensive engineering and design work - all for the purpose of information.

The lockers contain computers that hold valuable data. So valuable, they need a sci-fi like security system and the entire top floor of a building dedicated to the room's climate control. The data center requires an environment especially sensitive to risks that could harm computers.  Just a few of the data center design features include the following: a raised floor with cooling vents, a wind tunnel hallway with one entire length the wall comprised of air filters from floor to ceiling, pre-smoke detectors, backup power and internet cables for each computer, and specialized gas chambers and sprinklers for fire control.

To imagine the amount of planning and design work that went into creating this center is truly amazing. With gratitude, I am happy to say I experienced the above story first hand when I had the opportunity to tour a Q9 data center.  I must give credit to my friend and fellow Software student Karen Urate who set up the tour for us, and our awesome host and tour guide, Q9 Senior Account Manager, Mr. Mark Hubbard.  I learned a lot about business concerns and data storage requirements, hardware safety and security, and the mitigation of social engineering risks.

One of my questions to Mr.Hubbard, was in regards to the use of renewable energy.  The trend has not yet taken off in the big business community (large corporations are the main clientele), but it is possible to request green energy (such as Bullfrog Power). Hopefully with the knowledge that the option exists to use alternative energy to run servers (as they must be on all the time, hence the need for multiple backup generators for the data center), more businesses will start considering this. Personally, I always wanted to start a web hosting business and run my servers off green energy.  I think it would make a valuable marketing tool as well. I would like encourage everyone in information technology to adopt and/or promote this idea in the name the greater good! Imagine if all data centers switched to using renewable energy resources? In a world heading full tilt towards further use of/need for big data, it could make a huge difference. 

Please also check out Karen's blog for further information on this adventure, and even more of adventures  including me (but from a different person's perspective).