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Data Center Best Practices

Posted by J. Nicholas Hoover
March 01, 2008

There are data centers, and then there are data centers. The first kind ranges from the overheated, wire-tangled, cramped closets that sometimes also host cleaning supplies to the more standard glass-house variety of years past. The second kind--and the topic of this article--cool with winter air, run on solar power, automatically provision servers without human involvement, and can't be infiltrated even if the attacker is driving a Mack truck full-throttle through the front gate.

These "badass" data centers--energy efficient, automated, hypersecure--are held up as models of innovation today, but their technologies and methodologies could become standard fare tomorrow.

Everything at Equinix has been thought through for security

Rhode Island's Bryant University sees its fair share of snow and cold weather. And all that cold outside air is perfect to chill the liquid that cools the university's new server room in the basement of the John H. Chafee Center for International Business. It's just one way that Bryant's IT department is saving 20% to 30% on power consumption compared with just a year ago. "We've come from the dark ages to the forefront," says Art Gloster, Bryant's VP of IT for the last five years.

Before a massive overhaul completed in April, the university had four "data centers" scattered across campus, including server racks stuffed into closets with little concern for backup and no thought to efficiency. Now Bryant's consolidated, virtualized, reconfigured, blade-based, and heavily automated data center is one of the first examples of IBM's young green data center initiative.

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