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Erik Freitag
Guest
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 Posted:
Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:35 am Post subject:
Re: How many workstations in a room? |
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On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 17:26:41 -0500, J. Clarke wrote:
| Quote: | Erik Freitag wrote:
My preference is for telco-style rooms with VCT on the floor, N+1 power
and cooling, earthquake-hardened relay-type racks for easy access to
equipment and cable, overhead cable runs and a "no one enters without a
change control sheet or trouble ticket" policy. This makes the environment
much easier to manage and change and much less subject to accidental or
intentional outages. Sorry if it doesn't please the decorators in the
executive office.
One place I worked just hung a sign on the door--"Danger, inert-gas flood
fire extinguishing system in use--enter this room without breathing
apparatus and you will surely die." They left off the "if it fires while
you're in there". Cut down on the casual visitors quite a bit, especially
since they had to convince the safety engineers that they had a legitimate
need to be in there in order to get issued breathing apparatus.
Unfortunately the safety engineers decided to "fix" it and made them take
the sign down.
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Great story, but I think the best way to keep out casual visitors is a
lock (preferably a card-key) and a monitored video camera. I think the
regular staff catches on pretty quickly to the "danger - dynamite" signs. |
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Erik Freitag
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:40 am Post subject:
Re: How many workstations in a room? |
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On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 20:33:28 -0500, Al Dykes wrote:
| Quote: | In article <pan.2005.01.02.01.29.36.2287@pobox.com>,
Erik Freitag <erik.freitag@pobox.com> wrote:
On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:48:28 +0000, Walter Roberson wrote:
Well, you're lucky you don't have to worry about earthquakes. I also like
my equipment rooms on the highest possible floor. Doesn't work for MPOEs,
though.
Data Center .....24th floor... Power Failure.... 20 Minute UPS.....
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OK, OK. My spec for equipment rooms runs about 20 pages - I didn't try to
put the whole thing here. If the application was mission-critical, why
didn't you have a diesel generator (tested 4x a year) and spare water
for the HVAC on the roof on the roof? |
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J. Clarke
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Jan 02, 2005 8:00 am Post subject:
Re: How many workstations in a room? |
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Erik Freitag wrote:
| Quote: | On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 20:33:28 -0500, Al Dykes wrote:
In article <pan.2005.01.02.01.29.36.2287@pobox.com>,
Erik Freitag <erik.freitag@pobox.com> wrote:
On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:48:28 +0000, Walter Roberson wrote:
Well, you're lucky you don't have to worry about earthquakes. I also like
my equipment rooms on the highest possible floor. Doesn't work for MPOEs,
though.
Data Center .....24th floor... Power Failure.... 20 Minute UPS.....
OK, OK. My spec for equipment rooms runs about 20 pages - I didn't try to
put the whole thing here. If the application was mission-critical, why
didn't you have a diesel generator (tested 4x a year) and spare water
for the HVAC on the roof on the roof?
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You mean the roof 40 stories above? Not that it does a whole lot of good
when someone flies an airliner into your datacenter . . .
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
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Erik Freitag
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Jan 02, 2005 8:00 am Post subject:
Re: How many workstations in a room? |
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On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:48:49 -0500, J. Clarke wrote:
| Quote: | Erik Freitag wrote:
On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 20:33:28 -0500, Al Dykes wrote:
In article <pan.2005.01.02.01.29.36.2287@pobox.com>,
Erik Freitag <erik.freitag@pobox.com> wrote:
On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:48:28 +0000, Walter Roberson wrote:
Well, you're lucky you don't have to worry about earthquakes. I also like
my equipment rooms on the highest possible floor. Doesn't work for MPOEs,
though.
Data Center .....24th floor... Power Failure.... 20 Minute UPS.....
OK, OK. My spec for equipment rooms runs about 20 pages - I didn't try to
put the whole thing here. If the application was mission-critical, why
didn't you have a diesel generator (tested 4x a year) and spare water
for the HVAC on the roof on the roof?
You mean the roof 40 stories above? Not that it does a whole lot of good
when someone flies an airliner into your datacenter . . .
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Yes, that one. You might want to consider moving to an easier location -
maybe an old missile silo or a telco bunker. |
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Erik Freitag
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Jan 02, 2005 8:00 am Post subject:
Re: How many workstations in a room? |
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On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:48:49 -0500, J. Clarke wrote:
| Quote: | Data Center .....24th floor... Power Failure.... 20 Minute UPS.....
OK, OK. My spec for equipment rooms runs about 20 pages - I didn't try to
put the whole thing here. If the application was mission-critical, why
didn't you have a diesel generator (tested 4x a year) and spare water
for the HVAC on the roof on the roof?
You mean the roof 40 stories above? Not that it does a whole lot of good
when someone flies an airliner into your datacenter . . .
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So without being flippant, this is an interesting problem. When I said
"high as possible" I was thinking Silicon Valley altitudes - 5th or 6th
floor - above the flood line.
Can you tell us anything about your parameters? Sounds like you are in a
building that is 64 stories high (or more) that has been hit by an
airliner. I don't think this could have been one of the WTC buildings. Are
you the only equipment room in the building? Does the building provide any
kind of power/HVAC protection?
Maybe you just meant you had to plan for an airliner hit? That, or a big
earthquake, or a war, or sabotage of some other kind sound like a great
reason to build a business continuity/disaster recovery site. If you have
a DR site, having backup power and cooling may not be a big issue,
assuming you're sure it will work. |
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J. Clarke
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Jan 02, 2005 4:50 pm Post subject:
Re: How many workstations in a room? |
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Erik Freitag wrote:
| Quote: | On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:48:49 -0500, J. Clarke wrote:
Data Center .....24th floor... Power Failure.... 20 Minute UPS.....
OK, OK. My spec for equipment rooms runs about 20 pages - I didn't try
to put the whole thing here. If the application was mission-critical,
why didn't you have a diesel generator (tested 4x a year) and spare
water for the HVAC on the roof on the roof?
You mean the roof 40 stories above? Not that it does a whole lot of good
when someone flies an airliner into your datacenter . . .
So without being flippant, this is an interesting problem. When I said
"high as possible" I was thinking Silicon Valley altitudes - 5th or 6th
floor - above the flood line.
Can you tell us anything about your parameters? Sounds like you are in a
building that is 64 stories high (or more) that has been hit by an
airliner. I don't think this could have been one of the WTC buildings. Are
you the only equipment room in the building? Does the building provide any
kind of power/HVAC protection?
Maybe you just meant you had to plan for an airliner hit? That, or a big
earthquake, or a war, or sabotage of some other kind sound like a great
reason to build a business continuity/disaster recovery site. If you have
a DR site, having backup power and cooling may not be a big issue,
assuming you're sure it will work.
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Actually, I was pointing out the absurdity of generalizing without knowing
the details. If you're on the 26th floor of a 27 story building some
things are doable that are not doable when you're on the 26th floor of a 66
story building.
And you can't plan for everything.
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net) |
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Al Dykes
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Jan 02, 2005 6:06 pm Post subject:
Re: How many workstations in a room? |
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In article <pan.2005.01.02.05.16.46.528943@pobox.com>,
Erik Freitag <erik.freitag@pobox.com> wrote:
| Quote: | On Sat, 01 Jan 2005 22:48:49 -0500, J. Clarke wrote:
Data Center .....24th floor... Power Failure.... 20 Minute UPS.....
OK, OK. My spec for equipment rooms runs about 20 pages - I didn't try to
put the whole thing here. If the application was mission-critical, why
didn't you have a diesel generator (tested 4x a year) and spare water
for the HVAC on the roof on the roof?
You mean the roof 40 stories above? Not that it does a whole lot of good
when someone flies an airliner into your datacenter . . .
So without being flippant, this is an interesting problem. When I said
"high as possible" I was thinking Silicon Valley altitudes - 5th or 6th
floor - above the flood line.
Can you tell us anything about your parameters? Sounds like you are in a
building that is 64 stories high (or more) that has been hit by an
airliner. I don't think this could have been one of the WTC buildings. Are
you the only equipment room in the building? Does the building provide any
kind of power/HVAC protection?
Maybe you just meant you had to plan for an airliner hit? That, or a big
earthquake, or a war, or sabotage of some other kind sound like a great
reason to build a business continuity/disaster recovery site. If you have
a DR site, having backup power and cooling may not be a big issue,
assuming you're sure it will work.
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I'm the guy with the 24th floor datacenter (r1980's, eally), and your
original comment about "as high as possible" kicked in old memories.
As I was part of pre-construcion and contingency planning I'm always
interested in "shoulda's".
Nobody ever had to jog the 24 floors in 20 minutes, but there were a
couple times that the building had unplanned elevator shutdowns that
made me hike.
I also had a friend running computers in the NYC World Trade Center
during the 1993 bombing, which only killed 6 people, but made everyone
in the building walk down in the dark under smoke conditions. My
buddy had to hike down 93 floors.
The real answer is you can't list every way sh*t can happen. I always
tell peopple to imagine that the entire building can be teleported
into another dimension at any instant and implement a business
continuity plan according.
I can list several times I know of where datacenter operators have
shown up at lights-out sites to do something, only to find police/FD
barriers preventing them from getting in.
--
a d y k e s @ p a n i x . c o m
Don't blame me. I voted for Gore. |
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Erik Freitag
Guest
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| Posted:
Sun Jan 02, 2005 11:02 pm Post subject:
Re: How many workstations in a room? |
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On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 06:50:45 -0500, J. Clarke wrote:
| Quote: | Erik Freitag wrote:
And you can't plan for everything.
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You're so right, but try telling that to some of the banks I've worked
with. We can always invent a disaster we can't cope with, so you try to
plan around those you can cope with. My feeling is that there are some
events so damaging that you don't care if the network or the business
survives. |
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