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HP Blows A Data Center To Bits

How far will data center vendors go to demonstrate the disaster-proof nature of their products? Pretty far, it seems. First we had Sun Microsystems putting a Blackbox on a shake table to simulate a major earthquake. HP has turned the publicity stunt volume up to 11, and has actually blown up an entire data center (link via ComputerWorld) to demonstrate the fail-over capabilities of its technology.

At a high-tech ballistics center managed by National Technical Systems in Camden, Arkansas, HP simulated a gas leak using real explosives that resulted in a very real explosion and datacenter destruction. What was blown up? Products from the entire spectrum of HP products, including HP servers, HP StorageWorks products, HP Software and HP Procurve networking products running in five operating environments—HP-UX, HP OpenVMS, HP NonStop, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows Server 2003.

Words can't compete with explosions, so go have a look and then come back. :)

There's also a side story line involving goldfish placed in peril by the simulated gas explosion, which prompted some commentary from ComputerWorld blogger Robert Mitchell:

What do you think will get more attention: The fact that HP blew up a few racks of data center equipment, or that it appeared to blow up the goldfish? If exploding goldfish is funny, what about blowing up puppies? Or human babies? Would it be funny then? While simpler life forms (amoeba, insects) are expendable for the sake of the joke, it seems that more complex ones (puppies, children) are not. What's interesting is how we make those relative value judgments and where we draw the line between funny and tasteless.

Hmmm. Maybe I'm a little jaded, but I had a different reaction. I was thinking "Yikes! Look at all that equipment they just blew up! I wonder how much that cost?" Hey, I know what goldfish cost.

Does that make me a sucker for a publicity stunt? Yep. I think HP realizes that people may be intrigued by what it looks like when you "blow a data center to bits." So long as the data center belongs to someone else.

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By Rich Miller June 25, 2007 | Permalink | >Get Posts By E-mail

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Comments

I suppose since we're closing down 85 data centers world wide we've got some extra equipment to do something with. It doesn't take a teenage boy to come up with the idea to blow stuff up (although it helps to have one on call, just in case 8)). Obviously, the fish part went too far.

Pete Johnson,
HP.com Chief Architect,
Personal Blog: http://nerdguru.net

Posted by: Pete Johnson at June 25, 2007 11:55 PM

Didn't HP put a bullet through one of there storage servers a while back to show off there fault tolerance?

Posted by: Niklas O at June 26, 2007 03:32 AM

Niklas:

Yes, HP did a similar video where it shot a bullet through a StorageWorks disk array, which also featured an imperiled goldfish. It's on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFyXlb26ihs

Posted by: Rich Miller at June 26, 2007 07:29 AM

Pete:

I have two teenage sons. Their verdict on the video: "Hey, can we see that again?" :)

I'll admit to curiosity about what HP will do with all the equipment from the consolidated data centers (aside from blowing some of it up). Given the next-generation nature of the new buildings, I gather that only a limited amount of that equipment will migrate to the new facilities.

Posted by: Rich Miller at June 26, 2007 07:41 AM

Hi Rich,

Yes, a limited amount of the equipment in the legacy data centers will be moving to the new ones. I got a tour last month and it's pretty amazing how cutting edge they are. Upon closer inspection, though, the stuff blown up in the video appears to be newer machines used to make a point about the capabilities of the storage products.

I agree, the video the StorageWorks guys put together is very compelling and shows how well the failover is built into these products. That kind of HA is crucial to any enterprise, including HP's. I'm glad my servers have such tools at their disposal.

Pete Johnson,
HP.com Chief Architect,
Personal Blog: http://nerdguru.net

Posted by: Pete Johnson at June 28, 2007 01:40 PM