Comments on: Not Your Typical Data Center Lobby

By: Online Storage Optimization » Blog Archive » Data Centers Grow Up, Chill Out

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:30:11 +0000

[...] example, Data Center Knowledge is reporting that Datapipe has built a beautiful, glass-enclosed atrium for its data center. The [...]

By: Fernando Sousa

Fernando Sousa — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:59:17 +0000

Caroline,

Architecture is not fundamental but is relevant, and I think that you always should look to build functional and beautifull.

We all prefer to live and work in beautifull places.

By: Michael T. Halligan

Michael T. Halligan — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 03:12:45 +0000

Rich,

When I worked at Napster in ’2000 we hosted most of our infrastructure there. This used to be a building called “San Jose Live” which was a block-long sports bar.

The best part of this datacenter red-head brigade. For whatever reason, the women who manned inside the “fish bowl” were all attractive, giggly early ’20-something redheads (both real and clearly from a bottle). It was refreshing to flirt with a pretty girl at 4am after 14 hours struggling with a router failure or a site upgrade.

Other great aspects were the Irish Pub next door, and “Above Secure” which was AboveNet’s failed attempt at selling ueber-secure datacenter bunker space at a high premium. AboveSecure was neat, as it was essentially a bank fault, with armed guards patrolling 24/7. I’m fairly certain nobody ever actually hosted there.

Around that time was when Microsoft attempted Hotmail’s first failed transition from FreeBSD to Windows NT. For three weekends in a row, let’s just say you’ve never seen more discouraged and defeated looking engineers in your life.

Other bits of nostalgia:

- BigWords, the “college kids with American Express-funded startup” was in the cage across the row from Napster. We were very happy to take that space over when they went under
- AskJeeves (The first and second incantations) were in the cage next to us. Apparently they went bankrupt a few times and had ridiculous turnover in their Ops team
- Layer42 started out in that facility (I might be wrong on this, but I know that’s where I first met Steve Rubin).

By: Caroline

Caroline — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:00:55 +0000

Is architecture relevant? I believe a Data center has to acknowledge security aspects. Besides, it seems a little expensive for my servers. Meanwhile this California sun being so hot… it must require more cooling and therefore more electricity. But I suppose this was all considered..this glass atrium looks so “green”…

By: Fernando Sousa

Fernando Sousa — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:12:02 +0000

If you think this Data Center lobby is nice, then take a look at this photos from Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (aka Mare Nostrum) and tell me what you think of it.

http://www.bsc.es/plantillaA.php?cat_id=124

By: Rich Miller

Rich Miller — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:36:52 +0000

Thanks for noting that, Tom. In fact, the large exterior sign atop that glass atrium still says "AboveNet." Here's our coverage of DataPipe's purchase of the facility in 2006.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:28:56 +0000

Uhh, AboveNet built that datacenter a long time ago (first dotcom boom time) and then proceeded to get rid of it in BK. Don’t give Datapipe the credit eh?