Facing The Customer: Stories from the front lines

I like taking tours of customers' data centers because it's a wonderful and succinct glimpse in to the company itself. Kind of like the eyes being the window to the soul. That, and I always just like seeing all the blinking lights. You can tell so many things, from process control to risk tolerance to where the admins go for lunch.

Of course I notice all the logos and brands. Sometimes lots of Sun equipment and sometimes lots of competitors'. The logos are on the front but I am always more curious about the backs of the servers. It is fascinating to see how much heat various brands spit out. People think I'm a bit weird as I place my hand behind a server or blade chassis and see how far away I can get it and still feel some heat. So far HP blade servers are the hottest I've felt. The heat blasted out by those suckers should be piped into the HVAC system. (By the way, I'm aware that Sun's older gen UltraSPARC IV line isn't exactly light on the A/C requirements but that's why we've replaced the whole line.)

The datacenters that really stun me, though, are the ones where the cooling systems are completely losing the battle. I've walked in to two datacenters now where the ambient temperature was above 80 degrees. They had those big floor standing fans blowing on everything. In both cases I asked the customer, "Wow, it's hot in here! Is that normal?"
They responded, "Yeah, it is, but we're putting another five ton unit on the roof!"

Now, I did some research and asked a few customers how much it costs to add, say, a 5-ton unit to a roof. For some it's harder than others, requiring myriad permits, inspections, approvals, building modifications and tricky installations. The best number I can come up with, including capital expenses is about $100,000. Then, of course, you have to run it. According to this calculator, it will cost between $5,000 and $10,000 per year in electricity. In the end, you are paying to cool what you are paying to heat. Somewhere I feel the definition of insanity is creeping in.

So, I must again admire the unbelievable expense people seem willing to endure to buy "cheap" servers.  When people buy a house they'll beat up a builder (as we did) about RC values of insulation, the maker of the windows, the Energy Efficiency ratings of the appliances. In the workplace, however, well, that's just some else's pot of money. For what it's worth, I've actually seen the Vice President of Facilities at one of my largest customers openly accuse the ITops team of trying to operate a blast furnace in his building.

Reducing power and cooling aren't just feel-good, tree-hugging measures. They have very definite and very measurable affects on the bottom line. This is where real TCO analysis makes a difference and why otherwise healthy companies start to bleed OpEx. (If that doesn't scare anyone, what's the #1 reaction to out-of-control OpEx? Outsourcing and layoffs...)

Sun revolutionized the CPU performance per BTU output with the Niagara 1 chip. We've basically doubled that again with the Niagara 2. We'll have a 64 thread machine consuming between 300 and 400 watts, actual usage.

It would be great if the companies that spent so much time (with RFPs, competitive bidding processes and rabid purchasing departments) trying to squeeze out the last dime of CapEx would consider OpEx in their purchases.

You know who you are. I do, I could tell by your data center.