From chaos comes order

Whence the data center Rosetta Stone

It is hard to argue against the idea that the understanding of language (written and/or verbal) is a foundation stone of civilization. Take ancient Egypt. The hieroglyphs that made up that written language were not understood for centuries. In 1799, near the town of el-Rashid, the Rosetta Stone was found, and there was finally a way to understand what some of those hieroglyphs meant. More info on the Rosetta Stone can be found at The British Museum So what does stone tablet made in 196 BCE have to do with data centers? I am glad you asked. There is no common language that everyone agrees on to define what goes on in a data center from an electrical and/or thermal standpoint. Talk to many HVAC folks, and they talk in HVAC tons. Talk to rack folks and upstream electrical folks, and they talk in KVa. Another group talks in CFM, and another in Watts, and another in BTUs (but that is really BTU/hr). The problem is that many of these groups make certain assumptions that YOU know all the unmentioned details about what they are talking about.

What we need is a common set of equations that everybody agrees to use. Define a BTU as 3.412, or 3.42, or 3.416. And decide on what the V in KVa really is. If people want to use 200 or 208 or 220. That is fine. But, let us all know what the number is. So I ask again. Whence the data center Rosetta Stone? If anybody knows of a data center in el-Rashid, Egypt, can you check under the raised floor, maybe it is there. But, where ever it is, the sooner we find one (or make one) the easier and more efficient all of us are gonna be.

Posted at 04:15PM Mar 01, 2006 by rdsesq in Sun  |  Comments[2]