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Inside Las Vegas' Biggest Data Centre
twoheadedboy writes "Las Vegas data centres are just as opulent as the casinos which litter the vibrant city. SuperNAP is the biggest in all Las Vegas, with 400,000 square feet of servers using around 100 megawatts of power. There's some serious security too, comprised mostly of ex-US Marines who patrol the perimeter on foot and in Humvees, all armed with assault rifles. Private military contractors are needed in the IT world too, it seems. IT Pro got a look around this impressive DC."
Due to its government contracts the security force (made up mostly of ex-marines armed with assault rifles) can requisition fuel wherever they find it locally in the event of a power outage???
Say, that's reassuring.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Speaking as somebody that has been inside the facility, the security can get a little bit of an "itchy trigger finger".
It's hard enough to do a job at the last notice, but having some beefed up ex-military guy from Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. is not all that it is cracked up to be. They walk around all dressed in black with pistols and assault rifles. That part is not a joke at all, and this is inside the facility.
So when you are trying to take a server out of a rack and service it, or take equipment out, it makes it just a ohhh so fun fun day to have one of those hopped up alpha male psychopaths have one hand on their weapon and the other hand on the radio. Seriously? I am inside a locked down facility. Get your fucking hands off the assault rifles when you start talking to me. I'm a fucking IT guy.
All because shit is moving fast in my world and some desk monkey did not talk fast enough to another desk monkey in their company.
It sounds great in literature and brochures, but when you actually have to walk down aisles and deal with those guys it is another matter entirely. I would rather just be in another data center where there are not armed guards walking around every corner with live ammo.
Its actually easier to warm a cold place than warm a hot place. In a cold climate, you just add more computer equipment.
For every watt you put into computer equipment, that's a watt you have to burn cooling said equipment (when having to cool the equipment).
You seem have some phobias and prejudices.
Professional killers may be nice people, but when they are "on the job" and you are classified as "potentially hostile", it is not irrational to feel uncomfortable.
Had 50 cabinets there. They don't carry assault rifles. Most do carry edged weapons and many probably carry 'personal' weapons (I know the Director of Security did at one time, anyway).
Security there is excellent. The team is very respectful of you, your gear, and the privacy of each of their customers. They have very rigid rules because companies invest millions of $$$ building co-location facility infrastructure within the SuperNAP facility. Add Rob Roy's vision of leveraging large customers to create buying consortium opportunities and excellent relationships with Federal, State, and local governments and you get a top-notch co-location facility. Sales and implementation are great too.
If you're used to very loose process and you're doing things on the fly, without a lot of planning, it can be a pain in the ass. If you plan and manage and communicate, it's less of a problem.
Sorry but you are very, very wrong. The las vegas valley is completely full of huge high tech data centers collocating it services for companies all over the country (including the US federal government) Not even counting any of the external colo that's happening there where do you think the IT infrastructure is that supports all of those mega-casinos? These Datacenters! Sun microsystems had "Sun Cloud" facilities in three separate NAP data centers including the supernap and nearly every large it org that you've ever heard of has a presence in their facilities as well. I moved to las vegas because I traveled so much to and from there working on these projects that I never saw my family.
There are several reasons for building in Las Vegas - -Electricity is very, very cheap and being consumed so steadily by so many entities that it's easy to look "green" in this environment because the datacenter electric consumption is dwarfed by the use of all of those mega casinos, hotels, attractions, etc by so much that the IT use just looks like a blip on the radar. -It really does require less energy to condition/cool air in the desert than it does in most of the rest of the country. This is actually for a couple of reasons 1.The facilities are effectively big caves .. they are several feet thick cement walls that are light colored on the outside. They are so well
insulated that the outdoor heat doesn't have a chance of making it inside.
2. The humidity in this area is naturally so low that no additional energy is required when cooling the air to dehumidify it. Imagine being in virginia or pennsylvania where the humidity is 60-80% outdoors. Half of that humidity has to be pulled from the air and siphoned off
3. they use strict hot/cold aisle separation where the whole facility becomes a plenum and duct system and the super-heated air is just ducted directly outside. The racks sit on cool cement floors and cold air pours directly into the front of the equipment and the air that runs through the equipment goes directly up through the roof duct system where it is contained and exhausted.
4. with the addition and application of simple evaporative cooling that is greatly accelerated in ultra arid climates you can save nearly 30% of the cost of using gas compression cooling only.
An un-loaded gun is pretty useless.
However an unloaded gun is safer and can be made loaded in a small number of seconds when carried in the manner I described. There are circumstances where having a weapon nearby (including in a sling) is appropriate but having a loaded weapon in hand is inappropriate.
People think the desert is hot. As a born and raised in the Mojave desert "desert rat" I can say that is only true sometimes. Dry air heats quickly and cools quickly and winters are chilly - they even had snow on the strip last year. According to Switch (I have had equipment in the SuperNAP for well over 2 years) they only need to chill the outside air 30% of the year. Then you switch to evaporative. But they are able to run air-cooled as well - they don't need water to keep things cool, it just costs more in power.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
I know people like to be culturally diverse and all, but if it is in American English, it's spelled CENTER!