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Data Center Staff Will Sleep Among the Racks For London Olympics
1sockchuck writes "Staff at Interxion's London data center are ready to hunker down during the Olympic Games this summer, nestled in snug sleeping pods adjacent to the racks. The arrangement will ensure that the facility will be fully-staffed if London's transit system is taxed by the huge crowds expected for the Games. While staff in many industries might object to a plan that expects them to sleep in their office, data center firms have a primary calling of keeping their facilities operational at all times. Is this too much readiness, or just enough?"
IT people don't sleep.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Are they getting paid to be on duty 24/7?
WHAT DID YOU SAY?!? I CAN'T HEAR YOU OVER ALL THIS FAN NOISE!
(Hey Filter, learn to take a joke. I'm trying to act like I'm YELLING.)
As long as it's voluntary, compensated and not a long-term thing it can be enjoyable to "batten down the hatches" for an expected surge in demand.
If....
a) It's for a short time (check)
b) It's critical (check)
c) There's enough people on-staff to rotate who's doing this (not sure)
d) There's substantial reward/overtime/extra PTO/something for doing something like this (not sure)
So, it's 50% reasonable, maybe completely reasonable IN THIS CASE.
Well, that makes perfect sense! Do you know what a flat in London goes for these days? Twice that if you want climate control! I am thrilled to hear that the datacenter company cares so much about the well being of its employees.
Is this too much readiness, or just enough?"
Depends. If the data center compensates their staff accordingly and they have agreed that this is how well staffed they should be for events like this then it is pretty cool.
More likely it's slightly too much readiness compared to compensation.
I mean come on. We keep our data center staffed 24x7 and do not need anyone sleeping there to do it. This is called simply not paying for what they need. If they need 24x7 support, they simply need 3 shifts of workers.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
The video is very optimistic about who will be sleeping in it (unless she's charging the IT guys hourly: Sexy Worker
It's the preeminent world class sporting event that is only held every 4 years for which most of the entire world tunes in. And for which you'd be lucky to get a job at for only once in your lifetime. Wouldn't you expect people to go that little extra distance - If not for the money, but for the pride of saying you contributed?
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Seriously, this beats having to climb up ventilation shafts and walk across broken glass.
Atlanta was a ghost town during the olympics.
A lot of people took those 2 weeks off. The roads were clear and the trains were almost empty. It was the easiest time to get around. It was like sunday morning traffic levels every day for those 2 weeks. I remember it was news that a lot of the vendors that had permits to sell on the street from big tents all left before the end of the first week because there was so little street traffic. I bet london will be a similar non issue.
They are sleeping in the data center to escape the harsh reality of London, being watched by a dozen cameras everywhere you go. The government there is so worried about the potential criminals in the general public that they don't have enough cameras to watch the people operating and maintaining the vital Information Technology infrastructure that supports them. Pretty funny when you think about it.
Or, you know, rent them a room in a nearby hotel?
But you're still hungry.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Having been through the blitz, they know only tenacity succeeds!
Obviously they need to lock an IT jockey in each server *CAGE* and they will be responsible for those racks 24/7. Food should be brought them in pellet form and water dispensed from a large water bottle that requires it be licked to release it's Dihydrogen oxide goodness. Replace the floors with screens so they don't need to install any sanitary facilities other than like a garden hose to hose it down every once and a while. Even make it into an attraction and charge fees to tourists to view.
IT jockey's arent people are they? If so this idea is wrong. Now if they were treated with some dignity at least then that's different. Also if you get paid for every hour you're on site or compensated accordingly then I probably wouldn't complain about making piles of money
They could've at least given them something closer to Tokio capsule hotels. And I sincerely hope they have showers and such on-site.
Aside from that - sure, why not? You can do stuff like that for a short time in a once-in-a-lifetime situation.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
As a data center consultant and engineer, I am impressed they are going to be given time to sleep and pods to sleep in. Are they hiring? I think I could like living in London... Just give me time to study and adjust to the differences between NEMA and IEC specifications, etc.
I hope they don't use carbon dioxide for fire suppression in the data center....
I was working here during the Alanta games and travel around here was nearly impossible. MARTA scheduled more trains with aditional cars and every car was packed tight! Many of us were waiting in a queue and as a train stopped, a few would squeeze on and then the next train some more would squeeze on and so forth. What would normally be a 20 mintue train ride for me ended being a few hours. I didn't travel unless I abosultely had to.
But I should add, having also been to London, I can attest that Altanta's MARTA train system is (and was) a joke compared to London's tubes - or to any other mass transit system on the planet. IIRC, there were some Indians who were complaining about MARTA's lousy service.
... er....., "airconditioned". Otherwide the exhaust from a tech would reach toxic levels in minutes...
Or, you know, rent them a room in a nearby hotel?
You really think that there will be rooms to rent during the Olympics? Yeah maybe .. but for really big $$$.
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The actual reason is that it is one or the few places guaranteed to have air con in the coming super hot English summer.
Sounds desperate, and like they'd rather not spend the money to hire the personnel necessary to follow a decent shift schedule. What a bunch of cheap bastards.
Considering the Olympics only runs for 2 weeks I can see where a condition of the job would be on call 24/7. Television never sleeps. So why didn't they build hotel rooms into the IT center? Why a bunch of stupid pods?
http://xkcd.com/705/
But there's money to be made in subletting a flat during an event like the Olympics. I lived in Lake Placid for the 1980 games and my father's department head at the college rented his house for $30k for the two weeks.
That's what the Sonny said.
Would it be possible to order some of these 'Olympic' datacenter beds online?
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
So, this is what they mean by "lights-out datacenter".
sudo eat my shorts
As any good data center will have a gaseous fire suppression system that will replace all the oxygen. I really hope they sleep light and are ready to run in a hurry.
Who is watching porn on the small screen, and potentially vibrating his pod which is next to your pod?
And, what if you find out he likes - ya know - THAT kind of porn? ICKY !!!!
On second thought, maybe not so much.... maybe not so wise...
Check your premises.
For IT workers? Can't they just install some sort of automated system to try turning it off and then on again?
If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain
ZERO ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ZERO ONE ONE! Just brushing up for my next big invention: Ethernet over Voice (EoV)
All I have is a cot.
Looks like the hibernation chambers on the shuttle.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Have you ever been a sysadmin? It's not just throwing bodies at a problem. I think most would rather do the overnight thing for a couple weeks than deal with whatever messes a two-week temp would make.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
This reminds me of how I spent 12/31/1999, sitting in a windowless conference room with a bunch of co-workers, watching the rest of the world have fun.
Meanwhile, because we had all done the legwork months ago, nothing bad happened. If the management has such low faith that their systems will work they should either pay up for the good stuff (hardware, code, etc) or get out of the business. I think you could even keep a Windows 95 machine running for a month.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
While staff in many industries might object to a plan that expects them to sleep in their office, data center firms have a primary calling of keeping their facilities operational at all times
I love how the summary neatly dismisses the objections of the employees by citing the goal of the corporation. I can see this working well for a variety of other problems that the data center firms face, but let's just jump to the one the MBAs are salivating over:
While staff in many industries might object to working without pay or benefits, data center firms have a primary calling of keeping their costs low and profits high
Let's see, no extra pay, and now every other company that demands 100% uptime can cut the pay of every other IT employee that refuses to live in the datacenter 24/7. Hooray!
With IT quickly being relied on 24/7 in almost every field, could this be a sign of things to come? Instead of carrying a pager, could IT be required to live "on campus"? Or will remote access continue to win out over hands on?
for my entertainment pleasure i expect them to bleed for me.
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
Just like those factories in China where they lock the workers up in dorms, and wake them up march them back to the assembly line whenever demand rises, day or night! Technology is super cool!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
used to kip for a couple of hours in the server room, under a desk, behind a couple of old Sun 3/260 servers and SMD disk units...
You really think that there will be rooms to rent during the Olympics? Yeah maybe .. but for really big $$$.
But in the previous thread you were going on and on about how people should go to any lengths because they should take "pride" in the Olympics. Guess that only applies to the little people, not to corporations that might actually have to shell out some money.
Slightly OT, but you know how Iran complained how the London 2012 Olympics logo spells the word "Zion", and you know how Iran has just recently blocked the London 2012 Olympic website... well, I'm wondering if using a company called Interxion might just be taking the piss out of Iran a little bit?!
Please don't let my boss read this. Please don't let my boss read this. Please don't let my boss...
There are lots of jobs in the world where you can't leave your post until you're relieved. You wouldn't want your ER doctor, a cop, a nuclear plant operator, or your phone or power company repair engineers to say, "Hey, it's five minutes past my shift end. I'm going home and I don't care if somebody is ready to replace me." Even as a low paid security officer, I wasn't allowed to do that.
I actually think it's thoughtful for the management to be prepared that if staff can't leave , they actually have a place to sleep. (And hopefully enough staff to work in rotation.)
I think that they will find it very cold sleeping amongst the racks. Some of the data centres I've worked in have had air-conditioning on the floor that was much colder than you would want in an office.
I've spent a night here or there sleeping amongst the racks. It's really quite relaxing. The air's nice and chilly, and you couldn't ask for better white noise. Of course I was on the clock and getting paid the whole time, so no complaints there. Hell, they're even getting "sleeping pods". I've always had to grab a blanket from my trunk and crash on the floor.
Foxconn employees are extremely jealous.
Aren't there health hazards associated with datacenters? The one I used to sit in was closed because of both the sound level being too high to not cause hearing loss after a few weeks working there and someone told me the "radiation" in the room was pretty high. I know that the electromagnetic noise was high because cell/pager signals were always garbled.
Noobs.
Every critical data center worth its salt has sleep-bunkering facilities. I still recall my visit to a bank's main data center. Before entering we had to sign a release since in case of an emergency, the armored door to the facility could close and we could remain confined with the rest of the sys admins for up to two weeks.
I live and work in London and there have been an increasingly apocalyptic series of warnings as to how congested London will be and how normal commuter transport will be close to unusable during the Games. This announcement has to be viewed within that framework. My own perception is that this is like the Millennium Bug all over again. London is so enormous that apart from the immediate vicinity of the Olympic Stadium there will barely be a blip in transport users. Once this materialises the doomsayers will claim it was precisely because of their forecasts that sufficient numbers of people worked from home/went on holiday etc.
I'm uncomfortably reminded of DirectNIC in St. Louis with employees that voluntarily stayed behind to ensure availability for critical services during Hurricane Katrina.
Maybe they should make ipads in their down time.
They are data center staff. They're having sex with each other and streaming it to xhamster and 4chan, they're not watching other people's porn.
Maybe they could learn how to weave hammocks out of cat5 cable and string them up between a couple of switches? :D
I feel for those that work in IT in UK this summer... You guys are going to be up shits creek without a paddle. I can't imagine the kind of stress this would bring to people involved in web development / networking / hardware / infrastructure during the games. But of course I'll be here across the pond enjoying not having to go through that... Just remember, it takes about 90 hours without sleep to start hallucinations... about just enough to cover the opening ceremony and a few days of competition...
It probably speaks volumes that I don't find this too egregious. My only question is why they couldn't have set these pods up in a vacant office area instead of in the aisles? It can't be good to sleep among all the fan noise.
It's a silly sporting event that happens every few years. It's not like they're landing on Mars for the first time or something.
Actually we are landing on Mars during the London Olympics!
The nuclear-powered Mars rover Curiosity should arrive there around August 6th, smack in the middle of the Olympics.
And I expect the coverage of that event to be WAAAAY more exciting than any of the Olympic events.
G.
P.S. Unless the new Rover ends up following the Simplified Planetary Landing Approach Trajectory that was so popular with some other Mars missions in the past.
As long as they get the standard IT food for working those hours, that's ok. Of course, you can only eat so much pizza or other take-away food.
The next shock! horror! story is going to be that they have two shifts of staff on 12-hour rotation, or three shifts on 8 hour on/ 16 off.
Not rocket science.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"