Random Thoughts: General Rant

Im a Jackass, its official :)

Tue, 20 May 2008 11:14:10 GMT

It turns out Eric Lai is a man after my own heart. I got word that he posted a response to my short dissertation on his article and I took a quick read. Before I started reading it, I envisioned a bunch of kids screaming "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!". But I have to admit I loved it. I especially loved the "mulish" comment and the basic take away that there was a need, no a desire, for more information. Hard information. He is asking the right questions. I guess at an atomic level I am just happy that there are new questions to be asked in this industry where dogmatic guardians of the standard quo fight change so hard. From the Microsoft angle - I guess my official response is "all in good time." But I can assure you it *is* coming.

Eric - You have an open invitation to cruise around the South Side of Chicago with me anytime and do what we south-siders do best...At least I know you wont run away from a good "go round". We may even stop off and take a gander at a new data center I here is going up nearby :)

/Mike

Chicago Spoken Here...

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:16:22 GMT

I was in a meeting this last week with a good mix of some members from the Data Center Services team and some vendors. One of the vendors was from Chicago and coincidently came from the same neighborhood on the south-side as I did. This proved somewhat fatal to the meeting at least from a communications standpoint for everyone else.

As some of you already know my "Chicago" accent at times comes through fairly strong. Having moved to Seattle where the only accent is a decided lack of accent, some might say I stick out a bit. Ahh, but put me in a room with someone else from Chicago and my "sout-side" comes shining "trew." :) It turns out we both knew a guy, who knew a guy, who we both knew. He lives "over bydare". Which is important to someone from Chicago, a city that works on relationships, favors, and neighborhoods. To everyone else its just plain weird. They didnt have anything we wanted to buy but I had some great fun.

For those of you who ever find yourself in a similar situation with me, I found a fun little link off of the Chicago Sun Times called the Chicagopedia. A guide to speaking like a Chicagoan. The link is below, and I hope they keep it up because they are missing quite a few. But at least its a start.

http://www.suntimes.com/chicago/chicagopedia/index.html

/Mm

I might just do it....

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 09:47:35 GMT

My day job involves building and running data centers for one of the largest companies on the planet.

Like most of the folks in my industry we follow the news in this space actively.    There is just a ton of activity going on, and for the first time in a long time there is actually real innovation happening in a space that has lacked significant advances for some time (my opinion).   If you walk into a standard data center today, it would look much the same as one did 10 to 15 years ago.

That is to say if you arent comparing to the latest generation data centers.   See thats the thing, there are a few companies out there today really pushing the envelope in driving efficiency, operations, and data center design.   Alot of these advances are happening inside the facilities, and unless you are well versed in electrical and mechanical engineering you might not see some of these advances.

One of the things that really irks me is the general "black box" view most of the tech industry has around data centers.   They are mystical places where physics and thermodynamics weave an intricate dance of kinetic revolution where the lifesblood of electricity gives animation and life to the living Internet. In the immortal words of Spanky from the Lil' Rascals, "Ah Phooey".

Yet this belief allows for the announcement of just about anything related to them that even sounds technical to be revered with awe-inspiring devotion to the non-initiated.

As an old data center dog, most of these "public" innovations are either extrapolations of things that facilities professionals have been doing for years, or in some cases are themselves things that are already wide spread in the industry.

I think what the industry needs is a Data Center for Dummies book, where the basic tenets of Data Center design, technologies, and the like are discussed. It could also talk about metrics that really matter. I have spoken with lots of data center professionals across a broad spectrum of industries and I know they share my general frustration in this space. Maybe I should write one. Of course it would be my own religion about facilities and operations and the growing complexity for global scale computing.

Most of the books on data centers today talk about operating systems, virtualization, or rack and server layout, and only a very few talk about the facilities themselves. Im not sure anyone would buy it, but given the emerging importance of these complex buildings, I am definitely considering it.

What do you think?

/Mm