-----Original Message-----
From: Hugh Smith <[log in to unmask]>
To: Records Management Program <[log in to unmask]>

Sent: 6/8/2011 1:07:03 AM
Subject: Anecdotal information on risks in server rooms and data centers.

I do not wish to have specific names but I am trying to establish a risk factor due to the increasing heat in server rooms with the new and much hotter blade servers.  I am seeing clients who upgrade their servers and immediately have issues with their cooling equipment as it is insufficient to the higher loads.

How many of you are aware of situations from your last five years of actual experience:

Failing cooling systems?  Yes or No
Computer shutdowns due to overheated servers?
Malfunctions in the servers or network that stems from these issues?

I see the computer room cooling guys struggling to keep up.  Liquid cooling that was eliminated years ago with the arrival of smaller platforms is now back on the table.  

But I wonder if the questions above are witnessed by the RM's on site?

With the Cloud, these new data centers are huge and the Data Center in a Box touts the high density.

This current heatwave sweeping the country will be an interesting model to see how downtime climbs when the whole building struggles and the server room is not receiving extra help from the building to go along with their hot environment that is of their own creation.

The elephant walking through your headquarters that the IT guys and their hardware guys are ignoring is 1) In a power grid that is struggling what will the heat load do?  2) When about 3 million electric cars start plugging in each day to recharge their batteries, where is the capacity?  3) Who is thinking about it.

I am not a records manager but this might be a one page White Paper that would make some people take notice of your forward thinking.  I am writing a 10 pager that covers this and more about the risks of the Cloud, changing technology, risks that are evolving.  But I keep being drawn back to this cooling problem and the fragility of these servers.

If you would prefer to reply off list, that is fine.  I am not looking for citations of names, just at trend analysis.  If you would like to see a rough draft to use for your own ideas, I can copy the paper to you.

Plus you are records managers, pull out your HVAC Company bills to service the computer room.  How many times have they had to upgrade.  How many repair trips because the air conditioning was struggling so they made a service call to bring it back to peak efficiency as anything less was shutting down the servers when their automatic cut offs were triggered.


Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
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(610)  756-4440    Fax (610)  756-4134
WWW.FIRELOCK.COM

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