Last Thursday, end-users from Oracle, Apple, SanDisk and other companies in Silicon Valley gathered at Digital Realty’s 2805 Lafayette Street facility to discuss the best practices when building out and managing data center whitespace. This seminar developed out of a convergence of several companies working in the industry who felt that bringing together their areas of expertise, generated from years of experience working in facilities across the world, would offer the participants a holistic understanding of data center operations. The event was called Beyond Whitespace and held in Santa Clara, CA on April 27th, 2017.
The morning began with an overview of data center efficiencies by Mark Bramfitt, who was the architect of PG&E’s data center efficiency program. He noted that although the data center community has made a lot of progress when it comes to efficiency and the proper layout of white space, we’re still discussing many of the same issues that have been talked about over the last ten years.
The timing of Mark’s remarks couldn’t be more appropriate for the next speaker, Lars Strong of Upsite Technologies. Lars focused his presentation on airflow management, more specifically understanding the science of 4 delta T’s found in every data center. He concluded by explaining to the audience how to bring down the PUE of their data center(s) through bypass airflow techniques.
Next up, Cam Rogers of RLE Technologies talked both about the importance of enabling monitoring in the data center and the importance of knowing what monitoring capabilities you already have in use. Cam cited several interesting anecdotes – one of an international company that implemented an expensive DCIM tool and then put out an RFP for another system because they were unaware that their current system was capable of the features that they were looking for. Another detailed a company that purchased a DCIM solution over two years ago, but never implemented due to its complexity.
Rounding out the buildout part of the seminar was Steve Clark from Instor. Steve discussed how all of the airflow management and DCIM solutions tie together in a comprehensive whitespace buildout. He explained how important it is to have one implementer to tie together all of the airflow management and monitoring solutions into an effective operational environment. Essentially, to avoid some of the pitfalls that were mentioned by RLE and Upsite, it’s important to have one entity spearheading installation of these solutions.
To wrap up the event, attendees heard from George Rogers, VP of Asset Management, West Region for Digital Realty and Joe Rousseau, one of Digital Realty’s Senior Sales Engineers. Both George and Joe gave an overview of 2805 Lafayette and some of Digital’s holdings throughout the West Region. They also unveiled Digital’s newest location of 3205 Alfred in Santa Clara. This facility is set to open by Q1 of 2018. The two story six megawatt facility boasts nearly 13,000 square feet of whitespace on the first floor and just over 18,000 square feet on the second floor.
Upon the conclusion of the Digital Realty presentation, attendees were taken on a tour of 2805 Lafayette where they were able to examine the layout, infrastructure, and capacity of the impressive data center.
Please keep in touch on the Beyond Whitespace website as we take the show to other locations throughout the country.
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