[LINK] Greening ICT

[Tom Worthington]

At 04:02 PM 10/02/2009, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>... How much of the data centre space is needed for humans?

Very little. Apart from the space needed for technicians to move 
between the racks of equipment, there is only space needed for 
offices for perhaps a dozen staff at a large centre.

There is no need for anyone, apart from the technicians who install 
and maintain the equipment, to be on the premises at a data centre. 
In particular there is no need for programmers to be at the data 
centre or to be told it its location. There should be no guided tours 
and no VIP visitors. In several decades of working in computing I 
have only been into data centers about half a dozen times and none of 
those visits were necessary.

An example of what not to do is the Global Switch data centre in the 
Old Government Printing office in Sydney. This multistory data centre 
takes up valuable real estate in central Sydney 
<http://www.globalswitch.com/locations/sydney.en.html>. This makes 
little sense as the servers do not have to commute to work and do not 
appreciate the excellent harbor views through the windows.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University