Saturday, July 26, 2008

This Is How It Works

You can find this sort of thing in most Media Outlets. There's always one or two things that need propped up, wiggled, sweet-talked, kept out of drafts or supplied with extra cooling.

Hey, are we still on the air?

Thanks to the Data Viking for the link!

5 comments:

  1. Too *#!@ing true!

    Thanks to you and the Data Viking for the link.

    ReplyDelete
  2. While I was "the Geek" at a local car dealership, it was decided(before I got there) to use the "server room" as an office, since the hardware only covered one wall. They put in some of those portable cubicle walls to hide the goodies, and couldn't understand why they had such trouble staying online during the summer.

    So, a trip to Wally World for a couple cheap fans stopped the outages, but the powers that be weren't happy with the fans running all the time - that dern power bill, doncha know.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is a common sight in Fortune 100 corporation's router and switch racks. The Servers get cabinets with decent airflow, but the routers, access switches and even the backbone switches had cheesy "pin-point ventilation solutions" like this:
    http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/735891/Holmes-Personal-Oscillating-Clip-Fan-White/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bah, that wussy solid-state stuff just can't take it. ;-)

    Shoulda seen my moviehouse PA racks back in the day... 6 amplifiers, each running push-pull 807s, dual 5U4 rectifier tubes and a pair of thyratron screen regulators. Convection cooling.

    You COULD put your hand on the outside of the cabinet. But you wouldn't want to... at least not for very long.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ah, it's just like this server room. To tell the story, a long, long time ago, in a land far, far... ok, here, a particular CNC was operated mainly by three guys, who's initials are H, H, and L. Not really, but it helps to put in the context that most of my troubles are now observed as "HHL problems".

    We have a room in the CNC set aside that has our two chillers. In a professional CNC we'd have a raised floor... but we don't. We'd have ventilation ducts for point cooling in the ceiling... but we don't. It's a room built into an existing structure, so I can't blame them for that.

    What I can blame them for... the actual floor area of the CNC is L shaped, with the chiller room nested in the crook of the L, one output blowing at ceiling level towards each leg. Where would a sane person put the racks? Not where they are... up against the opposite walls, exhaust towards the wall, TWENTY THREE INCHES FROM THE WALL.

    Yeah it looks neat, but when you realize that it's ~65 degrees in front of the rack and ~95 behind you understand it's a problem. We gradually grew to the point where there has to be a carpet blower moving the air out from behind the rack, or we start getting heat alerts.

    *slaps forehead* I can't move them either.

    ReplyDelete

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