A Data Center That Looks Like a Mansion 101
1sockchuck writes "A luxury homebuilder in Minnesota wants to build a data center that looks like a mansion, allowing the commercial building to fit into a residential neighborhood. The 'community-based data center' designed for FiberPop features a stone facade and sloped roof with dormers, along with an underground data hall."
Re:But what does it sound like? (Score:5, Informative)
In particular, will the neighbors enjoy the continuous howling of the AC fans?
That and the dual 1 megawatt diesel generators, which are test run once a week for an hour during 3rd shift, mostly to keep 3rd shift awake... They're a little bit quieter than a locomotive at full throttle, but not much.
Another important point is this is only a couple hundred miles from my home, and unless things are wildly different there than here, the "urban skyscraper area", hospital, police dept, etc are snowplowed out every 30 minutes during storms, but residential? Eh, maybe an hour or two after the storm ends, they'll think of plowing it out. So they have no access in or out of the building during a snow storm. Whoops.
Finally all the DCs I've worked with/at had underground feeders. No big deal in the urban area or farmland, but in McMansion-ville you're going to seriously annoy the neighbors constantly digging up their rosebushes.
Of course, they are probably not installing a "real" data center, because a FTTH provider does not require one, my guess is they're probably installing a single rack (or less) of gear as part of some tax or zoning or building code dodge. Maybe zoning doesn't allow a sales office, tech center, or warehouse, but they Really Want one, so they'll install a "data center" instead which happens to coincidentally have a sales dept, warehouse. tech dispatch center, etc, located in the same building.
Re:Real reason (Score:5, Informative)
Easier for the techs to get pizza delivery.
Actually, in that blue-blood upper-class suburb they might have fewer pizza delivery options (at least at rates that techs can afford to pay) than they would have in the city proper.
Re:Minnetonka, Minnesota (Score:5, Informative)
I saw a similar move a few years ago where the builder tried to force approval of a mobile home park with a "corrective amendment" in a township that required a 2 acre minimum lot size because he really wanted to put up tract homes and a small sewage treatment plant that nobody trusted would be operated correctly. That attempt failed because the township didn't exclude mobile homes (there were actually a fair number of mobile homes in the largely rural township where the 2 acre minimum was needed for proper on-site septic systems). But it was a long and expensive fight.
Re:Hmmm .. (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, use rather than looks, but there are ways to game the system...
I almost bought a (gorgeous!) pair of 1920's bungalow set in a history-steeped downtown, small-town America. There was over 3,000 feet of living space, enormous basements, riverfront access to a gorgeous river, etc.
But there were some caveats: because it was downtown, it was zoned for light commercial use, which meant that although you could live there, you had to have a "primary presence" of a commercial space. So where the front room would be, there was a clothing shop, with a sign, and posted hours: "open by appointment only" that nobody ever went into and hadn't been looked at in years.
After thinking about it (and the culture of the very small town, not nearly as intellectual as I'm used to) I decided not to buy. Of course, history is the best judge; had I bought the place I would likely have a net worth far greater than I do now, since the city bought the property under imminent domain and the owner made a small fortune on it.
I guess I just wanted to say that properties are frequently not what they seem. For giggles, take a Google tour of some of the stealth oil wells in the Los Angeles area.