At 12:21 PM 10/18/2006, David Mathog wrote:
On further examination of the pictures it looks like at least some
of the racks are mounted "sideways", to the conventional sense.
I don't know about you folks, but 600A of 208V 3 phase combined
with water cooling, a single exit door, and conducting surfaces
everywhere sounds like it could be lethal, given 6 months of
corrosion in the pipes or a faulty plumbing joint somewhere.
You're using the wrong conceptual model. This is not a "computer
room in a box", it's more a "very large self contained rack". While I
could fit myself inside a deep double wide rack unit (and have done
so to do cabling before the equipment is installed) it's not the
normal mode of operation.
There are other things packaged like this such as fire-control and
missile guidance radars, or standby power generators (ever looked
behind the facades at traveling carnivals?), and large scale portable
HVAC. You'll also see "skid mounted" equipment, but, again, in the
basic 8x10x20-40 foot form factor. There's probably no intention that
anyone would work on it "hot". And, there's lots of industrial
equipment that combines high power and water (if not corrosive
liquids) in a shipping container sized package without
problems. It's all a matter of good engineering. One of the big
engineering challenges for the first H-bomb was how to get large
amounts of liquid deuterium around the country and to the South
Pacific without losing any of it. Big dewars and refrigeration
equipment all packaged in containers or on a skid was how it's done.
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