On Wednesday 18 December 2002 02:47 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, Ken Hawkins wrote:
> > Or some places just have STUPID architects.
> >
> > Our College had a new satellite campus built in a small town. The
> > architect claimed to be an expert on designing for communications
> > equipment and computer labs. When we went to set up all the servers and
> > computers, we found a server room no bigger than a broom closet, with a
> > WATER/air cooling system mounted ABOVE the cabinet built for the servers
> > and hubs. There was not even a drip tray in case of dribble leakage, let
> > alone protection from a serious blowout. The servers ended up occupying
> > an empty nook next to someone's desk, and the "server room" is an
> > air-conditioned mop-closet.
> >
> > And this jack-ass still gets PAID to design buildings!
>
> At my last company, the main server room -- housing multiple Sun E250s, a
> couple E450s, a 6500, dozens of rack mounts -- had a huge glass window
> on the outside wall. Maybe the same architect designed ours too. Nothing
> like a huge glass window (not impact proof) in a place that gets at
> least a few tropical storms and a couple major hurricanes every few
> years. Not to mention the problem of having your entire data center
> visible from passers-by.

I don't think that you can place all of the blame on the architect. At some 
point in the design process, there must have been a design review by the 
client. The major purpose of these reviews is to identify and resolve exactly 
such flaws as have been mentioned. My guess is that either the knowledgeable 
people weren't invited, the CEO wanted visitors to be impressed with what an 
extremely high tech outfit lived in the building, or the IT guy didn't bother 
to review the drawings before the meeting.

(Not that I hold any brief for architects, but as an engineer who spent 40 
years designing industrial products, I have endured my share of design 
reviews. While it was never easy to see my baby torn apart, I also knew that 
it was better to fix these problems while they could be resolved by moving 
some lines around rather than after all of that money had been spent.)

I'm curious about one thing. From what I remember from my HVAC course, I'd 
think that a big window in a southern location implies great amounts of 
radiant heat gain at certain times of the day (unless the window faced the 
north). Did this have any effect on the equipment?

-- cmg


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