[outages] [Outages] Fisher Plaza Power Outage

[Sean Donelan]

On Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Alex Rubenstein wrote:
>> I like Sean's version better, though:
>>
>> 	http://www.donelan.com/design/general.html
>
> With all due respect for Sean, his version does not address specifically
> the systems analysis need that should be used to install a datacenter to
> meet a given criteria.
>
> After looking at Sean's thing more closely, that is not a guide of
> design, but instead a description of goal to reach.

You'll noticed that particular page is labeled "general."  That page is as 
you describe, the general goals to reach.  But having a "general" page may 
also imply there are other pages which identify specific system design 
elements and choices you may make ranging from siting, architectural, 
civil, electrical, mechanical, piping, operations and maintance, fire
and safety and so on.  You would probably end up with a book a couple of 
hundred pages long.

My purpose with publically posting the "general" page was to respond
to the question people used to ask me.  How do you design a data center,
and my answer was "What's you goal for the datacenter."  There isn't one
goal for a data center, so there also isn't one data center design.

People kept getting hung up on whether a data center was N-2+3^0 
redundant; and not spending the time figuring out their actual goals.
Depending on your goals, one super data center may be appropriate for
you, or a few cheap data centers in different cities may be appropriate
for you, or something completely different may be appropriate for you.

But in any case, start the discussion about what you are trying to 
achieve.