Surprise! I’ve got some data center pictures for you. I’m sure this post caught you completely off-guard, so I’ll give you a moment to let your heart rate settle. If you want to call all of your friends to let them know that another incredible picture post is now available, I will wait for that as well.

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Everyone ready for me to proceed? All heart rates back in the normal 60-100 beats per minute range? I can’t promise that your heart won’t race again as you get a partially serious tour of one of our Houston Data Centers, but for right now, we are safe. A couple months ago, Brooke posted a note about our Virtual Data Center Tour, and in the comments, a “real life” data center tour was requested, so here we are. I’ll give you a more focused picture tour of the data center, and if THAT isn’t enough, I’ll dust off the transporter and start taking reservations.

This row is one of our “hot rows.” I could have taken a picture of the fronts of all of the servers with all of the pretty lights, but this side of the servers is what you really want to see from your data center. Every cable is individually marked and designated for a specific server on that rack.

See … I told you. Because the labeling and organization of each of the cords is harder to capture up-close with the larger boxes, this picture was taken behind one of our rack-mounted server racks. Don’t worry … I didn’t unplug boxes 2 and 3 on this rack to show more of the cords, but I can’t promise that I didn’t unplug ANYTHING …

This picture was taken immediately after I finished taking some crazy pills, and when I look at it, I can’t help but think of Mitch Hedberg’s “Bigfoot” observation:

I think Bigfoot is blurry, that’s the problem. It’s not the photographer’s fault. Bigfoot is blurry. And that’s extra scary to me, because there’s a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside. Run. He’s fuzzy. Get outta here.

In this case, it was the photographer’s fault.

It can be argued that this picture isn’t really showing a whole lot, but I find the detail to cleanliness and organization extremely impressive. I had to recruit Aaron to give me a run-down on what each of the wires carries, and here’s the run-down:

• Pink: Local Switch to Regional Switch
• Yellow: Regional Switch to Distribution Router
• Blue: Primary Network
• Brown: Isolated Network
• White: Remote Reboot Unit to Remote Reboot Controller
• Orange: Out-of-Band Network
• Black: Environmental Sensor
• Purple: Lunar Module Recharge Antiquantifier

I’ll let you guess which one of those I made up.

This cage houses our transport equipment. You thought I was joking about the transporter in the second paragraph? Pshaw… I don’t joke around with Star Trek references. If you look closely at the top left of the picture, you can see an orange plastic protective sleeve; that’s where the “interwebs” come from. More technically, that tube is the “pipe” or transit fiber that connects our data centers to the World Wide Web.

This picture features some of our edge routers (in blue) and core routers (in black, to the right of the edge routers).

When I walked into the data center, I felt like I was in a Sierra Mist commercial. If I had to guess the temperature outside in Houston, I would guess that it’s in the 120-130 degree vicinity (highly exaggerated), but as soon as you open the 3rd or 4th locked door to enter the data center, you get a wave of 68-70 degrees (not exaggerated).

This is the third phase of this data center’s space. When I came to Houston a few months ago, this phase was just getting raised floor installed, and I was surprised to see that the floor was “raised” about three feet from the ground. What goes under the floor in that three foot gap? Well, magic and rainbows, of course … along with power cables and the under-floor A/C vents.

This room has a caution sign on its door: “ACID.” As I was walking through the data center, snapping these pictures, one of my coworkers (who shall remain nameless), saw the sign and in a quizzical tone said, “A. C. I. D.? … I wonder what that stands for.”

While I was trying to come up with a smart-ass response to poke fun at that question, he (or she) sheepishly realized that “A. C. I. D.” might actually spell “acid.” The picture you see above is in the Uninterrupted Power Source room… which happens to be filled with batteries which happen to have battery acid which happens to lend itself to a warning sign. If the data center loses power for any reason, the batteries in this room immediately shoulder the energy load while the generators start-up.

This picture — and the next picture — were taken in the power transfer switch room. This area is the brain deciding where power is coming from (outside electricity, battery or generator) and where it is going (which phase of the data center).

These are the power transfer switches for each of the three phases of this data center. Needless to say, I didn’t touch anything in this room.

Generators. Four of them. Big ones. With such a large data center requiring so much power (and so much redundancy), our power backup couldn’t be a hamster in a wheel or a lawn mower engine. To get a perspective of how large each of these generators is, please see the picture below where I shamelessly cameo again.

Now, I’m anywhere between 6′3″ and 6′9″ depending on which convenience store I’m leaving (joke reference: Ron White), so these generators each have to be around 18 feet tall and 10 feet wide.

This picture features one of our data center NOCs (Network Operations Centers). These folks monitor the data center and are the “hands” that work with our server hardware.

As PBS would say, these tours were made possible by viewers like you. If you’ve got any more requests for pictures or brilliant insight from me, don’t be shy about sharing them.

- Kevin

If you follow the link, you’ll see that this number is unique in so many ways.

I won’t go into the specifics of the number, but will provide a general overview along with why I’d be proud to have anybody associate this number with The Planet and myself.

Continue multiplying with further integers and you can add the first number to the remaining 6 numbers to continue this cyclic permutation, or end up with the same nice high repeating number. What is a cyclic permutation? And why would one be proud to be associated with such a sequence? I’ll let you dive further into the details. What we have here is a number that repeats itself in cycles (cyclic permutation) when multiplied by integers.

1 × 142,857 = 142,857

2 × 142,857 = 285,714

3 × 142,857 = 428,571

4 × 142,857 = 571,428

5 × 142,857 = 714,285

6 × 142,857 = 857,142

7 × 142,857 = 999,999

What I see here is repetition at its finest. Repetition in a company is essential whether it be in support, accounting, information technology, networking, marketing or any other department. Repetition ensures that you end up with the same, or at least similar, results. The results should either be those that are expected or close to, with the ability to correct them. We can now associate the expected results to 142857 and the unexpected results to 1142856. When we end up with the figure 1142856, we know what needs to be done in order to correct it: 1 + 142856 = 142857.

In IT departments we should always follow this rule. While every project may be different, and require some fine tuning, we should get used to doing our job the same way every time. This ensures that if someone is sick or on vacation, any other team member can simply jump in and continue the work without breaking stride. Whether someone is evaluating new network equipment or a new control panel everything must be documented from start-to-end.

In our tech support, it’s a rule we work to follow so that we provide consistent service to our customers.

Let us know what you expect and what you were provided with support. This will help us to keep up with your ever-changing world, while we provide the infrastructure and support to ensure your business growth.

- Anthony

Alright, alright … you can sit down and stop applauding. I know you are excited to see multiple blogs from me in the course of only a few days, but I am far too humble to accept the ovation that I so clearly deserve. I have officially been employed by The Planet for 26 days as of this blog post, but I haven’t really done my job to give you a real “look” inside the company.

There’s no need to fear (shout out to all of you UnderDog fans out there) … I have begun my quest to unveil what the “behind the scenes” looks like here with a picturesque view of The Planet’s Houston offices. I hear the unanimous groaning of the audience that this post will not include my discourse on the meaning of life or my thoughts on the best colored shoes for any occasion, but those topics can stay in the hopper for a rainy day (which is not very uncommon here in Houston as of late).

If you can place where “It’s Business Time!” comes from, you get an air-5 (think of it as an internet “High Five“) directly from me. Typically, the white boards in nearly every room in the office are filled with scribbled half-writing and diagrams, but that message seemed the best opening to our tour. Click on any of the below images for a full-sized version, and please excuse any poor photographic composition. I’m an expert in a lot of things, but photography is not one of them.

I took this picture in the lobby of our headquarters, and it could use a little explanation. At a recent company meeting, teams of employees got “The Planet” building blocks to compete for a “Best Design” award, and the constructions that survived the car ride back to the office are on display in several places. There is a deeper, more philosophical meaning for a bridge-like construction deep in the heart of Texas, but I’ll leave those intricacies for another post.

71% of the Earth is covered by water, so what better than a mini-ocean behind our reception desk? If you look closely, you can see every fish in The Planet (note: this cheesy wordplay could potentially be a staple in my posts).

This conference room is linked with the other Planet offices via video and audio conferencing. Because our team is separated by a few hundred miles, face-to-screen-to-face is a great alternative to email or phone conferences for our weekly meetings. The most legendary and mythical of the meetings: The 7:30 a.m. “State of the Company” management meeting first-thing Monday morning. Well, some people get in at 6 a.m., so it might be fourth-thing Monday morning for them.

The Oasis, The Water Cooler, The Place Where Diets Go To Die … you can take your pick of names for this area. A coffee machine waiting in the wings, caffeinated drinks in the fridge, and countless snack possibilities make this a dangerously amazing place to hang out.

My desk. Can you just see the awesomeness emanating? If you click on the above picture to see the larger version, you can see a Homer’s head Rubick’s Cube, a Sudoku Rubick’s Cube, a Nerf Buzz Saw and a uniquely functional “door on top of two filing cabinets” desk.

This is Doug Erwin’s office. No huge view, no fancy chairs, no expensive desk. It gives great insight to the way Doug operates and “I’m here to get it done” mentality.

This is where the magic happens. Our tech support folks collectively take up residence in this area 24×7x365. You’ll note that we make every attempt to block out as much natural light as possible since everyone knows that the best work on the Internet is done with extremely limited exposure to that “sun” thing.

I’ll give you two guesses as to this area’s function, and the first one doesn’t count. If you are curious as to which of the tables is the “cool kids’ table,” the answer is easy: whichever one I grace with my presence.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. So we’ve got a pool table and treadmills (along with some other toys) available to all of our employees. Scroll down to see the “other toys.”

Since I’m new here, I’m flying under the radar when it comes to table tennis and foosball. I made quite a name for myself by winning the table sport biathlon gold medal at the little-known “Indoor Recreation Games.” As a note, I completely fabricated that fact in my utter modesty. I apologize.

Clearly, this is not an exhaustive tour of our offices here in Houston nor does it even scratch the surface of the setup we’ve got in Dallas. But it’s a peek at “A Day In The Life of A Planet Employee.”

Before you grab your torches and pitchforks to hunt me down and scream obscenities about not seeing any of the data centers, I will disclaim that I can get a few in-action pictures in a D.C. or two in a future post. But there is so much to see , that if I included pictures from that side, this post would read like “War and Peace.”

- Kevin