With the new schedule, our employees work 12 hours each day in a two-week rotation. In one week they’ll work three days, followed by four days the following week. These schedules actually provide more people on each shift throughout the entire day, and also eliminate wasted time overlaps between shifts and days with double staff.

Every technician affected by the schedule change alternates three- and four-day weekends. Because the shifts are longer, each technician comes into the office seven out of every 14 days, compared with 10 out of every 14 days with the old schedules. The new schedule also streamlines our support communications, especially with regard to ownership and handoffs. We’re eliminating a few shift changes in the middle of the day, so projects and tickets aren’t as likely to bounce between shifts. Not only is this a benefit to our customers, our employees like the additional freedom it provides.

The efficiencies gained from the new schedules will reduce our data center operations costs by approximately $500,000 a year. With that savings, we can fund new positions and projects to improve service. It also increases our efficiency and effectiveness, which are two of the most important mantras in any “operations” handbook.

We’ve implemented the new schedules in four of the six data centers so far, with the final two migrating to the new schedules within the next few weeks. The feedback from the technicians and management staff in the first four data centers has been overwhelmingly positive.

I’d like to personally thank all of our helpful and open-minded technicians who have allowed us to make a significant change in their lives. Our success is fundamentally tied to the team’s 100 percent commitment to the new structure, and we couldn’t be happier with the results.

-Scott

However, the floodgates opened and immediately, we were up to our ears in JPEGs — over 300 of them. The “problem” we ran into was that all of the pictures were phenomenal. We wanted to include them all, but entering 300 lines of HTML didn’t seem like much fun — especially when the lines of code look like this:

<a href=”Dragon Boat Large Picture URL”><img class=”centered” src=”Dragon Boat Small Picture URL” alt=”Picture Title”/></a>

With the help of a useful Wordpress plugin, we linked the blog to a newly created Flickr account, and we’ve been playing with the newfound functionality ever since. You’ll notice the new photostream widget in our sidebar, and you can click on any of our photos to see other pictures from our Flickr pool in a gallery layout or in a slideshow.

If you’re a Flickr user, come join our group and contribute your favorite pictures: www.flickr.com/groups/theplanet! I’m still getting pictures from last weekend and sifting through them, so keep an eye on our photostream for updates: The Planet’s Flickr

Check out the Dragon Boat Race photo set:

Our CFO Kevin Klausmeyer threw down the gauntlet a couple months ago in a team-wide email: “Let’s pit the managers against the rest of the company, and see who wins in a 250-meter dragon boat race down Buffalo Bayou.” Most of the folks around the office had never heard of dragon boating prior to Kevin’s email, but as soon as the inter-office challenge was put on the table, everyone made a point to find any relevant YouTube videos and Wikipedia articles and start training for what was sure to be an epic showdown.

The Texas Dragon Boat Association’s May Festival course accommodates three 22-person dragon boats at a time — each dragon boat having one “drummer,” twenty paddlers and one steersperson. Each team races at least three times and needs a minimum of 8 females and 8 males in the boat for each race.

Before you write off the athleticism of the event and start humming “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” you should note that these dragon boats can range from 30 to 100 feet long and only a few feet wide (just enough for one paddler on each side), each race is less than two minutes, and it’s a full-body workout. Teamwork and technique are the two most important components in a dragon boat race, so each of our teams had several practices to get everyone on the same page.

The managers chose to race under the name “The Planet Big Dogs,” so it was only fitting that the non-managers entered the competition as “The Planet Underdogs.” The other teams in the event couldn’t help but fear us as they read our team’s description in the program:

The Planet is widely regarded as an industry-leading IT Infrastructure provider. With multiple data centers, an incredible network and stellar support, we provide small- and medium-sized businesses with customized hosting solutions to fit their needs. We also harbor a secret: The Planet’s recent move to the Bayou Place in downtown Houston was not as innocent as it seemed … it was a strategic move to attract the former Olympians currently slated to paddle for us in the dragon boat races. Following a recent trip to the Yangtze River in China where we practiced our craft on the backs of real dragons, The Planet’s teams have consistently averaged 63 mph in nightly training races at a secret underground facility. In the interest of sportsmanship (and because we hate making our opponents cry), we will disguise our teams as a couple of rag-tag groups of first-time dragon boaters for this event. Autographs, training tips and a dragon boat DVD/Blu-Ray lecture series will be available to the losing teams at a nominal fee following the event.

Saturday rolled around, and everyone showed up to our luau-themed tent in their team shirts, and it was finally time to back up all the inter-office smack talk. Immediately prior to the race, the Underdogs were confident, the Big Dogs were creative: Doug came over to let us know “The winning team is accepting a 10% decrease in salary,” and the rest of the managers were quick to remind us that our yearly performance reviews were coming up soon.

Undaunted, the Underdogs took to the boat, and we made our way to the starting line. Apparently, the pride of the victory wasn’t going to be reward enough, so a last-minute wager was placed: the losing team has to buy and serve lunch to the winning team. The race was on: a team from Cafe Express in boat #4, the Underdogs in boat #5, and the Big Dogs in boat #6.

[See post to watch the Flash video]

Always bet on the Underdogs.

The Big Dogs were very gracious in defeat, and we had a great time cheering for each other in rest of the day’s races.

In addition to the awards given to the fastest boats of the day, the TDBA gave a special “Spirit of the Dragon” award to the team that showed the most energy, involvement, and excitement. I’ll save you the suspense:

We won!

We had more than 100 participants, family, friends and cheerleaders throughout the day, so we’ve got a LOT of pictures from the event. I’ll be posting them on a dedicated “Dragon Boat Pictures” blog page so you can retroactively participate vicariously.

-Kevin

I have never been a fan of policies written by senior executives and then simply rolled out with a directive to follow. For any policy to be effectively implemented, I contend that the team that must follow these policies should have a hand in helping to craft the policies or at least understand why the policies were created. More importantly, these processes come together through the team, rather than from a single individual’s effort. The best method I have seen for this comes from the Six Sigma Continuous Process Improvement (CPI) methodology.

In our data centers, we have created a Continuous Process Review (CPR) team made up of technicians, supervisors and managers across multiple cities. This team is solely responsible for the review and creation of all operations policies, processes and procedures across our six data centers.

The results from our team’s work together have been outstanding. In the last two months, we have produced new and/or updated policies for operational functions like ticket prioritization, technical escalations and management escalations. Since all levels of the data center operations organization are represented, the response to the new policies has been fantastic.

I owe many thanks to all the people who have participated on this new CPR team. None of this could have been achieved without their hard work and dedication.

The Planet’s goal is to provide the best customer experience in the hosting industry, and the data center operations team plays a huge role in that experience. Our ability to adapt to the evolving hosting landscape and respond directly to customer feedback is instrumental in improving the way our data centers run, so if you have any suggestions with regard to our data center policies and procedures, please let me know.

-Scott

Network

How does the provider’s network compare to the competition? Can it survive multiple bandwidth partner failures? Can it neutralize a multiple-Gbps DDOS attack?

Support

Is support staff available whenever I need it? Can I talk to a human immediately if I have an emergency? Does the provider employ certified staff that can help me with advanced issues?

Facilities

Can the provider host my IT infrastructure in multiple data centers and in more than one city? Does the company own its own facilities (or is it renting)? Is the data center entirely within the hosting provider’s control?

Power

Can the company survive a catastrophic power event such as being cut off from utility power for more than a week? Is the provider on a dedicated power grid within its facility or does it share a power infrastructure with other companies? Is the company’s power generation and distribution infrastructure regional (i.e., one unit per section of a data center) or is it integrated, providing true N+1 or better redundancy?

Vendors

Does the company use high-quality, name-brand vendors with equipment under warranty or does it offer generic, off-brand solutions? Do its vendors consider the company one of their top customers?

Product Portfolio

Does the provider offer a wide range of upgrades and add-ons or am I limited to its predefined packages? If the provider doesn’t have exactly what I need, can I special-order it?

Without definitive answers to questions like these, a price quote alone is pretty meaningless. After all, it’s the total value of the service — and not just the monthly fee — that is the true measure of any service offering.

1. The estimated time for set-up and take-down of one’s booth is always two hours longer than your worst-case scenario
2. Booth babes, whether “babey” or not, major traffic at one’s booth and guarantee drool from sales guys
3. It’s probably in my best interest not to go along with any of Hazard’s ideas … and then let him film it

In what could probably be considered a lapse of judgment (I blame the delirium that settled in on the second day of the show), I actually let Hazard convince me to anchor a mock “World News from The Planet” show from our booth. The idea sounded innocently fun at 9:30 in the morning, before I had my coffee.

I put on my best “serious journalist” face (required: squinty eyes and permanent look of concern) and attempted to imbue the most banal statement with great importance (a combo of long pauses and squinty eyes here do the trick).

Check it out for yourself below as I give an “insightful” report on what you should look for in a data center, with a special bonus interview with The Planet’s Jeff Reinis. Meanwhile, I’ll be huddled in my cube, cringing from embarrassment … while Kevin cackles with evil glee on the other side of the partition.

[See post to watch the Flash video]

Houston is recognized as the energy capital of the world, so it may be a surprise to learn that amidst that distinction The Planet does its part to reduce energy costs. In fact, we have been featured in several “green technology” articles over the past few months and acknowledged for our common sense approach. Ultimately, we look to save money, reduce consumption and improve data center efficiency. And in the coming weeks, we’ll announce an expanded program that takes us to the next level in increasing those efficiencies.

Tier1 is a leading research firm, and Martin Levy is the firm’s “green” analyst. In his report on The Planet, his headline was simple: “Down-to-earth solutions help improve efficiency at The Planet.”

Martin goes on to say the following:

Not a word about carbon offsets. Nobody planting trees. Nothing about Renewable Energy Credits (RECs). No recycling bins at the entrance to the datacenters. Instead, today’s announcement from The Planet was all about core datacenter efficiency. The company runs six datacenters and because of a focus on efficiency, it expects to save over one million dollars during 2008 … T1R is impressed. The Planet has shown that going green can be done the old-fashioned way. Make the technology work better and the company sees a positive ROI. That’s still good for the environment and even better for the bottom line!

Our facilities team is always on the lookout for new ways to reduce energy costs, since it’s one of our biggest expenses. Our vice president of facilities, Jeff Lowenberg, took an interesting challenge at the end of last year: Cut power costs by $1 million dollars in 2008, while we continue to grow and provision new servers in our six world-class data centers.

In his Sustainable IT blog, Ted Samson reported on a few of the initiatives aimed at improving our efficiency:

• Rearranging floor tiles to better manage cold airflow
• Installing seals and grommets in the ceilings, walls, and floors to reduce bypass airflow
• Installing blanking plates in server cabinets to direct airflow more efficiently
• Sealing power distribution units to reduce bypass airflow

Ted also explained the significance of those “minor” improvements:

Cool air was going to only where it was needed: the server intakes … Six months later, the company finds that its efforts have paid off substantially. Even though critical server loads increased by 5 percent, the facility’s overall cooling power needs dropped by 31 percent … The Planet also improved its “coefficient of efficiency,” an EPA- and Uptime Institute-recognized measurement of the total power necessary to operate a data center, divided by critical power, which represents the energy required to operate its computers. The company increased its rating to 1.7 – a near-ideal number – from its previous “good” ranking of 2.0.

Matt Stansberry at Search Data Center also spoke with Jeff about our progress and shared a few additional details in the quest to improve data center cooling:

Data center cooling is where most of infrastructure energy efficiency is lost. The fundamental rule in energy efficient cooling is to keep hot air and cold air separate … The Planet uses a method of extending the height of its computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units’ return-air plenums to optimize air cooling … By extending the plenums higher, it ensures that the CRAC units are not sucking in any cold air from the cold aisles, as it allows for the hottest air to be sucked into the units. In this scenario, the top of the plenums must be at least 2 feet from the ceiling.

To get an idea of what “plenums” are, you can visit Matt’s post or Heather Clancy’s recent article about The Planet at ZDNet’s GreenTech Pastures … and while you’re there, be sure to check out the post’s opening line.

To stay in the loop about what is being done in the “green tech” sphere, keep an eye on Ted Samson’s Sustainable IT blog, GreenerComputing, The Daily T1R from Tier1 Research, ZDNet’s GreenTech Pastures and Search Data Center.

And watch for more news from us.

-Yvonne

Warning: This blog will contain strange language that those outside of Louisiana might not understand. I’ll provide definitions and maybe someday I’ll do a video blog so you can hear how these words should be pronounced. If you know what a Cajun accent sounds like, you should read this blog in that voice. Cuz Sha, it sounds a whole lot betta dat way.

Being a native of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, (or a “transplant” as we so often get called) I love me some crawfish. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was one of the first grown-up foods that I ever ate as a child. I can still remember my momma peeling a bunch of tails for me at family crawfish boils. She’d make a little sandwich with some dip made with ketchup, mayonnaise and Tabasco sauce. Yes, Tabasco. I was probably around 2 or 3 years old. I don’t ever remember not eating them.

You see, Breaux Bridge happens to be the crawfish capital of the world and my family raises them. It’s my heritage and in my blood. So imagine my glee when I was asked to create an invite and flyer to pass around the office for the crawfish boil we were having. I did a little dance to Wayne Toups in my head.

So we sat out on the patio downstairs grubbin’ on crawfish on a breezy spring afternoon in downtown Houston. For those of you who have never had them, you are seriously missing out. They are boiled with spicy seasoning and usually have potatoes, corn and sausage thrown in. They are messy little suckers so don’t wear your Sunday best while eating them. You’ll probably even need a bib and lot of wet naps. It takes some patience and work to fully enjoy crawfish. It’s an art, really. Best consumed with an icy cold beer, but we were at work so we had to make do with iced tea and lemonade. I could go into the graphic detail of eating them (sucking the heads and all that) but maybe I’ll save that for an instructional video the next time we have one.

See? Messy.

We mixed and mingled, and everyone enjoyed themselves. I’m sure we were a sight as the cars drove by; a bunch of people eating crawfish on the sidewalk/patio outside of a downtown office building at lunch. I can’t imagine the myriad of banks, accounting firms and oil companies that surround us doing the same thing. But this is The Planet and that’s how we roll.

Some folks here aren’t really crawfish kind of people. (I don’t really understand that but I pretend to.) So we had hotdogs and Frito pie for those who weren’t, along with chocolate cake and carrot cake for desert. To really add to the atmosphere, we ate to the sounds of Zydeco music. We almost had a fais do-do going on here. I wanted to get my Cajun two-step on, but I didn’t have a dance partner. Maybe next time I’ll teach someone in advance.

Also, as a bit of lagniappe, CEO Doug Erwin announced the beginning of Hawaiian shirt weather. We had a few people eager to participate.

A beautiful day, good people and good food. What a fantastic way to kick off spring. As we say in Louisiana, laissez les bons temps rouler (let the good times roll)!

-Ali

Apparently, someone noticed the fear of impending doom in the eyes of a group of coworkers and decided to help them prepare for April Fools’ Day by providing an age-old tool from a conspiracy theorist’s toolbox … The tin foil hat. Apparently, the pranksters helpers ran into a problem: they didn’t have hat sizes for everyone. All hope was not lost, though. A communal hat was created over eight full cubes (with a perimeter of about 125′) to protect the inhabitants from the crazy lurking outside.

Todd and I have been accused of pranking helping from the moment we walked into the office this morning.

For good reason:

[See post to watch the Flash video]

P.S. Irene has yet to retroactively grant her permission to us.

Terms like “Tier 1 bandwidth” and “fully redundant” are tossed around in networking circles, but to the uninformed, those terms may make about as much sense as “dual layer lunar module connections” and “space-time transfer warps.”

Have no fear, though. The video below should give you a good education on The Planet’s network, and you’ll avoid the typical Network Engineer initiation (which typically involves multiple pairs of socks and a gallon of peanut butter … I’ll spare you the details).

Stan Barber, our vice president of network operations, gave me a great network walkthrough, and because I think everyone could benefit from his tutorial, I did my best to transcribe the simplistic overview on video a la the UPS Whiteboard commercials.

Video Disclaimer: We are continuing to build our network, so the final schematic is forward-looking and will be fully realized shortly. The connections and their explanations have been simplified to best communicate a high-level understanding of the network … Oh, and I am not an actor nor a Network Engineer.

[See post to watch the Flash video]

Right about now, you’re probably expecting me to say something like “The Planet: It’s the Network,” but I doubt Verizon would find that message very original.

We take a lot of pride in our hosting network, so if you have any questions, please let us know and we’ll be happy to answer them for you.

-Kevin

The YouTube link: The Planet Network