The Planet Blog

Before I get into the meat of this entry, I feel it is necessary to address the comment made by my esteemed friend and colleague Thanh Tran, general manager of our Houston operations. In his blog entry earlier this month, Thanh mentioned “I work with a bunch of geeks. But that’s ok, because I’m a geek myself.”

I feel that this might have been a light-hearted jab at my previous entry, which I will readily admit was steeped in a healthy dose of science geekery.

Now, Thanh says that he too is a “geek.” For the record, I would like to point out that keeping a MS Paint-drawn Buzz Lightyear image file archived on a hard drive somewhere for nearly ten years pretty much seals the deal on one’s level of geekishness.

Thanh, I don’t think you had to tell us you are a geek; consider it self-evidenced. Just kidding around, of course …

All kidding aside, I’ve been looking forward to this blog entry, because I wanted to take a moment to acquaint everyone with just a few of the many outstanding data center technicians that our customers have probably worked with in the past. The next time you are reading a support ticket, check the usernames of the employees working the issue with you, and see if you recognize any of these excellent technicians.

For example, Jac has been with The Planet for more than two years, and is currently a Level 2 data center technician. A few days ago I was reading a recent ticket that he was working on for a customer who was suffering from a bit of “new server syndrome.” That’s the critical window of time after someone orders a new server that we have all experienced at one time or another. The customer was hard at work attempting to get his configurations in place so the server could be usable for his business, but he was running into some pretty wicked permission errors that he simply could not deduce.

Jac responded to the customer’s questions quickly and effectively, adjusting the settings to address the issues. He then went above and beyond expectations, providing the customer with some very detailed documentation related to these permission configuration issues. The problem was wholly solved, and the customer was quite happy. But more importantly, the customer was enabled to address his server needs more quickly in the future as well. It’s all about responding to business needs precisely and rapidly, and Jac Lindley does an excellent job of helping our customers achieve just that.

Another Level 2 data center technician I wanted to “introduce” is Johnny L., who has been with The Planet for almost three years, and in that time he has proven to be a strong anchor of knowledge in our data centers. Johnny is a whiz when it comes to server hardware; I’ve seen him swap out bad drives and start degraded array rebuilds so quickly it would make your head spin.

The pace of work in our data centers can be dizzying at times, and seeing guys like Johnny work can be awe-inspiring. But in the midst of all this activity, the thing that makes a guy like Johnny stand out is his attention to detail. Anyone can whip through a dozen unique hardware upgrades in record time, but not many can do it with the level of accuracy and care that Johnny displays.

I’m proud of all the technicians we have working in the data centers, but I thought to would be great to introduce a couple of our techs to everyone. Keep an eye out for them in a support ticket coming to an Orbit portal near you!

- Britt

I was reading Thanh Tran’s blog post the other night and I realized that I had the other side of that story to tell. I joined Everyone’s Internet in 2001, as the original RAQ 4i servers were just starting to be deployed and most data centers were demanding a huge setup fee to go along with a monthly service charge of $600 or more. At the time, our core business was providing dial-up internet access and this “new hosting thing” was an experiment that the owners had decided to try out.

Our support started out with a focus on control panel guidance (who here remembers the Cobalt web interface?) and reboots (offered within 24 hours, when our sysadmin, Patrick Smith, would drive from the call center to the collocation facility and process a batch of requests). At the time, my primary job responsibility was to visit customer Web sites and make sure they did not contain any adult content, which they often did when you got beyond the home page. How’s that for a job description?

Things went along at a moderate pace until two things changed at roughly the same time. First, Sun purchased Cobalt and stopped playing nice, forcing us to expand our offering to white box dedicated servers. Second, we launched our first $1 setup fee sale. I remember that I had just taken over the Web Sales team, which was then part of our dial-up sales department.

All of a sudden our little six-person team was buried in inquiries, new orders and demands for upgrades. Heady time, especially when you consider how the rest of the “tech bubble” was in the middle of a serious meltdown, and all the economy pundits could talk about was the downturn in business and a growing recession.

Now that I think about it, the ride that started that day has never really ended. 1Ghz servers became 2.0GHz+; white box systems turned into all-Dell data centers; unmanaged dedicated hosting gave way to Custom Self-Managed Servers or Private Racks; and now EV1 has joined with The Planet.

What strikes me most about that last milestone is how we all thought we would be dealing with an alien race, and instead we found we were working with the same people we had always been working with. Sometimes literally, and yes I’m talking about you, Keith.

So here we are, just over a year later, and the company known for having the best data centers has joined forces with the company known for having the best network. We also have several new members of the family on board, determined to make sure we become known for having the best support ever. I only hope the next six years are exciting as the last six were. Then again, with a company like this, how could they be anything else?

- Aaron

Here at The Planet, I think a lot about our data centers since it’s my job to ensure that our servers are up and running 24×7x365. What keeps me up at night is the continuous power and cooling required to keep your servers and systems up and the preventive maintenance that’s required to run six world-class data centers. You could say I live and breathe data center maintenance. And with more than 44,000 dedicated servers depending on our infrastructure systems, it keeps me and my team hopping.

One of things we focus on is N+1 redundancy. It’s really a math equation that ultimately boils down to having backup systems in place so that we’re able to deliver a seamless experience for customers. We’re always working to improve the processes and equipment we have in place to maintain continuous uptime which is why we have redundant UPS (uninterrupted power supply), generator and HVAC systems in place.

Customer experience is important to all of us. That’s why we take N+1 redundancy so seriously. Preventive maintenance helps us ensure uptime. Maintenance and redundancy really go hand-in-hand. At The Planet, we offer N +1 redundancy of critical infrastructure components. This ensures that in case of a component failure, another system is in place and will automatically take over for the failed component. This provides a seamless transition from one component to another, and it’s completely invisible to customers and their servers.

Redundancy is also necessary to properly test and maintain these critical systems. There’s no way to fully and properly test and maintain them without redundancies, since we would run the risk of leaving customers exposed. During maintenance and testing we have to take these critical systems/components completely offline. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an HVAC unit or a UPS module or a generator. When a system is down without a redundant system in place, customers are exposed to the possibility of the in-use system failing with no back-up available. Now that’s a scary thought.

If you haven’t seen the data center tour on our Web site, I invite you to see what my team does. Click on the “Take the Tour” button at: http://www.theplanet.com/. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

- Jeff

Managing operations in a data center can be pretty stressful, so one of my favorite ways to relax is reading scientific literature. I know it doesn’t sound like a very riveting hobby, but I’m rarely happier than when I have a copy of New Scientist or Scientific American in my hands. I consume the material with a voraciousness that might cause some to question my sanity. Mental health aside, I was reading an interesting article in Discover this month that provided one of those really great “ah ha” moments that related to The Planet’s data centers. Or more intimately, the place where your server lives.

The article covered some math that had been performed to determine the true, actual weight of the data that makes up the Internet. Starting with the weight of a single electron (2 x 10^-30 pound), the author broke down the number of electrons required to charge a single capacitor (the charge equaling a “1” in binary) in a computer’s memory (40,000), assuming a roughly 50 – 50 split on 1’s and 0’s in a typical 50 kilobyte e-mail. The resulting sum can then be used to determine an electron count per message (8 billion), landing us at a weight for a single e-mail of two ten-thousandths of a quadrillionth of an ounce. Now extrapolate that math across the whole of all Internet traffic; all the e-mail, Web pages, music, videos, instant messages and everything else we all contribute to the Internet. Data-wise you arrive at a mind-blowing 40 Petabyte number. However, that 40 Petabytes only equates to a weight of 1.3 x 10^-8 pound. That’s right … in real-world terms, all that data equals the weight of the smallest possible grain of sand, one measuring only two-thousandths of an inch across.

It’s pretty bewildering to think that all the effort and energy we contribute to this industry equates to such an infinitesimal true weight. Pondering that breakdown about the Internet, my thoughts drifted to another possible dissection: the data center. However, I wasn’t thinking in terms of the sub-atomic, but rather of the cellular. Let’s move from physics to biology.

Data centers are huge installations with myriad of moving parts that work to keep your server online and operational. So much so that you could liken the whole amalgamation to a living, breathing entity. Breaking down those parts to a cellular level proves to be an interesting exercise.

All organisms need sustenance, just as the data center needs AC power to survive. Think of the servers as cells in a body, varied infinitely, and specialized in both form and function. Striated muscle or peptidergic neural cells … MySQL database back-end or Battlefield 1942 server, the variations are vast. Communication is achieved via neurons arranged in a systemic network, just as the data center’s network interconnects dedicated servers to each other and to the outside world. Organelles that give metabolic function to a cell are comparable to RAM, hard drives and RAID cards, all of which are vital working parts of your server. You can even think of The Planet’s network security technicians as white blood cells fighting infection, and our DC technicians like powerful enzymes performing repairs on the cells. I guess you could refer to a RAM change out as an “organelle swap.”

But as anyone knows, the most important piece of any entity is its DNA: the core code that provides instruction, design and ultimately life to the organism. Paralleling that vital piece of the organism, a data center has DNA as well, which comes in the form of our customers. Without customers providing pattern and direction, the data center remains a nebulous blob of power, wiring and equipment without purpose or consciousness. But infused with our customers’ DNA, the data center springs to life, demonstrating utility and structure, ambition and organization.

So the next time that you are sweating a data migration or pushing code changes, stop to think about the part you play in this grand scheme and the amazing interrelation you have with this “data center organism.” But if that proves to be a bit too mind-expanding, then you can revert that tiny grain of sand that makes up all the information on the Internet. Large or small, we all have a part to play.

The first time I saw the inside of a data center I had already worked in Web hosting sales for nearly two years. A member of our executive management team had decided that if we were going to sell dedicated servers we should probably have some concept of what they looked like.

I knew the building well; we’d once had a company-wide meeting in the lobby at 7:00 AM on a Saturday, so until our field trip I associated data centers with stale coffee and discontent over early weekend meetings. Although the data center and I had shared a less-than-stellar first encounter, when I finally stepped through the door that separated our then 14,000 or so servers from the rest of the world I never wanted to leave.

For those who have never had the pleasure or opportunity, visiting a large data center is something akin to a religious experience. Everything is so clean and sanitized. There are thousands of machines lined up in perfectly symmetrical rows and racks that tower above you, all connected by miles upon miles of a brilliant cable rainbow. The words you speak die in mid-air, absorbed by the sound of an electrified, whirring wonderland.

But in spite of the majesty of our data center’s sights and sounds, the part that struck me most was the smell. Imagine the new-plastic smell your CPU gives off when you plug a home computer for the first time, multiplied by many thousands, floating through perfectly filtered air. Within the first five minutes I wanted every customer to come and visit. They had to see and hear and, most importantly, smell what I was experiencing.

So when I read this article about the rising popularity of rub and sniff marketing my first thought was that we needed a way to recreate the smell of our data centers and include it in our print ads. We would be pioneers in olfactology for IT businesses!

Before this idea could come to fruition, it was pointed out to me that the smell of the data center really doesn’t do it for everyone. Although I cannot imagine why, some people even find it downright unpleasant, preferring smells like vanilla and sandalwood to plastic and electricity. One of our data center managers has even told me that while the CPUs and the electricity were contributing factors, most of what I smell is the fan belts on the air conditioning units, but that sounds much less romantic.

Still, the data center experience is more widely available to our customers than ever before. We now have a data center tour, starring actual Planet employees and filmed in our very own data centers. Click the button that says, “Take the Tour” on http://www.theplanet.com/ and enjoy our video, scent not included. For that part, you still need to make the trip to Texas and schedule a guided tour … break room coffee included.

I ran across an interesting article today that highlights an important question that any individual should ask themselves before selecting a hosting provider: “Can I grow my business with this company?”

Quoting the article:

Forty-three percent of data centers are running out of physical space and power density in racks is at an all time high, a survey by the Aperture Research Institute shows.

The survey of over 100 enterprise data managers, representing over 600 data centers, covered a spectrum of company sizes and industries, including banking, insurance, healthcare, data services, retail and telecommunications.

Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed indicated that 75 percent or more of the space in their data centers was already allocated to IT equipment. More than 43 percent of respondents reported that 90 percent or more of their data centers were in use, which may suggest that future needs are being planned with the rapid growth in processing and storage across all industries.

Additionally, the study reveals that power consumption is at an all-time high and power density is one of the biggest concerns out there.

This should come as no surprise to most people in the industry. The data center capacity glut that existed just a few years ago has totally disappeared, with companies like Digital Realty Trust snapping up just about every property worth owning. Once again we’re seeing significant investments in new data center builds. These are not the data centers of yesteryear. These have two or three times the power and cooling capacity of data centers built just 4 - 5 years ago. Building these data centers requires huge amounts of capital – which many in the hosting industry simply do not have.

Did you know that Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build new data centers simply to house their own IT infrastructure? The reason behind this is because supply is low, demand is high – and they need to be able to control their costs. The only way to do this is to own and operate your own facilities.

So whether you’re purchasing your first dedicated server and shopping for the best deal or purchasing your 100^th dedicated server and looking for the next hot server technology, it’s important to ask your provider if they’re going to have the capacity to meet your needs as your business continues to grow. Failing to do so will either result in your ability to grow being limited, or having to plan a possibly painful migration later down the road.

Read the entire article here:
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20070501PR206.html

- Will