Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Right out of Dilbert...

So here we are, the four of us, sitting in my boss' office. The meeting was called to fine tune details of a multi-phase project that we are trying to get approved. It will give us full redundant power, new environmental controls and some other items desperately needed in the Data Center.

I guess the first thing you need to understand is that, as Project Manager, I was just brought into this project recently. The second thing is that, no matter how hard he tries, my boss does not understand electrical loading and proves it frequently. During a meeting a couple weeks ago, we were discussing what all was entailed in putting this new electrical system in. The electrician laid out all the equipment he was going to need to put in. Having experience in power distribution for amp racks, cameras, lighting and other goodies, I quickly recognized a problem. We were about to embark on putting two very large transformers into the same room as our sensitive equipment, servers, switches and such. These items like clean stable power and are do not like to be exposed to stray electromagnetic interference and heat. These two transformers are basically huge wire wound magnetic fields generators that produce enough heat to fry your breakfast. We won't even get into the noise switching gear that goes in with them to kick everything over to the generators in the event of power failure. Let's just call putting all this stuff in the Data Center space "a bad idea at best".

At this point, I'll let you in another little fact. There is an office in the Network Services space just outside the Data Center. There has been noone put into this office since it was vacated by its previous tenant. This has been because of not wanting to have any one Network Services employee be given prefernce over the other (also known as preventing bad feelings). As the equipment was spelled out on the white board before us, I immediately sensed impending doom from two fronts. The first being: "Where the heck is all this stuff going to fit in an already crowded Data Center?" Secondly, and no less important: "What kind of heat and interference are we going to inject into the room with this equipment?" We are already doubling the size of the air handler to a 20 ton unit.

My brain immediately clicks on a solution that will fix our power equipment concerns AND solve the problem with who gets that spare office. "Put all this gear in the spare office." I state, almost like I knew what I was doing. "Its wall is the outside block wall of the Data Center, making it the perfect place for an Electrical Room." Bells and whistles go off. Lights begin to flash and the room is abuzz with chatter as everyone agrees that would solve all our issues. Heat, Electromagnetic Noise, Radio Frequency Interference and Vibration all become non-issues as the room is on building ventilation and its outside the concrete walls of the Data Center, yet close enough to meet codes and wiring requirments.

Back to today's meeting. We are going over the details again. The project now has gone from replacing the HVAC Unit and some wiring to a full five, yes count 'em five, phases. My boss proclaims in a very loud voice "I'm glad I thought of using that office as an electrical room!" I didn't say a word. I didn't have to. The electrician and the guy that deals with our facilities both turned and looked right at me like "He stole your idea as his own!?" I guess these guys don't read Dilbert. I knew the boss would do that. It made him look like a genius to the directors because he was solving a bunch of issues with a room we already had built. HAHA! That's the way it goes. We all got a good chuckle out of it after he left the room.

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