First of all, most of my ultra-efficient designs use water for cooling, often indirect evaporative systems. Hence, we trade energy use for water use. Now water is far less costly than energy and often has a much lower carbon footprint and other environmental impact per unit of cooling than electricity. But it always is a bonus to use recycled water, as it has an even lower environmental impact than standard potable supply. Of course, all water IS recycled. There are only a finite number of water drops on this wonderful planet that sustains us and every one of them has been around the water cycle block at least a few times, so in essence, all water is recycled.

As we use water to help or entirely cool our data centers, water plays an even greater role in data centers to achieve the greatest efficiency. Hence, water quality, capacity, cost and reliability of service are just as important as any other valuable input into our system of operations, making these factors and the future cost of water even more important into our site selection decisions. I’ve seen water cost between $.10 to $10.00 per 1,000 gallons—wow! What a spread! And I’ve seen it increase at 40% rates per year! Wouldn’t it be nice to have a consistent price from a non-profit water system that YOU have control over and full visibility into all costs? And one that is built to meet the high-availability and quality standards for data centers, and is DEDICATED to data center use? That is what you get at the Reno Technology Park!

And it’s not just the supply but also the discharge of water. I learned much about water discharge challenges in Quincy, WA, when building the Yahoo! data center there, as the local water utility wanted Microsoft and Yahoo! to pony up $10-15 million to pay for a new water treatment plant to handle the QUANTITY of our discharge water. Our quality was fine, but the quantity was too much for the current systems. This led me to find solutions to reduce the cooling tower blow down and avoid this $10+ million unplanned cost to our project.

I’ve always been a fan of chemical-free water treatment systems, but when looking for new solutions to solve our problem, I came across WCTI, which makes a chemical-free system quite different than other systems, and could provide us a system to get the cycles of concentration up over 200!!! Yes, that is over 200 cycles of concentration, which means nearly zero blow down! Which means it lowers water consumption by 30-50% and avoidance of paying for a new water treatment plant for the city. And it’s truly chemical free (even no biocides), which means it’s safer for people and the environment, as well as much lower cost. Keep those chiller tubes and/or pipes clean!

This is one of the comprehensive solutions that we provide for our clients at MegaWatt Consulting. It’s about saving money, and water is just another critical part of our system. Reach out to us to learn more!

The mercury in the emissions literally rains down on the oceans and land falling on crops that we eat, in the rivers and oceans that we fish, and on our backyards and into our lungs. Mercury leads to many very serious mental and physical disorders.

“According to the U.S Environmental Protection Agency, mercury is responsible for thousands of premature deaths and heart attacks. It can also damage children’s nervous systems and harm their ability to think and learn. The mercury, in essence, falls back to earth where it gets into the food chain.” (energy biz, “Obama Showers Coal with Mercury Rule”, Jan 3, 2012–http://www.energybiz.com/article/12/01/obama-showers-coal-mercury-rule). I’ve read in EPA reports that there is estimated to be 50,000 pre-mature deaths every year in the US due to the emissions from coal-burning power plants. Imagine loosing an entire city of 50,000 people every year? That is a city in population not much different than Palo Alto, CA. And that figure does not count the number of lung-related issues such as asthma that develop from these emissions.

Well, the Clean Air Act provides each of us the right to clean air. As such, in December, 2011, “the EPA carried out its obligation under the 1990 Clean Air Act and demanded that coal-fired power plants implement the available technologies to reduce their emissions by 90 percent.”

These regulations are not a shock to most utilities, as they have been aware of the pending regulations for some time (since the clean air act was put into law), and most utilities actually support the law as it allows them to shut down old coal-fired power plants, which are a financial, legal and environmental liability in exchange for building new, cleaner burning and more efficient power plants. These new regulations really only affect coal plants that were constructed 30 to 50 years ago. The operators can choose to have them meet the new requirements or shut down and replace them with new, more efficient and less polluting plants– a decision compelled not just by the new regulations but also by the need to compete with lower cost shale gas. Since most utilities in the US get a return on building new infrastructure, it is good business to build new power plants. Essentially, it sets a more level playing field to the 1,400 coal-fired US power plants and ends 20 years of uncertainty about these regulations.

Will these new regulations cause electricity prices to increase? Yes, but not likely significantly, as the “EPA estimates that the cost of carrying out the new mercury rules will be about $9.6 billion annually. But it also says that payback will be as much as $90 billion by 2016 when all power plants are expected to be in compliance, or closed. The agency expects “small changes” in the average retail electricity rates, noting that the shift to abundant shale-gas will shield consumers.” I agree with that assessment, as shale-gas will keep prices down. Even though “The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity says that the new mercury rule, in combination with other pending coal-related regulations, will increase electricity prices by $170 billion” through 2020, a estimate not much different than the EPA’s and also one to likely have a very minimal affect on electricity prices since it is such a small percentage of total electricity spend per year.

The same group says that “Coal helps make electricity affordable for families and businesses,” says Steve Miller, chief executive of the coal group. “Unfortunately, this new rule is likely to be the most expensive rule ever imposed on coal-fueled power plants which are responsible for providing affordable electricity.” Of course, when one accounts for health-related costs, the new emissions rules are far less costly than paying for your son’s asthma medicine and your father’s lung cancer treatments. Finally, we are getting slightly cleaner air, something the clean air act provided to us by law over 40 years ago.

As such, I have thought of this program to be immensely valuable as an industry tool to efficiency and improvement for all. Consequently, I have volunteered hundreds of hours of my time and forgiven personal financial gain to chair and help advance this program along with many other volunteers who have also given much of their time to advance this successful and valuable program. I do not have the resources to continually give of my volunteer time–I wish I did–but do hope to provide more support or time with future corporate sponsorship.

I do hope that you can participate in this valuable program and the corresponding event held in the late fall every year since 2008. Below is more information from the SVLG. You can also call me for more info.

Attention data center operators, IT managers, energy managers, engineers and vendors of green data center technologies: A call for case studies and demonstration projects is now open for the fifth annual Data Center Efficiency Summit to be held in November 2012.

The Data Center Efficiency Summit is a signature event of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group in partnership with the California Energy Commission and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which brings together engineers and thought leaders for one full day to discuss best practices, cutting edge new technologies, and lessons learned by real end users – not marketing pitches.

We welcome case studies presented by an end user or customer. If you are the vendor of an exciting new technology, please work with your customers to submit a case study. Case studies of built projects with actual performance data are preferred.

Topics to consider:
Energy Efficiency and/or Demand Response
Efficient Cooling (Example: Liquid Immersion Cooling)
Efficient Power Distribution (Example: DC Power)
IT Impact on Energy Efficiency (Example: Energy Impact of Data Security)
Energy Efficient Data Center Operations
In the final version of your case study, you will need to include:
Quantifiable savings in terms of kWh savings, percentage reduction in energy consumption, annual dollar savings for the data center, or CO2 reduction
Costs and ROI including all implementation costs with a breakdown (hardware, software, services, etc) and time horizon for savings
Description of site environment (age, size or load, production or R&D use)
List of any technology vendors or NGO partners associated with project
Please submit a short (1 page or less) statement of interest and description of your project or concept by March 2, 2012 to asmart@svlg.org with subject heading: DCES12. Final case studies will need to be submitted in August 2012. Submissions will be reviewed and considered in the context of this event.
Interested in setting up a demonstration project at your facility? We may be able to provide technical support and independent evaluation. Please call Anne at 408-501-7871 for information.

If you have a data center project that pushes energy efficiency to a new level, or showcases a great way of increasing efficiency, take a look at the following information and apply!! A win will be a nice feather in your cap. (You can copy the URLs below to receive more information and apply.)

Do You Have Data Center Energy-Efficiency or Green IT Accomplishments to Showcase?
If so, the Uptime Institute encourages you to apply for the Green Enterprise IT (GEIT) Awards (http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com/geit-awards). The Institute grants these awards to data center owners, operators and vendors for projects, ideas and products that significantly improve energy productivity and resource use in IT, data centers and beyond. Previous winners include Kaiser Permanente, Harris Corporation, AOL, Helsingin Energia, HP, Itaú, MassMutual Financial Group, Tieto, Capgemini and Verizon Wireless.
The GEIT Awards are open to applicants in all countries and are carefully judged by a committee of independent experts. Award winners for 2012 will be honored at the Uptime Institute Symposium (http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com/) in Santa Clara, CA, May 14-17, 2012. The theme for this year’s event is Digital Infrastructure Convergence, with a Special Focus on Modular, Prefabricated and Containerized Data Centers.
As innovative leaders, GEIT Award winners are given the opportunity to share their accomplishments at Symposium; winners receive complimentary registrations to Symposium to present a case study, formal recognition during the GEIT Awards ceremony and numerous public relations benefits highlighting their vision and execution.
In 2012, the Institute invites applications in 8 categories:
• Facility Design – Innovation (http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com/geit-awards/1427-facility-design-innovation)
• Facility Design – Implementation (http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com/geit-awards/1431-facility-design-implementation)
• Facility Retrofit (http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com/geit-awards/1432-facility-retrofit)
• IT Retrofit (http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com/geit-awards/1433-it-retrofit)
• Facility Product Deployment (http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com/geit-awards/1434-facility-product-deployment)
• IT Product Deployment (http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com/geit-awards/1435-it-product-deployment)
• Modular Data Center Product Deployment (http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com/geit-awards/1436-modular-data-center-product-deployment)
• Audacious Idea (http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com/geit-awards/1437-audacious-idea)
To learn more about the GEIT Awards, visit our website (http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com/geit-awards) or email us at GEIT@uptimeinstitute.com.
The competition closes at midnight PST, February 3, 2012. Applications require data that can take a few hours to gather, so we recommend you begin as soon as possible!
We look forward to learning about your project,
Uptime Institute
Green Enterprise IT Awards
GEIT@uptimeinstitute.com

I also find that many of the things that I do in my personal life influence my work life. I’m sure we all find that at times, we reach an epiphany when walking the dog, talking to our spouse or friends, or some other activity that drives a decision or direction in our work the next day. I had one two weeks ago when talking with friends over dinner. But, that is not the topic of this blog.

Instead, it goes back another week but really starts when I was in college. I have always liked to push myself physically, and I get a lot out of those endorphins from a good physical challenge but also one with a mental challenge.

So I started mountain biking in college, riding longer and longer, more often and more often, until I was riding 365 days per year and training about 30+ hours per week. That on top of my 7-8 course load each semester (a consequence of earning multiple degrees simultaneously) and working part to full time year around. What can I say, I like to stay busy (also was on sports teams in addition to cycling, several clubs, an RA, etc, etc).

I then turned this “hobby” into training for races, became sponsored (it took me years to finish all those boxes of PowerBars I was provided), and finished races often in the top 10 out of hundreds or thousands of finishers. I earned enough points in my last year of racing and college to be in the top 10 nationally.

However, this, like many other hobbies, wasn’t my calling for a profession, and often hobbies and professions don’t mix very well. But I still get out to ride as often as I can and still love it. And do a race or two each year, purely for fun but also competitive. So on August 27th & 28th, I completed another 24-hour mountain bike race. I believe this is around my 6th, but I can’t remember nor have I been keeping track.

People ask how a 24 hour mountain bike race performs. Well, you ride a lap, usually about 10-15 miles long–which is usually takes about 45-90 minutes to finish–all on dirt, often much single track, climbs, descents, technical sections, fast sections, and complete as many laps as possible in 24 hours. Races can be completed as a solo team, or with up to 5 people on a team, trading off each lap in rotation, making each lap an all out sprint, then resting, downing as much water as your body can absorb, repairing your bike, recharging light batteries and trying to eat and sleep in the 45 min to 3 hour rest time before the next lap. Usually races start at about noon and end at noon the next day. Powerful bike light systems are used in the night laps, and the key is efficiency and speed while staying upright. Crashes not only hurt people–broken bones are quite common and sometimes trips in an ambulance for those racers that push their speed too fast for their ability at the time. Ability changes much after hours of riding, little sleep, little food, dehydration, and tired bodies. And especially at night when visibility is limited to a spot of light 5-20 feet in front of you as speeds exceed 30 mph in faster downhill and flat sections with still plenty of rocks, ditches and other obstacles to avoid.

The key to these races is to manage energy and speed to skill. Those that push too hard in the beginning of the race (a common mistake) or on any lap typically burn out before the race ends and either can’t finish it (often just finishing the race allows one to move up in the score board) or get hurt along the way.

So the key to 24-hour mountain bike racing is maintaining energy for 24 hours of riding with little sleep. It becomes somewhat of a mental game, especially in the late night laps. But even more so, a continual focus on the efficiency of every single pedal stroke–all 100,000 of them–and on the rest of the body, especially the lungs and heart. One must constantly “economize” while pushing their bike and self as hard (and consequently fast) as possible up every hill, down every descent, and around every lap to maintain the fastest average lap time. So any one slow lap kills the average, and hence, efficiency with the greatest speed. My lap times varied by less than 10%, even though temperatures ranged by 50 degrees F, some were in full sun, some in full dark; some with heavy traffic of other racers, some with passing  another racer only every 15 minutes; some with full energy, and last lap with maybe an hour of sleep over 24 hours, little food, and likely mild dehydration and most certainly tired legs and body, and even one with a mechanical and another with a flat tire.

In the data centers I design, efficiency doesn’t change much between hot and cold weather, day and night, packed full or empty of servers, mechanical failures or perfect operations. The key is being as efficient as possible all the time, not matter the adversity. It’s all about economizing and energy efficiency, just as my continuous focus in designing and operating data centers. I love it!

Here is a video of my most recent 24-hour race, the Coolest 24-Hours, which took place end of August in Soda Springs, CA (Donner Summit area of the Sierras). The race raised money for those dealing with cancer. In this video, I am the first rider out of the start of the 24 hour racers, wearing silver jersey, black and yellow cycling shorts with USD on the side (I still fit in my college cycling team shorts almost two decades later), red single speed 29″ Niner bike. I enjoyed being in first place for about the first mile before some of the racers pass me. You can see me do a little jump off the pavement start onto the dirt and also my buddy and fellow racer Stewart do the same in his third place position with red & white Niner Bikes jersey. I posted a photo of my aunt along the course–who died of cancer not long ago–which many photos of survivors and victims can be seen staked in the ground at the first turn. I finished the race with a smile, a dirty face, a dusty body, a respectable finish, and another lesson in efficiency. Enjoy the video and getting out to learn more! Here is the video: The Coolest 24 Hours, 2011–KC leads the pack at the start of the 24 hour race

While we all know that I wouldn’t release any confidential data. Having been in the data center industry now for well over a decade, worked for Yahoo, Google, Sun, BEA, and completed large data center projects for financial institutions, banks, government entities, educational and research entities, Facebook, Equinix, and many others, I know and understand the importance and value to not only my reputation but also the importance of maintaining other’s confidential information. So, I will not share anything more about the data center—you can learn from what is already available from public sources.

However, I do want to comment on one item that I did see which does not have any confidentiality tied to it—the Olivier Sanche Memorial Tree and conference room. It touched me very much. Olivier and I were working on a project and talking just literally two days before he passed. Olivier and I were the exact same age. His job at Apple was essentially the same as mine at Yahoo. And at the time he passed, we were both running fast, traveling to many countries, several continents and states each month. We were trying to do everything we could to support our growing data center demand at the lowest cost and the highest energy efficiency as possible, and to help the industry achieve more as well by collaborating, sharing and guiding. And just as he touched my heart and those of many others in the data center industry, he managed to be the best dad possible.

While I enjoyed touring the ebay data center, it was the moment I spent reading Olivier’s memorial against the now small tree yet growing in size to eventually become a large icon in the entrance of this facility. It was that moment under this tree, and reading the memorial, that I once again remembered Olivier, and the touching reminder of how he touched many.

I applaud the fine folks for the very kind memorial to Olivier—we should all strive to support each other, work together, collaborate, and most of all, enjoy each other’s company. Not get out there and do something good today.

While risk of natural and human disasters has always been a part of every data center site selection, it has seriously changed. My 20+ page checklist of hundreds of items from nearby man holes covers, flight paths and train tracks to nearest police station has not been as heavily used, as it seems to add less value than thinking about the BIG natural disasters that can occur and unforeseen human caused disasters. While we used to worry about trucks of guys jumping out with AK47’s to break into a data center, the reality is, this is a thin probability and one that is difficult to prevent. Meanwhile, the ones we can prevent that are known, potential and unforeseen, are the ones we have not focused on well.

For example, has anyone thought about their utility system being hacked and shut down for an extended period of time? Have you asked your electric utility if they are NERC CIP compliant to ensure that they have a much lower chance of being hacked and shut down? Have you thought about your electric utility meter, water meter, main switchboard and generator switchgear being connected to the Internet and/or your utilities and thus being able to be hacked into, shut down, or damaged?

And the main thing, how about natural disasters? As an industry, we’ve built data centers in seismically active areas (i.e. Japan, California, Oregon (also with extreme tsunami risks) and Washington) and build so the building stays up but don’t think about all of the IT gear shuffling about and the personnel getting hurt. A building that stands while the IT gear is rolling around like marbles isn’t a data center that will sustain an earthquake, only one that will memorialize that happened while we rebuild the inside.

We build data centers in hurricane and tornado areas (Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia) and build for them pretty well, but do we think about what has not to come yet but likely will?

I’ve written before about the most dangerous seismic area in the US not being on the West Coast or even the East Coast, but yet the Madras Fault being right under Kansas City, St. Louis and a large part of middle America.

Lately we’ve had tremendous flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers; yesterday tremendous dust storms hit Arizona–look at these amazing photos of a dust storm that hit Phoenix yesterday. (http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2081646_2290849,00.html). And likely future heat storms will add to the dust storms in the Phoenix area. Do you want your data center operating in this?

Severe hurricane and tornado frequency has increased many fold over the last decade and we saw more serious renditions of each over the last several months, including in places we weren’t expecting to see them, such as Massachusetts and Missouri, where tornados tore thru very robust buildings, even a hospital data center (http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/focus/archive/2011/06/missouri-tornado-destroys-hospital-data-center). Look at these photos of devasatation in Alabama from recent tornadoes: (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/us/05missing.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23). Imagine you and your employees following something like this–would they even come to work? One would likely need to shut down their data center for human resources even if everything kept working.

My point is not to overlook the seriousness of your data center site selection. Consider what MAY happen, with some probability, and don’t assume that just because it hasn’t happened, that it really hasn’t or won’t. Research the probabilities. The web is wonderful tool for this information, and so are your data center site selection experts at MegaWatt Consulting and others. Use us to help you avoid future problems.

Stay healthy and let’s help each other grow our industry. KC Mares

Together in early 2009 we led a design Charrette for a new data center for the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), the folks who study climate data. As part of our design scope, we researched future generations of High-Performance Computing (HPC, aka supercomputer) equipment; it’s expected future energy use, load density and cooling system connections and inlet temperature requirements (some were air based, others water based). We looked at future generation of equipment as by the time the data center was built and the systems ordered and delivered, densities and cooling system connections would be different than today. This is a key point that we make with all of our projects: to look at what the hardware system needs will be several years from now, as it usually takes 1-2 years to build a data center, several years to fully load it, and we expect it to meet our operational needs for 10, 20 or more years. So, if the median of the data center’s life will be 7-15+ years away, than why would we design it to meet today’s computers? This is a mistake we see often in many people’s designs and site selections. Life changes, we must think ahead.

And this is why I research and pay attention to many cutting or leading edge technologies. Why I sit on boards of new and innovative technologies. This helps me see the future. And even though I was shocked to find future HPC systems had densities of over 2,500 Watt’s per square foot, I know that many computing systems of the future will use much lower densities than the average today, and there are always many technologies that we employ, not just one. Hence, we took a pragmatic approach to this analysis of future HPC systems and the needs of the leading researchers in climate change. (Incidentally, we also did an operating cost analysis of HPC systems that will come out between 2012 and 2014, and it yielded fairly broad cost differences, enough that first pass based upon compute performance would seem to lead to one system while just purchasing more of another system to get the same performance would still cost less, stressing the important point to always choose equipment that affords the lowest true total cost of ownership.)

Being that the site chosen for this data center was to be Cheyenne, Wyoming, a state with one the highest percentages of coal-generated electricity, energy efficiency in this design was essential. Although we were pretty certain we knew which type of mechanical system would be most energy efficient (and likely also lowest cost to build—they almost always go hand-in-hand when working pragmatically and holistically), we reviewed a rough design of several systems, including calculated annual PUE and a rough estimated build cost. We explored airside economization with 68F and 90F air a supply temps, the Kyoto cooling system (heat wheel), a modified heat wheel approach with economization, and waterside economization with 46F and 64F chilled supply water. Our modified heat wheel, and high supply temp air and water economized solutions did not require chillers, hence the temperatures as they were, as we pushed them until we did not require chillers. We choose the water economized system, which was our guess of the best system before we started any design analysis, as it provided 64F supply water, which was important as many HPC systems of the future will only run on chilled water and this temp is acceptable for the majority of the systems, and it also provided the lowest PUE of about 1.11 AND the lowest cost to build. This once again proves my motto that we build most efficient data centers at the lowest cost—the two seemingly disparate goals of capital cost and operating expense are once again aligned. Hence why we take a very pragmatic and holistic approach with an open mind to achieve the most.

This new 153,000 SF building designed to accommodate and secure the Scientific Computing Division’s (SCD) future in sustaining the computing initiatives and needs of UCAR’s scientific research constituents. Final design was based upon NCAR’s actual computing and data storage needs and a thorough review of future High Performance Computing (HPC) and storage technologies, leading to a 625 Watts/SF HPC space and a 250 Watts/SF medium density area. The data center is divided into two raised floor modules of 12,000 SF each with a separate data tape system area to reduce costs, increase efficiency and provide different temperature and humidity requirements than the HPC area. Also provided is a 16,000 SF office and visitor area heated by waste heat from the data center and a total facility capacity of 30 MVA.

Unique requirements of this high density, HPC data center were to also achieve ultra-high energy efficiency and LEED Silver certification for a modest construction budget. Various cooling options were analyzed, including Kyoto and other heat wheels, air economization, a creative solution of direct heat exchange with city water supply pipe and variations of water economized systems. Ultimately, LEED Gold certification and an annual operating PUE of about 1.14 is expected. This low of a PUE was thought to be impossible at the time of design (early 2009), especially for such high-density at TIER III. Through creative problem solving, the low PUE is obtained by designing a 9’ interstitial space above the raised floor combined with a 10’ waffle-grid raised floor to provide a low-pressure drop air recirculation system designed as part of the building. Ten day one chillers of 100 tons each provide supplemental cooling and optimum efficiency as load varies during hot summer months, while an indirect evaporative system with 96 fans in a fan wall provide ultra-low energy use cooling. An on site water supply tank, a total of nine standby generators at full build out of 2.5 MVA each, six 750 kVA UPS modules and other systems support the total low PUE and low construction budget for this high density HPC data center.

Here is a drawing of this data center now under construction:

I have built two data centers in the Raleigh, North Carolina. I traveled to Raleigh about once per month over a couple of years for these projects, many times driving in ice storms. It’s really quite fun to drive around when everything is coated in a sheet of ice. It’s like driving a Zamboni without an ice rink. Quite frankly, only people like me who have too much confidence in their driving abilities drive—everyone else stays home and for good reason as many cars are stuck on the roads and crashed up while driving in these conditions. Recently, storms in the Raleigh area caused a wide path of “death and damage” as reported here in the NY Times–declaring emergencies throughout North Caroline, Mississippi and Alabama. More extreme weather is predicted for the eastern seaboard with the ever-increasing climate change. Hurricane frequency and strength has increased several times over the last few years. Remember when one good hurricane a year was normal? Now it’s dozens, so much so, that the naming convention has changed completely from alphabetical names to female names to including male names and now numbered names similar to star systems.

Remember when California was the only place we expected to receive large earthquakes? Well, except for Japan, which reminded us once again of the devastation that can occur being along the Pacific Rim. I was in middle Baja following the recent Japan earthquake and had to change plans due to a tsunami warning from the Japan earthquake nearly 10,000 miles away, proving the point that near the ocean following an earthquake can be risky.

The largest earthquake in 35 years hits Arkansas…what you ask?! Arkansas? Yes, the largest in that state yet amongst more than 800 earthquakes in Arkansas since September 2010. Wow!! You can read more about it in this AP/Yahoo news article.

But even more spectacular–as I bring up earthquakes in Arkansas as merely an example–is that the largest risk of large-scale damage from an earthquake in the US is located right under the middle of the US, the New Madris Fault. Directly under Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Tenessee, Missippii, Arkansas, this baby is HUGE! With an ability to create horizontal acceleration of 1.89g, almost 5 times greater than the amount of ground acceleration at The Reno Technology Park near Reno, NV, which is located on stable ground absent of any earthquake faults. See this thesis on the affects of earthquakes on bridge design, which is the pinnacle of civil engineering for earthquakes, as they look at 75-year affects, not 20 as it is for most building construction. Even Texas is not immune to earthquakes. Having damaging earthquakes in 1882, 1891, 1917, 1925, 1931, 1932, 1936, 1948, 1951, 1957, 1964, 1966, 1969, and 1974. Many of these being felt as much as two states away from Texas, which covers a very large area. I type out all of these just to prove the point that even areas thought to be immune from damaging earthquakes have them, and more frequently than we care to remember. You can read more in this USGS article about Texas earthquakes here.

And thus the punch line is to consider data center site selection very carefully. Just because an earthquake has not happened for a long time does not mean that an area is not immune to a damaging earthquake. Check out this map of large earthquake potential and look at the two large circles of converging lines in the middle of the US and under South Carolina—these are the areas of greatest earthquake threat to public and buildings in the US:

How about volcanoes? Sure why worry unless you’re in the South Pacific, Hawaii or Costa Rica, right? Wrong. Over half of the world’s active volcanoes are in … did you guess…. The good ‘ole US of A. That’s right. Most of those are in Alaska as the Aleutian island chain is a pretty exciting place to be. And most of the them in the Continental US are located in Washington and Oregon. But guess what, the most exciting place in the US for a very damaging earthquake of proportions 1,000’s of times greater than the atomic bombs exploded on Japan to end Wrold War II? Wyoming. Yellowstone has been famous for Old Faithful. Heated by a geological hot spot, the same type that has created and is still creating the Hawaiian Islands. But new research calls it a supervolcano. Two of the larger eruptions from this supervolcano produced 2,500 times more ash than Mt St. Helens eruption in 1980, and that provided about 10’ of ash through eastern Washington and elsewhere. And this hot spot is getting hotter. Expected to impact Idaho, Wyoming and Montana with a greater frequency of earthquakes and a possible very large explosion that could wipe out a very large area. Read more about it here.

Why are these important to point out? Because we’ve designed and built data centers to withstand the impacts of what we EXPECT in a certain area, yet so many areas have more impacts than we imagined. Which leads me to site selection. Site selection isn’t so easy as to look at what has recently occurred or what we think might occur in an area; it should involve thorough research and understanding of what really are the risks over time and choose a site that best meets our risk tolerance/”comfort” during the life of the data center. And any risks should be reviewed, even those that seem unlikely, as we can see from many of these examples, that unlikely events can turn out to be devastating to any data center. Hence, location research is paramount to good site selection and these issues not overlooked. A good example is the over 20 active volcanoes in the Portland and Seattle area. Be aware of the risks in your decision or it could lead to a really bad day.

Now, just because I haven’t written a blog in some time means that: a) I have don’t have something to say or b) that I have nothing to say. As I have more than enough to say–whether stories, thoughts or ideas. I haven’t written a blog in a while because, well, I have been too busy.

In the later part of 2010, I worked on several large data center projects: a 50 MW (all quoted in IT load), a 100 MW containerized solution, and another 150 MW data center. Plus many other smaller ones and interesting work. And I thought data centers wouldn’t get much bigger. Than this year I also did some consulting on a 325 MW data center project, to be replicated several times over in many places. These numbers are rounded numbers to protect the actual clients and their projects, but close enough to the actual sizes. As you all know, I never share client information that is not already approved for public consumption or already out in the public. I honor all client NDAs.

And, I and others presented The Reno Technology Park at the Critical Facilities Roundtable meeting hosted by XL Construction on March 25th. We talked about some of the interesting challenges with site selections today. You can read more at Zen’s blog here.

Also, since then, The Reno Technology Park is moving forward with the design of it’s first tenant, a unique and large data center project. Exciting stuff!

So, while I preach having multiple data centers in diverse geographies for most uptime and limits to problems (i.e. tornadoes and other nasty weather in Southeastern US the last few days). Nonetheless, there are economies of scale, as their always are. So it seems that data centers are still getting larger. So this is a quick point, with many more interesting stories and ideas to come as I get back on the blogging bike and write again. Talk to you soon, as I have much to say. KC