88 lines
2.8 KiB
Text
88 lines
2.8 KiB
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title: Isn't it too late to build a data center?
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pub_date: 2019-10-09
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author: ungleich
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twitter_handle: ungleich
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_hidden: no
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_discoverable: yes
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---
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abstract:
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Is it or is it not too late to build a data center?
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---
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body:
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The very valid question,
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[Isn't it too late....to build a
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data center?](https://twitter.com/Mac_S13/status/1181983378100424710)
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was asked on Twitter and it made our team here in Glarus smile a lot
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and we decided to write a blog article about this question.
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## Fiber = the advantage of a data center?
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According to the tweet, the main strength of a data center is fast
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network connection, or the fiber line that you have. And nowadays,
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everyone has fast fiber, so it follows that data centers are maybe not
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needed anymore.
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## TL;DR
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It is not that easy.
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## How to run a data center in reality
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Some time ago we wrote about
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[How to run a really green
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data center](https://ungleich.ch/de/cms/ungleich-blog/2019/07/12/how-run-really-green-datacenter/).
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Admittedly, the question was not about running a **green** data
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center, so let's dive a bit more into it.
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Running a data center like we do at [Data Center
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Light](https://datacenterlight.ch) does indeed require a fiber
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connection. To be precise, actually a couple.
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## How much fiber is enough fiber?
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Don't tell anyone, but geeks are working at ungleich. And according to
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geeks, there is never enough fiber. But for real, how much fiber is
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needed? In our case, running a data center at 3 different locations,
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requires a couple of dark fiber lines and a couple of redundant
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upstream connections. Using the rule of thumb, let's say we need at
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least 3 fiber connections:
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* One for location A
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* One for location B
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* One to connect locations A and B
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So are three fiber connections enough?
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## What is actually in a data center?
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Maybe the real question is, why would you run a data center at all?
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Alright, for the geeks of us, "just because I can" is a reason, but
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let's think about other cases as well. For instance we are running a
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data center, because we our customers asked us to run one (easy, isn't
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it?). So some years ago we started buying hardware like switches,
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servers, SSDs, cables, transceivers, disks, network cards, access
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points and even much, much more cables.
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And why did we do that? Because we were asked to host virtual machines
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and data for our existing customers. So if you want to run a data
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center, you also need a bit of hardware.
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And there comes one of the bigger problems: hardware also needs to be
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turned on. And if it is on, it actually consumes energy and you do not
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proper fuses. Not only the ones inside the data center, but also the
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ones going into the building!
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## More information
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You can get in touch with us via
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* email: info at ungleich.ch
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* chat: [chat.ungleich.ch](https://chat.ungleich.ch)
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