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Reply to "Thunder Ranch build thread"

I once visited a computer Data Center in the US Pentagon.  After they check your references and scan you and probe you and poke you and pluck you and badge you and assign a Marine guard to you, you then have to walk down endless corridors and around a few bends and then take an elevator up or down (I honestly can't remember which, after the turns) and then they re-scan you and re-probe you and re-poke you and re-pluck you before allowing you to enter their sacred data space, all the while followed closely by that Marine Captain just waiting to throw your butt out of there if you mess up.

Once inside the Data Center, which I had to walk up a set of 6 or 7 steps to enter, I was led to our equipment which was a string of disk storage arrays, each the size of a kitchen refrigerator, all in a row in the middle of the room and our field install guys were just finishing up the install.  I looked through a hole in the floor where all of the interconnecting cables are lain and was surprised to see a huge mass of cables less than 12" below the floor - like an impervious carpet of cables, totally covering any trace of the real floor, just lying there and way more than needed just for our equipment.  "Wow", I said to one of the Pentagon IT guys, "Is this an older Data Center?  Is your sub-floor only 18" deep?"   

I was surprised because Data Center sub-floors are, by code, usually 24" - 36+" deep and then a support floor is suspended above that to give you space to run your equipment cables neatly under the floor and/or service them in the future.  

One of my DC field guys heard the question and answered it for Mr. Pentagon: 

"Nope, what y'all are lookin' at is a 8 FOOT sub-floor space, an' that's almost totally filled up with old cables" (as he gives Mr. Pentagon a cold look).  "When they reconfigure any-thang they just cut off the connector ends of the cables, leave 'em lyin' there and drag new cables through on top for the new stuff.  Someday, their Devil's payment's gonna come due and they'll have to pay someone to remove all those cables and some guys're gonna sell all-a them cables for the copper value and they gonna make a killin".

So there it is........   Your Gum-mint, hard at work.

Last edited by Gordon Nichols
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