Sounds like a lot of fun!!

I have been to a few data centers in Orlando and one in Atlanta. They pretty much look like the pictures.

I've been to the data center where Burger King has all their servers at (GSI Solutions) I wonder what in the world could they possibly be doing with a rack of servers, but oh well.

I've also been to the 1102 Grand Data Center here in Kansas City, which is where we will be buying some space at. Nice place of course.

I have pretty much been to every data center in my area so, I can keep going but GSI is probably the best looking data center I've seen, thus far. A place called NetStandard also has a nice place.

I work nearby a DC and have my servers in that.
Maybe if u ever pop by Singapore u can take a look. :-)

They are interesting to visit the first time, but after a 3am wakeup call the massive noise and the freezing cold temperatures are no fun at all.

Lots of colocation places spend extra cash to make their NOC 'network operations center' look fancy because the racks of machines are unimpressive to non-technical types. They tend to expect lots of lights and beeps So the NOC's often have white wrap around desks and giant projector screens etc.

If you want to be impressed ask to see the NOC, thats what they show to big clients.

LOL. Some will let you in but not let you (obviesly) touch the server or any clients racks. I've had a atour of a few facilties in Las Angeles CA. There nice fancy but not as fancy as ours will be when we eventualy buy the property.

I went on a business trip at the end of 2006 to Paris and visited a datacenter there to install a PIX firewall. Security was very tight and the actual server rooms were very cold and noisy. I got lost after going through the first room as we passed down several corridors, through serveral server rooms to finally find the rack where I was to install the equipment. The rooms were huge too containing a fair few hundred racks in each.

I would never colo any of our equipment before visiting the facility first. I can tell you now they are very noisy and quite cool.

Then there is the security... escorted access, biometric scanning, PAC Tags and in America... Armed security.

But if it is your first time and your visiting a nice facility it can be quite enjoyable

who all do you know of that has gone to armed security now?

Some DC's in America apparently have armed security. If i find the link to the DC ill post it.

Sailor Does AtlantaNAP still have an Armed Police Officer?

whats your thoughts on armed security at a dc?

We've run our data center for over seven years (www.esnet.com) and we didn't have armed security measures until after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana. There was one colo facility that stayed up and running during Hurricane Katrina. After all that settled down some, we visited with their operations staff and they discussed the importance of armed security to prevent from looting and stealing equipment.

Computer equipment and data is very valuable and malicious people have reason to attempt to steal it or gain unauthorized access. Trained security staff go a long way to ensure customer security and discourage malicious behavior.

so are you guys going armed now?

I just heard that the MCI / Verizon data center in atlanta was hit in the recent weeks and they took a lot of router cards.

We're in it every day. However, when it was my first time, I felt very nervous because I've never seen so many Rj-45 cables before, and all these slim, rackmounted server, wow! Then I realize this is what I want to do... 8 years from then till now, here I am enjoying every moment of it. Installing Centos and cPanel for a client each time is always like the very first time...

Enjoy it while it lasts