Robin Majumdar 2.0

I came across this interesting video tour of the Equinix data centre facility in which they explain their 5-level biometric security system, N+1 redundancy architecture for everything from rack cages to UPS to diesel generator to utility grid supply.

25,000 gallons of on-site diesel fuel for their generators may sound like a lot, but when you’re hosting big players such as MySpace that means a lot of power requirements. Case in point, their UPS batteries provide for “only” 7.5 minutes of runtime, but considering that their transfer switch only requires “2-3 seconds” to switch to the generators… that’s decent. Mind you, I’ve seen power transfer switches fail or go freaky… or generators refuse to start up or run stable for more than 1-2 minutes…

Worth viewing if you have any interest in data centre design or you are considering a Tier 1 hosting facility.