[27937] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Donelan)
Thu Mar 30 16:49:12 2000
Date: 30 Mar 2000 13:45:01 -0800
Message-ID: <20000330214501.13654.cpmta@c004.sfo.cp.net>
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To: nanog@merit.edu
From: Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com>
Cc: ssprunk@cisco.com
Errors-To: owner-nanog-outgoing@merit.edu
On Thu, 30 March 2000, "Stephen Sprunk" wrote:
> Maybe this is a facet of natural disasters rarely afflicting downtown areas
> around here...
Maybe an occasional cattle stampede through downtown Dallas ...
> I've noticed that every telco colo facility I've been in around downtown
> Dallas has the same design... All are in high-rise facilities, on the
> 10th-30th floors. All have the battery and A/C rooms around the elevator
> shafts at the center of the floor plan, surrounded by all the equipment
> racks/cages around the outside facing the windows.
Gravity is a tough law to break. Batteries and mechanical equipment are
heavy, and must go where the floor is strongest. Which tends to be the
core of the building. As always consult a licensed structural engineer.
Protecting against an airplane crashing into the side of the building is
hard (although the Empire State building survived). Pick your risks and
mitigate those within commercial reason. Lloyds of London exists for the
rest. Sometimes the best commercial solution is putting your equipment
around the outside. You loose one rack of routers to wayward tree, a few
customers are down. Loose your electrical plant, and everyone is S.O.L.
Triage is never a pleasant experience.
Another note about battery rooms in high-rise buildings. There is/was a
proposal before the NFPA to prohibit battery rooms above the third floor
in high-rise structures after the L.A. CO fire. I haven't been keeping
close watch on it, but Bellcore/Telcordia was fighting it tooth&nail.
