opus:interactive | If These Servers Could Talk

Wednesday, August 08, 2007 at 2:28 pm by opus:interactive

Interop ‘07 - Babes. Babes. Technology. Babes.

by Eric Hulbert

Wow! The booth babes were incredible. These shows never cease to amaze me. Every other booth had models sporting ultra slinky spandex wear showing off their products trying to draw you in to their booths. It works!

I took this pic of the opus Director of Ops and one of the Blackcat booth babes.

I was very happy to see that we are well ahead of the curve in almost all areas of the IT lifecycle and daily managed services sustainability practices.

We met with existing vendors, like Ironport, Cisco, Network Hardware Resale, Array Networks and GTA, and it confirmed to me that we have made great decisions in our vendors and partners.

We found a new vendor to replace Intermedia for our Hosted Exchange offering. We talked at length with their COO about their offerings, their network, their solution overall and their technical infrastructure.

The In-Row RP and RC air conditioning units from APC are awesome. This is for sure the design we will go with next year.

We also looked at more of the APC Infrastruxure line and it continued to assure us that their solution/product is the correct answer for us when we build-out/expand next year. They make a newer, same-footprint modular UPS that has 25KVA power modules versus the 10KVA power modules we have now. We are limited to 100KVA for that zone. The new UPS will allow 250KVA scalable to 500KVA. It is a very impressive product and will continue to be the front-runner for our next UPS solution. Their in-row cooling products are incredible. We watched a demo on the Chatsworth CPI Passive Cooling solution and I must say I was not impressed. It was limited by the static pressure available under the raised floor in the facility (a design principle we want to move away from in the future). The In-Row RP and RC air conditioning units from APC are awesome. Chilled water or glycol can be chosen for the configuration and can be combined with their HACS (hot aisle containment system) for the ultimate in high density. This is for sure the design we will go with next year.

Factoids:

• Learned how to play craps. That game is pretty fun. Also played a bunch of limit hold’em, blackjack and roulette. Always good to get in a little gambling time when in vegas!
• Saw KA at the MGM. Wow that was pretty sweet. The drinks were quite nice!
• Watched Jason Nuss drive a simulated Formula One car at Caesar’s Palace. That was intense.
• Great steak at Nine Fine Irishmen at NYNY.
• Absolutely the craziest cab rides. We took a cab from the airport, and the guy was insane—very bitter about Vegas cab drivers. Late in the week, we took a cab from Fremont Street back to the MGM and the driver was NUTS. He just wouldn’t stop talking, and he drove us through the dark section of Vegas and talked about drug runs he took, and how he met Cuba Gooding Jr. and how he was cheating on his wife, etc., etc.

Nuts.

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