(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Inside the Dreaded Data Center – Take a Tour [1] ['Chitown Kev', 'Chloris Creator'] Date: 2026-07-26 During my entire career in Information Technology, I never heard anyone mention the words “Data Center” who wasn’t actually in the business. Now it’s everywhere and people who haven’t a clue what they entail are getting very riled up about them. So, I thought I’d introduce you to the mystery of data centers and the ‘server farms’ that haunt them. First, when you see the slick commercials with some pretty person walking a wide avenue between glass cases filled with what might be servers, don’t buy it. Even brand new, server farms don’t look that pristine and perfectly arrayed. They are organized chaos as new hardware comes in, old hardware goes out. Cabinets are completely full when a company is in trouble financially. New hardware isn’t being purchased. This isn’t always true, but often. Second, server farms and the ancillary hardware like big data storage monoliths use a great deal of electricity, power that must be reliable 24 x 7. What they don’t do is consume water. The enormous AC units that keep the rooms, and so the servers, cool do that and they just heat it up and dump it out. Into the drains and back to nature, maybe, but recirculating after cooling is more efficient and cheaper in the long run. Even then, a big data center has a small lake moving through the plumbing. Let’s take an imaginary tour. Come with me to the ultimate manmade indoor wasteland. I’m on my way there now to confront my particular nemesis, a six year old Unix server that has been outclassed some time ago and is now teetering towards boat anchor status, a bleeding edge device long since scabbed over. I open the door with my keycard, attached along with my picture ID to a lanyard around my neck or alligator clip clamped to my belt, the picture looking like I’m in pain. The only people that are ever going to see my picture ID are those I work with daily who recognize me (and I them) without need of visual credentials. The kind of people that don’t know me, strangers, aren’t allowed close to the hardware and the managers that might be tolerated are all out playing golf. A thumb print or a retinal scan rather than a face photo would have been just as purposeless, if not more stupid. The noise is deafening. White noise is defined by places like this. The entire cavernous ‘bit barn’ is kept cooled by monster air conditioners lining every wall forcing chilled air up through the raised floor into the rows of cabinets that house the servers. These are called ‘server farms’ since servers seem to proliferate in the dark like mushrooms. The raised floors accommodated the miles of cables, first copper, later glass. These are supposed to be meticulously labeled and unavailable to be stepped upon or tripped over. Even mildly abused fiber optic cables could be rendered worthless. All of this might be impressive if a panorama were possible. Instead the place is claustrophobic with row after row of steel cabinets ten feet tall with racks of devices each adding its own heat to the environment. And what isn’t server is storage. Dedicated storage devices are huge refrigerator spinning disk holders or solid state module containers that can record, track and retrieve data, keep it in memory if accessed frequently or dump old data to archival media. Everything you’ve ever bought online, every Facebook confession, has gone through the data aging process. Big Data has been king for decades now. Megabytes became gigabytes became terabytes became petabytes became exabytes…. with no end in sight. If the A/C’s were to fail all at once, the servers (and storage) would overheat and die. A thought that always brought a smile to my face. Data centers are Frankensteinian abyssal plains, artificial, inhuman and ambiguously alien. Tens (hundreds) of thousands exist across the cyberverse, thousands of purpose built and hardened data bunkers now as well. And all of this is before AI needed more of them. I weave my way through the corridors of cabinets marked with letter/number stickers at the end of each aisle. Trying to find something in particular if you don’t know where it is could take up to an hour. Most of the hardware is indistinguishable from others of its kind and sticky labels have a habit of falling off. I love being here. I love the noise and the perfect fifty percent humidity that dries out skin and eyes. Yes, I’m being facetious. There is a womb-like quality to these caverns, places so sensitive to disturbance and vulnerable to mayhem, it can seem like survival is always in jeopardy. Lends an air of apprehension to visits. Watch your step for wild cables and never push any button on any box you don’t know like a familiar relative. Old servers and the problems they cause are the only reason I need to be in here. The executives (empty suits) and their bean counter minions on the top floor want the highest performance, greatest availability and most unbreachable security at the lowest cost, being blissfully unaware that such a compromise means they get none of those things. Information Technology is a cost center, that second class, expensive and grudgingly necessary operation that doesn’t sell product or generate profit. Never mind that to conduct any business with online customers and keep track of ‘just in time’ inventory is impossible without it. Billionaire’s billions are mostly electrons. The bedrock of commerce is this cyber swamp, the servers its alligators. You build a swamp, you need deep pockets. Is it any wonder that when a production server is down, much less a network switch or massive storage unit, everyone runs around like silent movie comedians running into each other getting crabby and fearful. The website is down! Our customers can’t while away their day shopping for unnecessary junk they have neither the intention nor the money to buy. Chicken Little middle management coming out of the woodwork pulling their hair out shouting, ”The stock is falling, the stock is falling!” Ah, the good old days. Next we’ll look at Data Centers and AI. Stay tuned. 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