Smart Tech for Small Biz

Users Tell Stories at ITEC Minneapolis

Thanks to Minneapolis for ordering nice weather for me, and for some attendees who were free with their comments and hard-won lessons. The more sharing between attendees in these shows, the more everyone learns.

Let's talk power, because everyone wants to be greener. Blade servers use less power than individual racked or tower servers, because they get their power from the rack's power supply rather than having their own power module that plugs into the wall. They also generate less heat per server than discreet servers, so vendors tout their greenness.

However, companies still get surprised by how much more power and cooling they need just about every week for data centers. Even small data centers, which the big companies call data closets, require much more power per rack than people expect.

Worse, some vendors have yet to create the lower-powered products their marketing and sales departments claimed they would. This becomes a real issue when you have a group of racks, you build based on vendor recommendations, and then the vendor says “oops” and you scramble around for more power.

On the other hand, geek culture seems fine in Minneapolis. When I asked people to help me define “geek,” I got plenty of definitions from the audience. Interestingly, all the negative descriptions and comments came from the geeks themselves. Maybe we need better PR and marketing.

If you have a good definition of geek, please put it in the comments. I promise to give you credit if I use your definition.