Just got back from one of those things that make you see why people would think you are a geek. I went on a visit to our Data Center. The tour was for a whole hour, and I totally enjoyed it.
Me and my 18 year old, just-out-of-high-school fellow intern friend had loads to discuss , from movies to,well movies. He is what you would expect to see in an 18 year old American kid.Ruffled hair,anti-establishment,funny and a strong opinion about everything in the world. I must say, It has been quite a while since I met anyone younger to me,and it was refreshing to be with someone who is not uptight about anything,and doesnt try to be politically correct everytime.(Oh and I love the "Wow! you are a masters in computer science, so you know everything about programming!!" bit, although I am pretty sure the kid knows more about macros and queries than I do!)
Plus, I got to relive my teens, with all the movies, and trends, and who is cool and who is not.A Whiz kid, he has been interning at this place, for almost a year now.And the best part - he acts his age.He doesnt try and do the "Oh look i am a Nerd, i am smarter than everyone else around" routine.(That one might notice in quite a few of the undergrad population here.)A pleasure to know, I am sure he will go places!!
Now coming to the good part. The Data center.Housed in the heart of downtown, the facility was built during the cold war years, and has many inbuilt security mechanisms, that make it convienient as a modern day data secure data storage center.This building also houses some federal agencies and hence follows all the homeland security standards - no parking around the building, strict IDing and so on.
Designed exactly for storage and processing purposes, each storey , is one and a half times that of a normal storey.Which means, that if you are looking out of the 6th storey, you will be at par with the 9th storey of the neighboring ones. So anyway,huge silos, robots, processors,tapes monstrous servers, and precise backup mechanisms - Impressive. Weather monitoring systems,huge SANs,emergency backup procedures,security audit procedures and power services - Awesome!
In all, a real good two hours on a Friday morning, to make up for a gussed Chicago trip , and a so-much-planned-but-not-much-happening weekend ahead.
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