Mike Manos: Open Source Data Center Initiative

There are many in the data center industry that have repeatedly called for change in this community of ours. Change in technology, change in priorities, Change for the future. Over the years we have seen those changes come very slowly and while they are starting to move a little faster now, (primarily due to the economic conditions and scrutiny over budgets more-so than a desire to evolve our space) our industry still faces challenges and resistance to forward progress. There are lots of great ideas, lots of forward thinking, but moving this work to execution and educating business leaders as well as data center professionals to break away from those old stand by accepted norms has not gone well.

That is why I am extremely happy to announce my involvement with the University of Missouri in the launch of a Not-For-Profit Data Center specific organization. You might have read the formal announcement by Dave Ohara who launched the news via his industry website, GreenM3. Dave is another of of those industry insiders who has long been perplexed by the lack of movement and initiative we have had on some great ideas and stand outs doing great work. More importantly, it doesn’t stop there. We have been able to put together quite a team of industry heavy-weights to get involved in this effort. Those announcements are forthcoming, and when they do, I think you will get a sense of the type of sea-change this effort could potentially have.

more of the Loose Bolts Blog post from Mike Manos

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.