The Art of the Data Center

Today, data centers are the beating hearts of the companies they serve. Data centers process billions of Internet transactions every day. It's therefore critical for companies and IT organizations to understand the state-of-the-art in data center design. Narrow aspects - such as cooling, wiring, or power usage - are often the subject of technical documents. But it's rare to find a holistic view of how a great data center was designed - until now. In The Art of the Data Center, Cisco's Douglas Alger takes you behind the scenes at eighteen of the world's most innovative data centers. Through interviews with their designers, Alger reveals why key decisions were made, and shows how construction and other challenges were overcome. He goes behind the scenes with pioneering companies like Cisco, eBay, Facebook, and Yahoo! presenting design lessons that can be applied in widely diverse environments.

Readers will encounter amazing data centers like these:


A data center built into a 1920s chapel

A data center built in an underground military bunker, with artificial daylight, manmade waterfalls, and submarine engines providing standby power

A data center inspired by a chicken coop

The world's first all solar data center


Data center professionals directly involved in planning, design, or operations will find this book remarkably useful - and a much broader audience of IT executives and practitioners will find it utterly fascinating.

Do you have a Safari Books Online account? Have a look and a listen, too! The Safari edition of this book includes 8 audio recordings from the author describing lessons learned, industry trends and general insights as well as more detailed explanations of certain Data Center topics raised within the profiles. Links to these recordings appear throughout the book, wherever the topic is discussed.