National Center for Computational Sciences

Tennessee is spending $68 million over the next three years to build and outfit two “data centers” to house hundreds of computers used to run state government.

The buildings, one north of downtown Nashville and a second near Smyrna, will replace a 20-year-old data center built on a former landfill near Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, in view of the Capitol.

The current building was once state-of-the-art, too, but the art was a lot different then.

In the world of computers and information technology, “20 years is a lifetime,” said Mark Bengel, the state’s chief information officer.

That’s apparent with a quick look around the current location: The foundation has cracked in some places to the point that equipment had to be moved. A railroad track is within view, leaving the center at risk in case of a derailment.

Centers provide backup

Bengel said a data center should provide maximum protection from terrorists and a catastrophe such as a tornado or an earthquake.

The new data center buildings are built with redundancy in mind. According to the state’s plans, each building will be responsible for half of the state’s computing needs, while also backing up the other center’s activities.

“That way, if the data center gets hit by fire or a tornado, or some catastrophic disaster, you only have to recover half your systems. We use the opposite data center to recover the other,” he said.

Computer experts at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and at Tennessee Tech said the state is taking the correct course of action.

“You can’t have people not getting paychecks, and you can’t have people not able to send e-mails. Oak Ridge National Labs has its own redundant data center for its business operations. All major banks do. You have to, because you never know what’s going to happen,” said Buddy Bland, head of an Oak Ridge National Labs computing facility.

Ben He, a professor of computer engineering at Tennessee Tech, said he likes the “idea of having two centers backing up each other. Data storage is critical,” he said.

Bengel said he was made aware of the building’s problems when he took his job three-and-a-half years ago.

Problems are evident

The building is constructed on the site of a former landfill. As the landfill has settled over the decades, it has stressed the building’s foundation.

“It’s not sinking into the mire. There are some cracks in the foundation, and we have been told it would not be a good idea to put some heavy equipment” in a part of the building where cracks have formed.

Each of the new buildings will provide 35,000 square feet of space, replacing the current data center of 70,000 square feet.

Even though the space will remain the same, Bengel said, the two centers would provide room for growth because of smaller and smaller computers.

“We’ll get a good 20 years of growth out of these buildings as the equipment becomes smaller,” he said.

Source:Tennessean
By: Leon Alligood