Well as soon as I suggest that people start thinking out of the box on datacenter design, what happens?… some people I know have decided to update their datacenter strategy to include..

- Recycling of warm air to heat the rest of the building

- Forced cooling with positive underfloor pressure and a hot air return via a false ceiling

Two steps closer to a better datacenter, however they let themselves down by telling me that they are going to fill it full of super energy efficient computers when I know they’ll be using the most power hungry blades they can find! C’est la vie!

In other news the Red Bull Flug Tag is back! Book your tickets here! Watch the idiots throw themselves in to the serpantine in Hyde Park, London… it’s going to be good

Also discovered the excellent PHP based Network Weather Map - available here - which I’m going to have a bash at integrating at work. It allows you to create a network map where interlinks are represented by arrows that change colour based on link utilization. I can see it being a great use in identifying hotspots, I also think you could use it to provide visual traffic forecasts by incrementing the link usage by a multiplier; e.g. if you wanted to budget for a doubling in traffic simply double all the values and regenerate the map.