TechHermit’s last post has 5 comments now. 

It’s too bad TechHermit couldn’t see these comments from Christian Belady, me, Rich Miller, Urs Hoelzle, and Mike Manos.

If you haven’t had a chance to visit http://techhermit.wordpress.com/, you may want to check out what Shane McGew wrote in the past that got all of our attention.

1. I was devastated by this news….through his blog he had become both a friend and industry pundit.. I found TechHermit a very objective voice of reason in an industry of very subjective opinions. His refreshing candidness made his blog my favorite read. I will certainly miss him immensely and I think the industry will as well. Anytime there is industry news, his blog was the first place I would go to see what his opinion was…and usually they made me smile because he put the “moose on the table”. He truly had a gift in that.

   My sympathies go to his family during this difficult time.

   by Christian Belady July 30, 2009 at 2:53 pm

   Reply

2. 

   It is sad to hear this news as I felt TechHermit was one of my avid readers, and another person who shared a passion for transparency of what is going on in the industry. I will miss his contributions and discussion as TechHermit was not a media person and wasn’t blogging from a company perspective.

   An example of how we leveraged conversations ishttp://techhermit.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/individual-versus-the-collective/

   I am writing my own blog entry. My condolences go out to to the family for their loss.

   by Dave Ohara July 30, 2009 at 3:40 pm

   Reply

3. 

   William, please accept our condolences on your loss.

   Your dad’s insight and passion, as given voice through Tech Hermit, had real value in the data center industry. This was clearly reflected in the fact that the leading technologists from Microsoft and Google – the world’s largest and most successful companies – were regular readers and commenters here at Tech Hermit. We’ll miss him.

   by Rich Miller July 30, 2009 at 5:22 pm

   Reply

4. 

   I am very sorry about your loss, William. I’ve never met your dad in person, but as Rich says many of us at Google had been following his blog, and had no idea of his illness because he sure stayed sharp until the very end. He may have been late to the Internet, but his voice was heard and will be remembered.

   -Urs

   by Urs Hoelzle July 31, 2009 at 2:36 am

   Reply

5. 

   William,

   I am deeply saddened by this news. I loved the candor and as Christian put it, his ability to put the “moose on the table”. You could always count on him to give you his perspective. Sometimes he was dead on, sometimes a little off, but always the most interesting voice out there. This is a huge loss to our industry.

   Mike Manos

   by Michael Manos July 31, 2009 at 2:49 pm

I had some friends check out DataCenterKnowledge’s post on a NYTimes feature article, “Data Center Overload” coming out this Sunday in the Magazine.  Rich Miller has a great quote from the article.

Trying to chart the cloud’s geography can be daunting, a task that is further complicated by security concerns. “It’s like ‘Fight Club,’ ” says Rich Miller, whose Web site, Data Center Knowledge, tracks the industry. “The first rule of data centers is: Don’t talk about data centers.”

The above is from a slide show.

This article must have been in the works for a while as Mike Manos is in the article as a Microsoft employee and “Manos” show up 9 times in the article.

As I pulled up to it in a Prius with Michael Manos, who was then Microsoft’s general manager of data-center services, he observed that while “most people wouldn’t be able to tell this wasn’t just a giant warehouse,” an experienced eye could discern revelatory details. “You would notice the plethora of cameras,” he said. “You could follow the power lines.” He gestured to a series of fluted silver pipes along one wall. “Those are chimney stacks, which probably tells you there’s generators behind each of those stacks.” The generators, like the huge banks of U.P.S. (uninterruptible power supply) batteries, ward against surges and power failures to ensure that the data center always runs smoothly.

Google is mentioned 12 times.

Microsoft is mentioned 22 times.

Yahoo  - 3

Amazon - 4

Facebook – 13

Microsoft wins with the positiong battle, and has the last 2 paragraphs.

“Our perspective long term is: It’s not a building, it’s a piece of equipment,” says Daniel Costello, Microsoft’s director of data-center research, “and the enclosure is not there to protect human occupancy; it’s there to protect the equipment.”

From here, it is easy to imagine gradually doing away with the building itself, and its cooling requirements, which is, in part, what Microsoft is doing next, with its Gen 4 data center in Dublin. One section of the facility consists of a series of containers, essentially parked and stacked amid other modular equipment — with no roof or walls. It will use outside air for cooling. On our drive to Tukwila, Manos gestured to an electrical substation, a collection of transformers grouped behind a chain-link fence. “We’re at the beginning of the information utility,” he said. “The past is big monolithic buildings. The future looks more like a substation — the data center represents the information substation of tomorrow.”

Articles like this are exposing data centers and making it hard to abide by the rule - “The first rule of data centers is: Don’t talk about data centers.”

This is just the beginning of breaking the rules in data centers.