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The Tao of IT: Lesson One

Backspin By Mark Gibbs , Network World , 04/06/2007
Gibbs

A few months ago I visited One Wilshire, a 25-story building at Wilshire and Grand in downtown Los Angeles. One Wilshire is a carrier hotel -- that is, a point at which various service providers interconnect with each other -- managed by CRG West, a data-center and property-management company.

One Wilshire is nothing short of astounding. The building houses more than 200 tenants, including AT&T, Broadwing, Cable & Wireless, Global Crossing, Level 3, PacBell, Qwest Communications, Sprint, Time Warner, Verizon and XO Communications, and provides U.S. connections for every Asian carrier of any note.

The scale of this 656,000-square-foot facility is staggering: Its power comes from three 34.5kVA mains, it has eight 2MW generators (customers own three more 2MW generators in the facility) and 150 incoming cableways turn into more than 1,000 vertical conduits inside the building.

Even more amazing is that just across the street is another slightly smaller carrier hotel owned by CRG West, and a third 450,000-square-foot data center is 1.5 miles away. Add to that CRG's other 90 North American facilities totaling more than 1 million square feet and you have a staggering scale of operations.

What brought my visit to mind was a conversation I recently had about utility services, which is essentially what CRG supplies. Companies that use the likes of One Wilshire's facilities know something important: Ownership doesn't matter. They have discovered an aspect of the Tao of IT: Possession is an illusion, and when it comes to IT services, the way of "less is more" is more, not less.

So, Grasshopper, this week I want to discuss the Tao of IT. You might be asking, "What is the Tao of IT?" Asking such a question shows that you know nothing, yet you know everything, for not knowing and knowing embody the essence of the Tao, the one and the zero, the "and" and the "nand," the Linux and the Windows. Today's lesson in the Tao is about distinguishing between what is wanted and what is needed, and how these are often confused in IT.

A decade ago the idea of hosting was catching on for public-facing services. Want a Web site? Host it. This was an easy decision, because running a Web site wasn't something we were doing in-house. Some companies did go for hosting their own sites, but most of us were aware that we didn't know much about the security and management of such beasts, so handing off the icky details to a service provider was a great idea.

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Building as targetBy Shane on May 17, 2007, 9:48 amNot only has One Wilshire been evacuated before due to threats, but plans for the building were found in Afghanistan after the US invasion. FYI.

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The terrorists won'thave already wonBy Mark Gibbs on April 10, 2007, 2:07 pmI'm guessing that the terrorists already knew where One Wilshire is … just Google for "carrier hotel" and voila! The only thing that isn't listed is cafeteria menu....

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Why did you list the address?By Don Spare on April 10, 2007, 2:02 pmGee, thanks for letting everyone know where this 'hub' is located. Any terrorist reading this now has a new target for really disrupting business. I hope they have...

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This Week in Backspin: The Tao of IT: Lesson OneBy Mark Gibbs on April 9, 2007, 2:52 pmIn Backspin this week we visit an amazing carrier hotel, One Wilshire, which leads us to discuss Lesson One of the Tao of IT; Wanting and Needing. Ah, grasshopper.

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