Test Aims to Disprove Data Center Dogma

A Trinity Health IT engineer keeps systems that reside in a generator shed running, despite fluctuating temperatures and dusty conditions.

By Patrick Thobodeau, Computerworld
October 24, 2011 10:20 AM ET

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Since January, David Filas, a data center engineer at Trinity Health, has been running decommissioned servers, networking gear and storage systems in a simple generator shed on the grounds of the healthcare provider's headquarters in Novi, Mich.

Filas hopes that by January 2012, this project will have convinced his colleagues that IT equipment isn't as fragile as they think it is .

So far, the equipment has stayed up and running, enduring Michigan's wide seasonal variations in temperature and humidity levels, Filas said at the Afcom data center conference in Orlando last month.

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