What with the somewhat negative press about how much energy data centers use, we’ve been spending an unusual amount of time in the limelight in the past few months.  Many an average person still doesn’t have the slightest idea what a data center is, but it looks like that might be on its way to changing.  Mentioning that you work in the data center industry in mixed company inevitably has to be followed with an explanation of the basic concept of what a data center even is, but with all the different ways data centers have been coming to attention, we may not have to have that explanation ready for much longer.

There have been some very interesting and pretty well-publicized experiments with university data centers cropping up in the news lately, and original ways of using data center waste heat.  Also notable is the recent fashion for putting data centers in unexpected spaces, like caves, or abandoned bunkers.  But the most surprising way our industry has shown up in the news lately is the educational exhibit featuring a data center at Disney World.

Part of a cooperative effort between Disney and IBM with its Smarter Planet initiative to increase public awareness of green technology and concerns, the exhibit features various attractions.  Most exciting is the chance to go in and look at the data center which powers it, complete with explanations for the public... much of which doesn’t even know what a data center is.  The modular data center itself is pretty interesting - on a scale of Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency, it measures 70%, compared with an industry average around 43% which can plummet as low as 28%.

So if you’re in the data center industry and you’ve never been to Disney World, now’s the time to go!  Get there before tourist season and horribly hot muggy weather starts up in the summer.

photo by ashugarg under flickr creative commons license

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