5 ms·
How the data center site selection process works at Dropbox
- MoosePirate 3y ago> In the event of a power outage, one provider could only give us 30 seconds of emergency power—versus five minutes with a standard UPS setup—because they used an inertia wheel. If a generator fails to start in 30 seconds, that almost always means it will also not start within 5 minutes. Does dropbox have automation that attempts to gracefully shut down systems if a generator fails to start? Are systems then kept down until the battery UPS system is fully recharged? If not, the difference between 30 seconds and 5 minutes doesn’t seem important.
- ramraj07 3y agoOur Indian Condo complex generator regularly takes more than 30 seconds to start up. Even the best case is likely at 10 seconds so only having such a small cushion sounds dangerous.
- rainbowzootsuit 3y agoSome rough calculations on a fully loaded data center that I have worked on designing shows that you only have about a minute before the air gets to an overheating condition due to the low heat capacity. The HVAC doesn't keep running through a total power failure even if the computers have a lot of reserve power.
- slyall 3y agoPossibly not. AWS had an outage in Sydney in 2016 where the longer interval available with a battery UPS might have avoided the problem. https://aws.amazon.com/message/4372T8/ https://aws.amazon.com/message/4372T8/
- aetherspawn 3y agoHow does one make it known that they have a data center available to tender for these processes? Is there like a Craigslist for data Center space?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jareklupinski 3y ago"Well-funded Colo Seeking Founders With Same"
- wmf 3y agoTalk to industry media like Data Center Knowledge.
- vel0city 3y agoFrom my understanding there's a lot of essentially commercial real estate brokers but focusing on selling (leasing) data centers and other industrial locations. They even directly mention this in the article. Specialized real estate brokers will keep up to date on who is building what in a market. It's hard to hide a data center. They tend to need a shit tons of permits to construct, even if being built out in an existing industrial location. Not a lot of secrets for those paying attention. Hell, most tend to publish lots of attention getting stuff in local papers and trade mags and their own websites. Many are somewhat large-ish chains. So if you're a data center owner wanting to increase leases you'd hire a broker like just about any other commercial space and they'd use their connections and marketing abilities to sell it to other brokers representing orgs like Dropbox and thousands of others.
- nixass 3y agoYou couldn't even imagine how many repurposed telco or other purpose-built buildings are now data centers. Some of them in very city centers as well, well within residential areas. One particular in my area is multi tenant building - a grocery shop, education facilities and Equinix on top of them. Unless you are able to see HVAC systems on rooftop there's no way to tell it's data center you're looking at. It's basically like that building from Man in Black 1
- RDaneel0livaw 3y agoIt's sad to me that dropbox still exists in 2023. I was hoping many years ago that they would have died a slow, painful, miserable death ... that they very so much deserve. But here we are.
- imperialdrive 3y agoMay I ask, why?
- scarface_74 3y agoLike Steve Jobs said, DropBox is a feature not a product. They are barely profitable and in 2023, there are much better integrated solutions for most users - GSuite, Office365, iCloud, etc. Why for instance would I pay $120 a year for 2TB of storage when I can get Office 365 for 6 users + 1TB for each user or combine the storage for $99 a year? Apple and Google both also offer a better value proposition.
- pdntspa 3y agoDropbox's desktop client is STILL the only desktop client that doesn't suck or choke on multiple git repos. Aside from syncthing it is the only program that I can count on to get file synchronization right
- scarface_74 3y agoWhy would I use Dropbox for my git repos instead of just using - a purpose built hosted git server?
- pdntspa 3y agoYou're not hosting the repos on there, you're syncing changes between computers you frequently have to switch back and forth on, without all the git command ceremony When I was doing embedded linux development I'd frequently have to get up from my seat to go test something on actual hardware. Necessitating a laptop and a desktop.
- mongol 3y agoIn logistics, there is 3PL, third party logistics where you outsource your warehouse. Are there similar things for datacenters? Also, if it existed, would that differ from general cloud providers?