We are opening a new office and will have our network / server gear in a room with a large window facing a customer reception area. We’re told it’d be nice if the racks looked nice through the glass. Does anyone sell…decorative server equipment? Something useless with a bunch of blinky lights? This is one of the stranger requests we’ve dealt with.
Ask HN: How to make a photogenic server room
1–10 of 57 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to make a photogenic server room
#2No post body was provided.
Re: Ask HN: How to make a photogenic server room
#3Network patch panels with nicely bundled wires might work; switches often have numerous blinky lights.
You could dig up some antique gear and make it run: tape loader robots or even 9 track tapes with reels. It's been a long time since they did flashy innards on display stuff like that so its in the uncomfortable range between "scrap" and "industrial antiques" now.
Or just admit it's all for show and commission an artist to make something cool. We have better blinky lights technology than ever before with addressable RGB LED strips and panels and many examples of their use.
You can tell the bosses that putting real production servers on display would be a security issue. say "Tempest" and nod knowingly. As long as you dont smirk they'll usually go along.
Re: Ask HN: How to make a photogenic server room
#4Colour coordinated network cables
Re: Ask HN: How to make a photogenic server room
#5Have a small antique desk for the operator, get an SGI or an iMac G3 on there, add an (empty) cocktail glass.
Re: Ask HN: How to make a photogenic server room
#6Stuff some Christmas lights into some empty computer cases, especially ones that automatically blink and fade. Also, get a fog machine that you can turn on whenever you need a break from work (just remember to keep stocked up on fogger juice)
Re: Ask HN: How to make a photogenic server room
#7Ask Reddit at /r/cableporn. They will be thrilled to have you.
Re: Ask HN: How to make a photogenic server room
#8I was once asked to be a partly-decorative sysadmin in a similar situation but offered to split the fees with an actual male model in a smart suit while I did the crawling under desks bit...
What are model rates in your area compared to cost of eye candy hardware?
Re: Ask HN: How to make a photogenic server room
#9Making it neat will probably go farther than adding fake blinking lights. Avoid empty rack spaces, dangling cables, etc.
Re: Ask HN: How to make a photogenic server room
#10Wide racks, structured cabling, cable combs, "real" overhead tray, clever lighting. Buy multiple exact lengths of cables instead of using service loops. Use the right kind of PDUs to minimize power cable lengths.
You can order custom racks and have them use any metal or paints that you want.
Hire good electricians, get them to bend hard metallic conduit instead of flexible or plastic, have it bundled instead of just surface mounted. Additionally have an engineer draw up all of the conduit plans ahead of time instead of just letting the electricians figure out something random.
Edit: Buy loopback SFP modules and put them in all unused ports on switches and servers, then set the port on a VLAN and/or IP address that doesn't go anywhere. Then use multicast pings to make it blink.
Edit 2: Buy more switches to do this kind of thing if you don't have enough switches to make it look interesting. You could use bunches of 48 short 6 inch cables to make a routing protocol lab on several pieces of 10+ year old equipment, and then have beautiful blinking lights all over the place.