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So you want to build your own data center

blog.railway.com

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Re: So you want to build your own data center

#151

Post by fweimer »

cortesoft wrote: post #87
ThatGuyRaion wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying I don't agree with you but most tech businesses that have their own "Data center" usually have a private cage in a Colo.

They usually don’t say they are building their own datacenter, though. It is different to say something like, “our website runs in our datacenter” than saying you built a datacenter. You would still say, “at our office buildings”, even if you are only renting a few offices in an office park.

Don't the hyperscalers outsource datacenter construction and operation? Maybe it's not clear where to draw the line because the datacenters are owned or operated by disposable shell companies for various reasons.

Re: So you want to build your own data center

#152

Post by itsoktocry »

manquer wrote: post #111
xiconfjs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to second this. While it takes mich effort and in-depth knowledge do build up from an “empty” cage it’s still far from dealing with everything from building permits, to plan and realize a data center to code including redundant power lines, AC and fibre. Still kudos going this path in the cloud-centric time we live in.

While it is more complex to actually build out the center , a lot of that is specific to the regional you are doing it. Thy will vary by country, by state or even county , setting up a DC in the Bay Area and say one in Ohio or Utah is a very different endeavor with different design considerations.

>Thy will vary by country, by state or even county , setting up a DC in the Bay Area and say one in Ohio or Utah is a very different endeavor with different design considerations.

What point are you trying to make? It does not matter where you are in the world, or what local laws exist or permits are required, racking up servers in a cage is much less difficult than physically building a data center (of which racking up servers is a part).

Re: So you want to build your own data center

#153

Post by Havoc »

jpleger wrote: post #88
Havoc wrote: post #85

Surprised to see pxe. Didn’t realise that was in common use in racks

Are there any alternatives these days? Or just that you weren't expecting to have systems boot off the network?

The later. I was expecting local boot because pxe introduces a rather big dependency for potentially many machines. Issues with network or issues with pxe server and nothing boots

Re: So you want to build your own data center

#154

Post by manquer »

itsoktocry wrote: post #152
manquer wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it is more complex to actually build out the center , a lot of that is specific to the regional you are doing it. Thy will vary by country, by state or even county , setting up a DC in the Bay Area and say one in Ohio or Utah is a very different endeavor with different design considerations.

> Thy will vary by country, by state or even county , setting up a DC in the Bay Area and say one in Ohio or Utah is a very different endeavor with different design considerations. What point are you trying to make? It does not matter where you are in the world, or what local laws exist or permits are required, racking up servers in a cage is much less difficult than physically building a data center (of which rackin…

I meant that the learning from doing actual build outs aren't going to translate in other geographies and regulatory climates, not that the work is less difficult or not interesting and important.

Also people doing the build outs of a DC aren't likely keen on talking about permits and confidential agreements in the industry quite publicly.

Yes the title is click baity, but that is par of the course these days.

Re: So you want to build your own data center

#156

Post by concerndc1tizen »

technick wrote: post #140

I've spent more time than I care working in data centers and can tell you that your job req is asking for one person to perform 3 different roles, maybe 4. I guarantee you're going to find a "jack of all trades" and a master of none unless you break them out into these jobs. Application Developer DevOps Engineer Site Reliability Engineer Storage Engineer Good luck, hope you pay them well.

There's no reason to attack generalists.

Re: So you want to build your own data center

#157

Post by xiconfjs »

manquer wrote: post #154
itsoktocry wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thy will vary by country, by state or even county , setting up a DC in the Bay Area and say one in Ohio or Utah is a very different endeavor with different design considerations. What point are you trying to make? It does not matter where you are in the world, or what local laws exist or permits are required, racking up servers in a cage is much less difficult than physically building a data center (of which rackin…

I meant that the learning from doing actual build outs aren't going to translate in other geographies and regulatory climates, not that the work is less difficult or not interesting and important. Also people doing the build outs of a DC aren't likely keen on talking about permits and confidential agreements in the industry quite publicly. Yes the title is click baity, but that is par of the course these days.

Sure, every business has confidential agreements which are usually kept secret but there are even on youtube a few people/companies who gave deep insides in the bits and bytes of building a data center from ground up across multiple hours of documentation. And the confidential business agreements in the data center world are up to a certain level the same as any other businesses.

Re: So you want to build your own data center

#158

Post by solarkraft »

Cool post and cool to see Railway talked about more on here.

I‘ve used their postgres offering for a small project (crucially it was accessible from the outside) and not only was setting it up a breeze, cost was also minimal (I believe staying within the free tier). I haven’t used the rest of the platform, but my interaction with them would suggest it would probably be pretty nice.

Re: So you want to build your own data center

#159

Post by concerndc1tizen »

@railway

What would you say are your biggest threats?

Power seems to the big one, especially when the AI power and electric vehicle demand will drive up kWh prices.

Networking seems another one. I'm out of the loop, but it seems to me like the internet is still stuck at 2010 network capacity concepts like "10Gb". If networking had progressed as compute power has (e.g. NVMe disks can provide 25GB/s), 100Gb would be the default server interface? And the ISP uplink would be measured in terabits?

How is the diversity in datacenter providers? In my area, several datacenters were acquired and my instinct would be that: the "move to cloud" has lost smaller providers a lot of customers, and the industry consolidation has given suppliers more power in both controlling the offering and the pricing. Is it a free market with plenty of competitive pricing, or is it edging towards enshittification?

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