Enterprise Customer Labs 4 & 5: Getting Closer
Hi everyone, Jeremy here again.
Work continues on the EEC Reconstruction project. I’m calling it Reconstruction because it’s really quite a bit more than a ‘renovation’ or a ‘remodel’; this isn’t just new carpets, paint and furniture, it’s a major structural retrofit. To date, the biggest work we’ve seen here has been on new HVAC equipment (new chilled water pipes & everything), new cabling (Cat5e and new fiber run throughout the entire facility), and ‘moving’ walls (knocking some down and building some new ones).
This is a picture of two of our labs, ECLs #4 and #5, taken last summer:
And this is a picture of the same labs today:
What you can’t see off to the righ, is the small room that normally houses the ECL 4/5 server racks. That room is part of the new network, power and cooling upgrades which aren’t yet in place.
In the next few weeks, we expect the ECLs to be finished, and then the real fun begins – tearing down the Data Center and putting in a new floor. This new floor isn't just some tile and the like, we’re talking new structural beams that need to be welded to the building support columns. This will raise the floor height by about 18” and allow us to have enough structural load to support for all the additional server racks and storage units that we plan to bring in as well as allow us to run some cabling under floor-level.
I’ll post new photos as things develop. Watch this space!
Jeremy Collins, Project Coordinator
Microsoft EEC
