Re: NANOG Digest, Vol 26, Issue 122

[Nathan Ward <nanog () daork net>]

On 25/03/2010, at 4:32 PM, Rudolph Daniel wrote:

> Hi Joe
> You guys ever mount your racks on Barry mounts= vibration mounts..with so
> many shakes you may need to.
> RD

Nope.

Instead, we stick it at the top of big towers that buffer the vibrations as they go up the tower.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Tower

From memory, we can thank/blame Joe for much of that.

Up that tower we have the main switches for the Auckland Peering Exchange (which has in the last few years become a bit 
more distributed), the (main, or only) POPs for a bunch of offshore transit, including Pacnet and Vocus, and also an 
F-root instance.

From memory it's the highest AGL peering exchange in the world. Probably the highest F-Root instance in the world as 
well.

When there are high winds, the service lift that stops at the right levels cannot run, because it's on a longer shaft 
and so moves around a lot more. So you have to take the regular tourist glass-bottomed lift and then walk down about 6 
flights to the comms floors.
Also in moderate winds any unfastened cabinet doors will move with the sway of the tower. Try going up there at 4am 
after watching a thriller.

Also the floor to ceiling glass about 2 feet from the bottom of the ladder you're at the top of a 50RU rack with. Plus 
the swaying building.
You get over your vertigo pretty quickly, or you just don't go up the tower more than once.

--
Nathan Ward