This 10,000 Square Foot Data Center Has 300+ 10 Gig Ports!!

• By Isabel Wang on January 26, 2007

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I read about it on CNet. What you see above is Lucasfilm's data center. Its network features 300 10-gig ports and 1,500 1-gig ports. Every digital artist within the company has a desktop with gigabit connectivity.

Lucasfilm uses Verari servers with dual core, dual Opteron processors and 16 GB RAM as well as bunches of legacy machines. IT director Kevin Clark says it can take as little as 6-7 months before new equipment turns legacy. For storage, Kevin has 300 TB on a NetApp NAS. (BTW, check out this Infoworld article about NetApp's Data Ontap GX virtualization software, which allowed Lucasfilm to maintain 200 TB across 20 servers while having storage capacity appear as one single 200 TB disk. Lucasfilm has been testing the software for the past year, and will be moving to a GX cluster soon.)

As with Google, Lucasfilms says power utilization is an important factor in its data center equipment selection. The company's website also points out that its facility is LEED certified by the US Green Building Council. I've been hearing a lot about LEED these days. It's mentioned in this SearchDataCenters article, and it will be on the agenda at Data Center World. If green IT is a priority for corporate data center managers, it will likely become an increasingly important topic in your sales discussions with enterprise customers.

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