4:12am
All systems are powered down, and the power will be cut in a few moments at the main breaker.  They will have just over 2 hours to complete all wiring.

6:37am
Power cut over successful!  The new APC UPS is live – time to bring up the mainframe.  Hard to believe we still say that here.  We have 20 minutes to be live for our Bus Operations team.

6:52am
APC UPS engineer:  “Can you turn that big machine off for a minute?  We need to test the phase on the UPS.”  Oops.  No I cannot.  You will have to shoot me before my hands will push the off button.  First lesson of the day:  test power before you turn on computers.

7:02am
Mainframe operational.  UPS test shows power phasing correctly – crisis averted.

8:13am
The team has a saws-all out and they are cutting away an old cabinet.  Slightly disconcerting.  We have 4 cabinets still up on the old raised floor.  They have to come out, raised floor demolished and removed, new ESD tile laid, and new cabinets installed by 9:00am if we’re to stay on schedule.  Uh.

9:15am
Roel has the ESD tile installed.  APC team moving cabinets in now.  Simply amazing.

11:45am
All server and network equipment has been removed from legacy racks.  The old Mitsubishi UPS is sitting in the hallway feeling sorry for itself.  We’ll be recycling all of the older equipment, and reusing some of the racks at remote locations.

1:31pm
Delivering Pizza to the office for the team.  Some things just never change in the IT business.  Most of the equipment is in the new racks.  Cabling is underway.

5:15pm
All but 10 units put into racks.  The team is making custom cables.  May be done this evening with staging, leaving tomorrow for restart.

8:10pm
Shutting down for the night.  Cable testing starts in the morning.

5:30am
Most people won’t be here until 8:00, but I am enjoying the calm before the storm.

8:00am
Cabling testing and final patching begins.

2:45pm
Starting to bring up servers.

5:48pm
Well there were several bumps in the road, but the environment is successfully up.  Thanks to our vendors Logicalis, Prime, APC, and Roel for helping us transition to the new power and equipment.

8:00am
Well no surprise, we’re having some issues this morning.  But most are manageable, so I feel like we had a successful project.

NCTD requires a high-availability environment now.  There is no getting around the fact that we run important, mission-critical systems on our infrastructure, and as such we can no longer afford to have unexpected and unplanned outages.  To meet this basic requirement, we must have the capability of creating power on-demand, nearly instantaneously should our power fail.  There simply are few choices on the market today to address this need for a facility of our size.

We could have taken the approach that we would provide our own ‘co-lo’ power via a set of natural gas generators.  This scenario would have allowed us to failover to SDG&E power should the natural gas units fail.  This option does not really make sense for our data center because firstly we’ve invested in solar pv power to offset the power demands, and secondly because our data center power draw is really too small to make this economical.  So from a business case, this is a poor choice for our scenario.

Another option was the fuel-cell based UPS.  The problem with this approach is simply the cost and the durability of the power.  We have had now two outages this year over 6 hours in duration.  There is simply no way we could sustain the entire data center on the fuel cells for this long.  And again, the business case is not there.

We are now investigating alternative fuel sources for the Kohler generator – either ‘clean diesel’ or biofuels.  While the biodiesel seems like a natural choice, the biggest issue is the long-term storage of the fuel.  Fuel that sits around for months can degrade due to algae or condensation.  Research indicates that not many entities are yet using biodiesel as their fuel choice for standby scenarios where the generator is not going to be used frequently.  So my next step is to contact the manufacturer to determine whether a biodiesel mix is appropriate in the generator, and what they would believe the ideal mix to contain.  We will then compare this to the emissions, performance, and price of ‘clean diesel.’

So while I am still not 100% reconciled that installing a generator is moving us in the right direction for a green data center, I am convinced that we’ve made the business decision which balances our environmental needs with our business realities.

This grant will allow the District to build on its basic commitment to the three elements of sustainability:  economic, social, and environmental.  We were awarded $2 million to build on our plan by investing in more innovative solar power installations at the District, and in to install plug-in vehicle charging stations at some of our rail parking facilities for our customers. 

The application process was highly competitive, with only $100 million available for Green Transit initiatives across the entire United States.  My organization was one of 43 entities receiving the funding, and received one of the largest awards in acknowledgement of the business case and ROI analysis put forth.  The project includes:

• Demonstrating the feasibility of deploying solar technology in the Rail right-of-way, thus leveraging space that cannot be utilized for other purposes.  Makes idle property more productive and possibly revenue-generating
• We will also be installing solar at maintenance and administrative facilities to offset power needs at those locations.
• Deploying parking spaces with charging units for plug-in vehicles as a value to our customers.
• Installing solar carports at some parking lots to both provide power and provide better parking options to our customers. 

This grant award is part of an overall commitment to sustainability that includes other steps like an energy-efficient data center, replacing parking lot lights with more efficient options, the creation of a new Compressed Natural Gas fueling station, our approach to transit-oriented design for transit centers and stations, the use of solar along the COASTER right-of-way to power our wireless security system, the replacement of older buses with CNG-powered vehicles, paratransit, and our commitment to being a long-term sustainability partner with the communities we serve.

by Angela Miller
We haven’t formally announced it yet, but yesterday NCTD went live on Google Transit finally.  This was a nearly 9 month effort to get our schedules loaded into the Google Maps tools.  Now when people are looking for directions in San Diego County, they can also choose to find the optional public transit path with next departure times.

The thing that is really nice about this tool is that it consolidates information from NCTD, San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, Amtrak, and other southern California transit entities so that it doesn’t matter who is providing the service you can still easily plan the trip.

Anything that makes public transit a more convenient option for the community is a good investment in my mind.  And unlike some of the other technology investments, this one cost the District almost nothing and should have a significant return.

My plan is to now jump off of this and leverage this tool to provide better information for the community through kiosks, and devices for our security and customer service teams that help all users better plan their trips.

Also thought I would mention that there is a SPRINTER application in the iPhone Applications Store.  I’m not endorsing it, but it is there.  This application was built by an independent third party developer using just our paper schedules.  My intent is to make our schedules available in the Google Transit Feed format on our website for any developer who might want to create applications.  Exciting stuff.

I gave a presentation on how transit entities can take small steps to make incremental progress toward greening their data center.   I’m not sure that my observations could compete with the more exciting presentations like iPhone applications and Google Transit.  But I think the slide that showed how making a simple change in our desktops and monitors had actual dollar savings and a measurable reduction in our carbon footprint made some impression.