I recently had an interesting e-mail exchange with Olivier Sanche the chief DC architect at Apple. As you probably know this is a very small industry and Olivier and I have enjoyed a long professional working relationship. He remarked that we are approaching the end of times, as we were both nominated for a Data Center Dream Team in an industry magazine. I agreed with him wholeheartedly.
We we were referring to the poll being conducted by the Web Hosting Industry Review (WHIR) who is conducting a survey to see who would represent the Industry’s best Data Center Dream Team. While its a definite honor to be mentioned, it definitely signals the end of times. 🙂
To me the phrase “Dream Team” conjures images of people with a long list of accomplishments. Its a bit strange to think of the Data Center Industry at large as having made significant movement forward. There has been a tremendous amount of innovation in the last few years, and I do definitely believe we are at the start of something truly revolutionary in our industry, I think its probably way to early in our steps forward to start defining success like this.
For those of you interested the poll is located below. Please keep in mind that you cannot see the results without actually taking the poll itself.
http://www.thewhir.com/Poll/vote
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LooseBolts 
I just took this poll and I have to say I was shocked! Rob Roy from SwitchNap is leading the data center designed category? Please! That man is a total joke. He probably voted for himself a million times. You and Olivier have 1000 times more experience than he does. They should have put him in the self-promoter category or marketing.
Wow Gerald you are spectacularly uninformed. Apparently you have never been to see the SuperNAP or you would know it for the engineering triumph that it is. Rob Roy invented something that outperforms anything built by anyone else on that list, or in the data center industry for that matter. You might want to check your facts.
m00Sh00,
I have been on his dog and pony tour through that facility and I can tell you that there is absolutely nothing new. The whole tour was seriously a conversation in a cult of personality around Roy. I would also be curious as to how easily names get dropped as far as other customers in the building. As far as I am concerned his modularized approach and mechanical designs have been present in the military, oil and gas, and other industries for a long time. But you dont really have to go that far. You can easily look to the work being done by Google and Microsoft and a ton of others to see this same kind of thing. Not to plug Manos, but he has done the same thing on a much bigger, global scale than Roy. Additionally, Olivier Sanche who is mentioned is another truly innovator in the data center industry. Additionally, both Sanche and Manos are out there talking to the industry. I have yet to see Roy show up to ANY industry events. Perhaps he is to busy playing the with action figures in his office.
I think it might be you who needs to check your facts.
Designing and building datacenters is a team effort, and while one person may arrive at an innovation that puts the industry on edge, it is a team that delivers the final design and product.
It’s a shame lists like this exist as folks in the know aren’t going to be troubled with such, leaving these sort of lists to be assembled by the uninformed.
Not a single person up for vote is on my short list of industry innovators, no offense to Michael who hosts this blog.
Tinkthank,
No offense taken. In fact I agree with you wholeheartedly! The army of engineers responsible for driving the innovation in all of my adventures is astonoshingly large. I dont even view myself as a data center designer. I do not have the credentials to call myself a professional engineer and view more of myself as someone who sits in between the traditional processes. Im an overpaid industry observer who unfortunately has responsibility for strategy and execution. Guys like Daniel Costello, Christian Belady, John Kuchachik, Olivier Sanche, and a host of others are far more qualified!
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Mike, The following is a letter I sent to WHIR last Friday after receiving a call that I had won. Hopefully you agree with the Peter Gross nomination and hopefully you and your little minion Gerad will show a little more class in the future when responding about people and projects you don’t know.
A LETTER FROM ROB ROY
I was recently made aware that I was on an opinion poll list for WHIR magazine to identify an “all star team” of notable hosting personalities. After going to the site I was dismayed to see that they could only place five representatives of our industry into the Data Center Designer category. While I know Dean and Olivier and consider them both to be formidable and creative, I am sure they would join me in mentioning several other names and teams that should have been on the list. The groups that immediately come to mind are Peter Van Camp and his team at Equinix, Manny Medina and the Terremark team, The design engineers at Microsoft- (Arne Josefsberg, Christian Belady, Daniel Costello and team), Google’s Jimmy Clidaris and team, I/O’s George Slessman, Kevin Timmons and his team at Yahoo, and probably two dozen other brilliant teams that we could choose. Of course if we as an industry are going to pick a single representative to act as lead for the Data Center Designer spot on the All Star Team, it would have to go to Peter Gross and the EYP/HP team – upwards of ten million sq/ft designed in over two dozen countries worldwide with several hundred projects going at any one time.
As I have been notified that I won the most votes on the small list poll I am using my right to abdicate the award to Peter Gross and team. It is with utmost sincerity that I hope Peter and the rest of us in the data center realm keep pushing the new boundaries of design and efficiency as we move towards a renewed economy and an exciting growth era in technology.
Of course down the road after Peter decides to retire – I won’t abdicate the next time.
Regards to all,
Rob Roy
Rob –
First thing I guess I would say is huh? I would definitely support Peter Gross for this award along with host of others, but Peter is definitely someone I could get behind for the award. But with regards to your “you and your little minion” comment and your reference to me showing “more class” I think you might be better off actually reading what I posted. First – my post only mentioned that I was honored to be nominated and that I felt we are to early in the process to really be talking about innovators in design. Gerald is his own person and I nether know him, nor would I consider him (or anyone else for that matter a minion). If someone seems to have an issue with you its Gerald so you may want to look at the brush size you are painting this issue with. Not sure where I violated a ‘class’ issue. Sheesh!
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LOL! Hey Mike, Maybe he knows your from the south side of Chicago and you skipped most of your classes where you were a juvenile delinquent. Your comments were fine. We miss you at Microsoft buddy and really wish you were still here.
This is so hilarious and proves my point. Not only does he not bother to read the actual post and thread (someone probably just told him there was something negative about him here). But he apparently does not even know that you are the father of the Microsoft data center program and hired the Dan Costello’s and Christian Belady’s of the program in the first place! A true industry leader. In my opinion Peter Gross sold his soul to the devil the moment he sold EYP to HP.
Signed,
Gerald
Gerald, Peter had a small role in the sale of EYPMCF. About 2/3 of EYPMCF was owned by TA Associates, an investment firm. Once TA decided to sell, it was going to be sold. The only decisions were to whom and for how much. TA’s interest was to find who would pay the most and then to close the deal. You shouldn’t be so hard on Peter.
Let me make something clear – my statement about “A true industry leader” was not directed at Manos, but Roy’s lack of understanding who is who in the industry. Its called sarcasm.
Gerald, If Peter is the Devil, Mr Manos is not a true industry leader and Im a total joke, who do you think should represent the industry on the “dream Team”. Please give your title and association with the data center world so we can understand if your opinion has any value. I know you say we met once but I honestly don’t remember you at all.
Mike, I would like to redact my class comment from earlier. I perceived that as moderator you might be trying to say something with the first post you put through. I now see you have an open moderation policy and that it was a complete misread by myself. please accept my apologies and next time you’re in Vegas Ill buy dinner.
Rob
Rob – Absolutely no worries. I generally just have an open approve policy unless its specifically a private note to myself or obvious spam. I would be happy to meet for dinner or drinks if for nothing else, to talk about Gerald. 🙂
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