Why You Shouldn't Shout in the Data Center

Data centers are noisy places. Sometimes you have to raise your voice to be heard. But you shouldn't shout right next to a rack of equipment, as illustrated by Brendan Gregg of Sun Microsystems. Brendan used analytics software developed by Sun's Fishworks team to demonstrate that shouting next to working racks can cause significant disk latency. In this example, Brendan screams into a rack housing JBODs (Just A Bunch of Disks), producing an immediate pop in input/output latency. The increase is caused by disk vibration resulting from the nearby noise. While the example is extreme, it's worth considering the next time you're trying to make yourself heard in the data center. This video is 2 minutes in length.

Brendan shares more data on his blog. For more news from Sun Microsystems, check out our Sun Channel. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.