Hovercraft for deliveries to the fifth floor loading dock (was Re: Your mail)

Tue Aug 20 23:45:28 UTC 2002

I am not an ex-employee of Equinix, so here's my 2 cents:

When we built the IBXs, having spent a couple of years listening to
you folks tell me what you want at the PAIX and elsewhere, I basically
learned it was impossible to satisfy everyone.  If you please one network
engineer, you're going to annoy another one, and that's just the way
it works.  In the immortal words of Stephen Stuart, "Sorry."

Apparently our secret plan to shut up Nathan did fail miserably. ;)  
We'll have to set the hand geometry readers to electrocute him on his
next appearance at the IBX.

1) Fire codes and other local ordinances interfered with my grand plan to
bury you in concrete and eliminate fire exits.  ;)  In other words, we have
no choice put to put fire exits in there, otherwise many of you would die
in a fire due to the sheer size of our facilities.  Fire doors don't work
very well if you can't open them.  In some regions, we're allowed by code
to lock it shut for a delay and theoretically that's enough time to send
a guard to hunt you down and remove you.  In others we need to let it open,
but an alarm goes off (sometimes silently, other times very loudly) to
accomplish the same effect.  If Nathan propped open a door and was able to
enter/exit without being caught then that was a failure and one I'd like
to address...  In any case, yes we do have a camera watching you, and we
do keep records of all that, so if you think it's a big security hole and
plan on balancing that GSR on one toe into the back of your pickup so you
can sell it on the street corner go ahead and try.  Don't be surprised if
I don't write you in jail.

2) Customers are given one point of contact they can call for anything.  You
know, it's that game... if you do what one person wants it annoys another...
So therefore, just like engineers love to call their favorite go-getter of
the day, it's ok for customers to call account reps, SEs, or even network
engineers and folks like me.  We don't care.  However, if you want to call
the ERC we figure that's fine as well.  We thought everyone would want
to bypass humans all together and use a web site.  We were proven wrong
on that front, though some of the more organized customers use the 
web interface regardless.  So you don't HAVE to call five different people,
but hell, if you want to, have a field day.  (What?  You mean there is
flexibility?  Preposterous!!!)

Finally, remember the point of all this... peering points didn't take into
account the physical issues associated with colo, and we tried to address
them from the network engineer's perspective...paying special attention to
the VERY different colocation needs for different customers.  Oh yeah,
and then try and duplicate it exactly in seven buildings.  At 3am one
day maybe even Nathan can appreciate the way we designed them...  Being
a colo provider is a necessary evil needed to accomplish the much more
important goals of solving certain other exchange point issues.

On Tue, Aug 20, 2002 at 06:50:00PM -0400, Sean Donelan wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 20 Aug 2002, Nathan Stratton wrote:
> > Correct, I am sorry I think that is my point. There are a lot of things
> > that they SHOULD have been doing, but they were not. I am saying they
> > spent lots of money on a security image and not on security. They never
> > found me using the door and that is a problem, when I let them know about
> > their issues they rather shut me up then deal with them.
> 
> Obviously their secret plan to shut you up failed :-)
> 
> Like commercial ventures, there is a certain amount of fluff and puffery.
> Banks still get robbed even with that really, really thick door on the
> vault.  Most car commercials have fine print at the bottom saying don't do
> this insane thing.  It gives the sales people something to talk about.
> Stick your fingers in your ears and ignore the sales person until you
> want to talk about discounts.  Any technically savvy person should be
> able to do due dilegence and determine if a facility meets his needs.
> 
> The question isn't really about security, but how it compares to other
> facilities of a similar caliber.  You could drive a tank, but its really
> hard to park and gets lousy gas milage.  Comparing a car to a tank isn't
> very useful.  Comparing a Volvo to a Saab might provide information to
> make an informed choice.
> 
> Is Equinix (PAIX, MFN, NOTA, etc) less secure than NORAD?  Yes.
> Are there things I wish they did differently? Yes.
> Have they ever left a door unlocked? Yes.
> Have they ever made a mistake? Yes.
> 
> Is Equinix a clean, secure, well-run facility I would trust to house my
> equipment?  Yes.
> Would I also buy insurance and consider a diverse, back up site for my
> equipment? Yes.
> 
> Disclosure: I'm an ex-employee of Equinix.

-- 
[ Jay Adelson                           adelson at equinix.com ]
[ Founder, Chief Technology Officer   Work: +1-650-316-6000 ]
[ Equinix, Inc., Mountain View, CA     Fax: +1-650-316-6904 ]