Test Center Tracker: Skinny Windows, Cool Servers, and Life Building Tradeshows

Coming to you live from the network operations center at Interop New York, it’s the Test Center Daily. Today, we have news of Windows getting slim, servers in India getting cool, and a large network being built in a very few days. It’s the kind of report that leaves you wanting to run out and make exciting things happen in your very own data center.

Slim Windows: Zack Urlocker reports on a Microsoft presentation that points to a much slimmer Windows coming down the pike. It’s OK to be excited, but don’t hold your breath — it will be 2010, at the earliest, when the MinWin core makes its way to market.

Cool Servers: HP is deploying 7,500 sensors in the Smart Cooling System it’s putting into a data center in Bangalore, India. According to Green IT blogger Ted Samson, the completed, optimized data center should save 40% on cooling costs compared to a traditional data center (or set of data centers). When every little bit counts, 40% is a non-trivial step in the right direction.

Interop Rises: It’s fascinating watching a large network being installed in a convention center. It’s even more interesting watching the network professionals who make it happen. We’ve been learning some valuable lessons, here. Among the most important:

Wire maps can’t be trusted until verified by hand.

When the strength of the signal is below the strength of the noise, wireless networks become very slow.

It’s rarely a good sign when the big box of patch cables comes out from under the table.

Packets known to crash systems should be filtered out of the data stream before they reach the system.

There’s much more to come, including information not quite so obvious. Keep your eye on Test Center Daily…