Case Studies

The Situation
“A fundamental tenet of our business is that we
never close,” says US Internet co-founder and Chief
Technology Officer Travis Carter. “Our customers
expect continuous operation of their equipment
in a secure, clean environment with ample cooling
and redundant backup power.”
Because the colocation business is dominated by
much larger corporations, US Internet’s success is
based on providing superior services. “If we don’t
deliver, it’s easy for our customers to find someone
who will
,” Car
ter says.
US Internet’s Minneapolis colocation center houses
a variety of IT equipment. “Some customers lease
racks and servers from us, while others bring in
their own equipment for us to support,” Carter
says. “We have about 200 racks full of everything
and anything—1U and 2U servers, blades, older
servers—you name it, and we’ve probably got it.”
Wh
a
tever their equipment, customers want to
m
ak
e the m
o
st of every square millimeter of space
in their racks. US Internet managed power and
cooling demands successfully until customers
beg
an u
sin
g b
l
a
de s
e
rvers. “As they packed
m
ore powerful equipment into smaller spaces,
the demands for power and cooling increased
exponentially,” Carter says. “Our power and
c
oolin
g in
fr
astructure just wasn’t designed
to support newer, high-density equipment.”
The mix o
f eq
uipment soon outstripped US Internet’s
support infrastructure. “Hot spots with temperatures
greater than 90F developed two or three feet from a
p
r
ec
isi
on c
ooling unit,” Carter says. “We had 50 tons
of traditional, floor-mount cooling, and it was like
squirting a water pistol on a campfire.”
The situation quickly became critical. “We were
a
t the point of meltdown because we couldn’t
get our cooling under control and we were out
of power,” Carter says. “We had used the capacity
of every circuit that we had at that time.”
T
o m
ak
e the situ
a
ti
on even more challenging,
there was no room to add additional precision
cooling units and spreading out equipment to
dissipate heat loads was not an option.
L
a
ck of adequate cooling and capacity to grow
directly threatened the company’s business.
“When you opened the door, it felt like a blast
furnace,” Carter says. “Who’s going to colocate
their equipment in a maxed-out facility that’s 90F?”
“The ability to direct cooling to the racks is exactly
what we needed. When Emerson Network Power
demonstrated a single Liebert XDV cooling unit,
it took me only five minutes to place an order.
My only question was, ‘How soon can you get
it here?’”
Travis Carter, co-founder and Chief Technology Officer,
US Internet
A Customer Success
from the Experts in
B
usiness-Critical Continuity™