This is part an homage to John O’Duinn and in part to win a wager with someone over how quickly I could get a datacenter up. Twelve hours was what I said I could get it done in.
The actual start time may be up for debate. I started my timer from the moment the gear (finally) showed up at the datacenter, not the half hour it took to get there or the half hour Jia and I spent waiting for it once we were there.
I’m also not including the glacial time it took to get shipped out of the USA or out of Chinese customs, both of which would simply boggle the mind.
| Time | Task |
|---|---|
| 00:48:48 | Unload off delivery van, unpack. |
| 00:58:31 | Physically rack all hardware. |
| 01:42:33 | Wire up - power, ethernet, serial consoles |
| 00:14:44 | Test connectivity and verify everything’s up. |
| 03:44:25 | Total Time |
I should note that for most of that time, we had no less than four guys either helping or watching.
The gear we shipped from California arrived in a shipping crate but the datacenter had no way to get it out of the delivery van. Jia and I, along with a bunch of guys from the datacenter, uncrated everything while still in the van and manhandled the HP BladeSystem box out of the van and onto two carts. Once upstairs in the lobby, Jia and I had to unpack all the boxes and unpack anything that was in a plastic bag (which mean all the ethernet cables too).
Testing was easier than I thought it’d be - I plugged my laptop in and before I could do anything, Thunderbird had spewed a bunch of growl notifications all over my screen and had already grabbed a couple hours’ worth of email so obviously a significant amount was working.
In the next several weeks we’ll be pulling up Mozilla websites in China and spinning this site up.
On a personal note, the amount of planet-shrinking technology I have with me is awesome. My VoIP client works exceedingly well and Skype works no less than it does in the US. Both provide endless entertainment for my kids!
From my two trips to Beijing, China feels like a land of extremes. August was hot and humid. December is freezing. Both remind me why I moved away from Chicago 
Comments (2)
One could also have ordered a blade server from a provider within china, such as ibm.com/cn.
Chicago rocks! Although being in the midwest we tend to avoid sayings and lifestyles that fit into your phrase, “the land of extremes”.
Beijing China might fit that.