Nov 2025

Description of a visit to a data center.

In my paid work in Information Technology I have visited data centres and is it a quite claustrophobic experience. I wrote about the process of visiting a data centre then reproduced it on the inside of an anti-static plastic bag which is used for wrapping IT hardware while it is delivered to data centres. By writing the text on the inside of the bag, it invited the viewer to put their head inside the bag to read the text.

Physically, data centres are comprised of data halls with dozens or hundreds of server cabinets lined up in them. Entering a data centre is quite an ominous experience. They are highly controlled environments in terms of who can access them, what those people can take inside, where they can go once inside and what they can do in there. There are surveillance cameras everywhere. They are fixed on to the security fences at the perimeter of the data centre and only the toilets are outside of their reach on the inside of the building. In order to enter the building you need to be on the data centres' registration and access portal (a website). Before you arrive you need to book a time when you will enter and leave the building, you may also need to explain what you will be doing during your visit, and add your car license plate. In order to get into the data centre building you need to drive through the security gates (fit for a prison) and park your car/van. There is no direct control on how people park their vehicle. There fore a bit of self expression exists in the car park. Within reason. I have never pushed the 'how to park badly enough in order to get scolded' boundary. After parking up, you go to the reception. In the reception area there will be a secure man-trap door which you will need a physical pass and/or pin to get through. In addition, you may have needed to upload some form of physical attributes of yourself onto the access portal. It could be a scan of your iris, or the shape of your hand, or your finger prints, or facial recognition etc... (apparently it is possible to deduce an individual by body odour, but that has not not implemented while accessing a data centre that I have visited yet). At least one of these attributes will be checked before access is given. Many data centres have 3 factor authentication enforced, which involves checking something you know (e.g. password/PIN), something you have (e.g physical pass), and something you are (a physical biometric of your body as mentioned previously). All three are checked. You may also need some form of 'official' ID, like a passport or driving licence.

What are you buying when you buy physical space inside a data centre? You are buying some combination of compute (for running algorithms and processing data), storage (long-term data storage) and network connectivity (ability to access data remotely). You could perhaps buy some sub-combination of these 3 mentioned resources but most likely you will buy at least network connectivity and/or one or both of the other two. Though tbh I have never personally worked for a company that didn't have all three in the product they purchased from the data centre. Importantly, you are buying physical and environmental security for these resources. Data centres have 4 tiers of describing their effectiveness for uptime (data availability), security (physical and logical), and redundancy (especially physical) (see this website for an explanation of data centre tiers: https://www.ionos.co.uk/digitalguide/server/know-how/data-center-tiers/).

The air is tightly controlled in a data centre. Not too much moisture for obvious reasons (electrical components don't like moisture, it can create short circuits), air should be as dust free as possible (any dust which gets inside the servers and network devices can reduce their useful life-time). If new devices are getting installed into a data centre, it is encouraged to remove all cardboard before moving them into the data halls, cardboard creates dust. Before you enter the data hall you must walk over a sticky dust decontaminant mat (https://www.firstmats.co.uk/products/tacky-step-mat) to remove dust from your shoes. It is ironically like walking over the kitchen floor in a students house. No food or drink is allowed in the data centre halls. The areas where you are working should be kept as tidy as possible. All cables and devices must be contained in the server cabinets, extraneous cables are not allowed to creep out of the sides or tops of the cabinets and any rubbish must be removed sooner rather than later, otherwise the rubbish police will descend.

Electronic devices and components which come in cardboard boxes are invariably enclosed in a standard anti-static (dissipative) bag. These bags are usually pink in colour and are made with a substance which reduce­s the chance for static charge to build up on the surface. If that were to happen the electronic components inside could be damaged. These physical electronic items are not cheap and are very delicate. The content of the bags are critical.

The noise in a data hall is continual, hundreds and thousands of little fans make a LOT of noise, alongside HVAC generators. Up to 100dB. If you want to attract someone's attention who is not in your immediate vicinity, you have to shout. It is also useful if you have an ability to whistle loudly, at a higher pitch than the ambient sound of the noise of the fans. This gives people in the data centre hall some way to be more able to attract someone’s attention from a-far. Not all data centre operatives can do this well.

There are 'hot' and 'cold' isles. The server cabinets are lined up in rows. Each is like a perforated coffin standing on its end. Air is sucked and expelled through the server cabinets by the devices inside. There is a 'front' to a cabinet, and a 'back'. The fans inside each device are coordinated to pull air from the front and expel it out its backside. Cold air is served to the front of the cabinet (via AC), and by the time it has gone through each hard-working device, its temperature has gone up enough to be significantly noticeable. Hence if you are working in a cold isle you may need to wear a coat, and if you are behind the rear of the devices in the 'hot' isle, a t-shirt is sufficient. Temperature is monitored from many, many locations inside/outside/above/below the cabinets. If it varies too much, an alert is triggered and a visit from a data centre [temperature] clerk is mandated. Not having all the little fans' air flow co-ordinated can result in a visitation as well. If a fan is blowing the wrong way, in a counter rotation to the norm, they are noticed. And corrected.

There is a particular smell to data centres of hot synthetic plastics and metals.

I've never worked for the company who manages the data centre itself, I've worked for companies who have some kind of presence in the data centre. As in, the company I am working for is buying services from the data centre - invariably cabinet space and Internet connectivity for compute, storage and network as mentioned previously. People who work for a data centre are often some kind of specialist in their field, whether it be electronics/AC/cable laying/cabinet installation etc.. They are usually helpful since they understand that the company I am working for is their client who ultimately pays their wages. Unless you piss them off, like leaving an area untidy or leaving cardboard around too long. They will quickly let you know your misdemeanour and any potential punishment. The worst of which is being banned access to the data centre. This affects your income. Which is, at the end of the day, the reason you are in this steel and concrete behemoth. I don't think banning happens often. Tho I have no data on it.

It is good to have a beneficial relationship with the data centre employees. Of course in a general sense, but also if I forget some component of my work (a screw-driver, or cable ties etc..) or an unexpected requirement arises (a longer cable is needed), these items can be borrowed or obtained from the techies who work in the data centre. Some hand over willingly, some are displeased with the transaction. A good relationship helps.

Data halls can be rented out by area or by cabinet(s). You could for example ask for 10 cabinets to be caged off into their own separate area, surrounded by secure metal caging. A visiting engineer would then need 2 keys (or 2 numerical combinations) to do anything useful and/or destructive: a key to enter the cage and a key to access each cabinet to get to the servers and/or network devices inside. We are trying to avoid the destructive nature of malicious engineers or terrorist attacks by having extra keys and security. Or you could ask for X number of cabinets in a 'shared' area, each cabinet would still require a key to get into it, but you would not have that extra layer of security of having your own cage. Your cabinet(s) would literally be standing alongside another company's cabinet and gear. Or if your company needed a lot of space and security, you could rent a data hall in its entirety. Only specified trusted people would get access to your data hall. Or if you are a company like Amazon, you could have your own data centres at locations around the globe. Only your employees would get into the data centre car park, never mind the data centre.

All this heat and noise uses up a lot of electricity, data centres are massive consumers of energy and AI is not helping,

Data centres can be dangerous places. There is a lot of machinery consuming a lot of electricity. Fires can start, though seldomly do, this is another reason to remove cardboard from the data halls. There are fire suppression systems all through the building. A colleague once told me how he lost his vision in one eye while splicing fibre optic cable. The glass of a fibre cable ranges from 9 to 62.5 micrometers in diameter (depending on type of fibre – single or multi mode).

'Important' data is most probably located in multiple data centres geographically dispersed, this is in case of a physical disaster in one location. The 'cloud' is just many data centres connected together by high performance network connectivity. The compute, storage and network resources of all these data centres are pooled together and presented as though they have no physical location and are nothing but an enigmatic digital mist. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a popular cloud platform.

You may never have been inside a data centre, but most likely every part of your digital life has. Unless you have taken steps to not have your data in a data centre, your emails, messages, the web sites you visit, the forums you contribute to, the photos you upload, your financial and health data, your education history, the physical places you have visited and much more are all residing in data centres. The data on your phone is inextricably linked to the data centre. Your data IS located in a data centre somewhere, you just have no idea where or who else has access to it.

But does that matter?

This hardware, security, strict behavioural processes and cleanliness is for ‘looking after’ your digital data. Plain and simple. Data is money now-a-days, and power, and control. The 'data' in data centre. Most probably every part of your physical life (in addition to your digital life) is not untouched by the data centre. Capitalism uses the data centre to do its bidding. Governments use the data centre to do their governing, universities and schools use them to do their educating. In fact it is more difficult for me to think of an aspect of our lives which is not integrated with the data centre. The data centre's reach is unbounded. The tech bros of silicon valley (or any tech valley for that matter) love your data, they and their algorithms are softly manipulating peoples minds 24/7 [pls check out Carole Cadwalladr’s work].

I would like to take you to visit a data centre, to show you the amazing sites and sounds of modern technology. But TBH when I next go, it will be more like me coming to visit you, because you will be already there…

Photos of the written work on the plastic bag. The bag has been turned inside out and pieces of white paper inserted inside the bag to show one side of the writing so it is legible. Photos of the plastic bag being exhibited in the UoR Art department's Winter Caberet exhibition can be found here.