The picture you see here is the exhaust system of VISI’s new Caterpillar 2250kW diesel generator. These loud and very large pipes will be keeping your servers and other systems online if there were ever a Utility failure affecting our Saint Paul Data Center.

VISI has completed installation of the generator we showed being dropped into the sub-basement of the Saint Paul Data Center.

Here are some quick specs on the generator:

- 16 Cylinder Engine (most cars have just 6)
- 1,800 RPM
- 3,285 HP
- Consumes up to 156 gallons/hour of diesel fuel

(thankfully we don’t have to run this very often)

We have performed full load tests to ensure the generator can handle everything we throw at it. We’ve also run extensive tests with Parsons Electric so that the generator, transfer switches and UPS systems will work seamlessly to ensure continuous power to the data center in the event of a Utility power failure. In our testing the generator was able to spin up and provide power within 11 seconds of being signaled to start.

Because the generator is there to guarantee your systems and data stay online we installed it with redundancy in mind. There are dual coolant pumps, heat exchangers and fuel pumps to make certain the generator will stay up even if one of those parts fails. Constant monitoring of those items will also alert us to any failures allowing us to act quickly if the need arose.

We’re proud to announce that Robert Stephens, the founder and Chief Inspector at The Geek Squad and VP at Best Buy, is the keynote speaker for VISION 2008.  Robert will elaborate on how technology innovations are changing the ways businesses work.  The Geek Squad is now North America’s largest technology support company offering phone, in-store, and in-home support.

As a special offer to our blog readers, I’ll give a free pass ($100 value) to the first 10 IT professionals that e-mail me at gary.elfert (at) visi.com with the subject “free VISION 2008 pass”.