All is Well That Ends Well

Friday, 20 December 2013 is the day of freedom. In this day, we celebrated the last day of the autumn semester. This means no more assignment, bye bye exams, and welcome to holiday spree. The day began with presentation of Master Thesis Specification and Definition. Each of us gave a 30 minutes-presentation in front of three or four jurys who one or two of them are our own supervisors.

The presentation started early at 8 in the morning, but I goet the last turn so my presentation started at about 12.00. The jury consists of 3 people, Mr Eric Rondeau who is my Thesis supervisor, and two of the lecturers from Leeds University in UK who sat in front of camera for video conference. Overall, I can say that my presentation run smoothly, if I had to regret one thing is the time. I somehow run out of time because I had too many slides. When the jury said that I only have 5 minutes more, I didn't even finish 2/3 of my presentation. So I just skip ahead and jump into the conclusion. Thank God that the jury like my presentation, they said that I have done a lot of work and I am proud of it.

After all the presentations were over, the teachers and students gather at upstairs on the second floor of AIPL building. There was a small room which usually was used for break room (to make coffee, etc). We had some buffet that served a lot of different kinds of French cocktails along with wine and softdrinks. We used this opportunity to say our gratitude to the all of our teachers, that they had make our stay in France so pleasant and memorable.

Orange's Green Data Center

I know that the title of this post is a bit confusing since I mention two colors in row. So in case you haven't already know, the first color aka Orange refers to a France Telecom company not a fruit. If you are interested,you can find more information in their website. The later one refers to green IT technology used to operate a data center. The complete definition of green data center can be found here , and if you want to know a little bit more about green data center you can find it here.

On 6 December 2013, Joseph Rabita from Orange Group came to my campus and gave us a nice presentation about Greenwich Datacenter (which is New Orange Dacenter in Normandy) and Data storage and backup. This presentation is meant to be a preliminary session to give us a fundamental knowledge about green data center before we visit it the next Monday. Joseph Rabita is half Italian and half French but his English is very good, we can clearly understand what he is trying to explain to us. Before the lecture started, he walked through the class and greet each student one by one, he presented himself and ask few question to the students like What's your name? Where do you from? What did you study? and stuff like that. Personally, I think this guy is really warm and down-to-earth, plus the fact that he kept smiling and joking during his talks which made the lecture even more fun.

Joseph Rabita's lecture

The next Monday on 9 December 2013, we visited the Orange’s datacenter in Normandy. According to the source, this datacenter is the biggest in France to use free cooling (it uses natural wind not air conditioner to cool down the room). That way we can optimize energy consumption being used to generate electricity because as you know that air conditioner may consume a lot of electricity. The datacenter, certified to the French High Environmental Quality Standard, is an illustration of the efforts made by Orange to reduce its impact on the environment as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program.

Before we can enter the Data Center building, we have to go to the Welcome Desk where we are asked to present our ID card and exchange it with a visitor card. The security here is tight so they wont let anyone coming inside without an ID card. If you look around there will be lots of security camera in every corners of the areas. After getting a visitor card, we can pass through a metal fence to go to the Intermediate Building to receive a short presentation about the DataCenter. The slides were good unfortunately the speaker can't speak English so he uses French during the presentation. After the presentation is over, we start the tour around the main Data Center building. Again, the tour guide speaks French only so we have to ask our teachers to translate it for us. First, we go to the Storage Room, and then the Power Room where they put a giant petroleum generator to generate the electricity. Next, we visit the Server Room which are colder than the other part of the building. And then, we go to the Network Room to see all the routers, switches, and fiber optics. Finally, we also visit the part of the building which is still under construction.

The wall of Datacenter is covered by plants

 

Part of unfinished building

Don't Keep Calm, It's Exam Time

 

I think I suppose to publish this post back in the December when I was really going through my exam week. But I just saw it today that I did not really push the "publish" button so this post is kept in draft section. I guess writing a blog was out of my list for a while during that time.

As a student, until now exams have been cause of my sorrows. So I will do anything to stop it from ruining my tomorrow.I have no time to dress up in the morning and end up looking like a walking scarecrow. I show up early in class and sit in front row. Then I open my case and realize OMG I need a pencil to borrow. The exam is started and my head feel kinda struck by an arrow. I look upward and turn out that my pencil tip point at my eyebrow. I can hear the clock is ticking but I feel time walks ultraslow.I try to concentrate but I can't move my eyes from the window. It is winter time and the yard is covered by white glowing snow. I wonder how it feels like if I was relaxing in my room laying down on my fluffy pillow.