The Bloomington Herald-Times
November 6, 2009
New IU Data Center dedicated
By Chris Fyall
November 6, 2009, last update: 11/5 @ 11:18 pm
The new Indiana University Data Center is a low-slung, bunker-like building, bristling with security cameras and braced against flooding, F5 tornadoes and more.
It is a veritable $32.7 million fortress on East 10th Street.
What it protects -- the computing present and digital future of IU campuses across the state -- is critical, university officials said.
What it replaces -- "some flimsy, old school buildings" -- was simply inadequate, said IU President Michael McRobbie.
"This is an enormously complex and vitally important project," McRobbie said at the center's unveiling Thursday. Hundreds of people attended the event. "It will carry us one step closer to the digital future."
Students, faculty and staff from IU campuses across the state have been using the IU Data Center for a few weeks. They are linked to the center through fiber-optic cables.
The center houses more than a thousand computer servers and tens of miles of computer cables in a single-story, 82,700-square foot structure. It is the largest data center at any university in Indiana, and one of the largest in the region, according to the school.
Twin 16-cylinder, 2,220-horsepower Cummins diesel engines provide emergency power to the structure. In case of disaster, the engines can draw fuel from a 10,000-gallon diesel tank buried underground.
The center is linked to a smaller data center constructed five years ago at the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis. The two centers back each other up.
Efforts like that should protect IU's supercomputers, and the research projects running on them, in "all but the most calamitous circumstances," McRobbie said.
Providing maximum digital security is the center's goal, and a must-accomplish mission, said Brad Wheeler, IU's vice president of information technology.
Federal grants don't flow to places where security is insufficient, said Wheeler, who said the data center will cement IU's standing in the academic world.
"IU has been at the forefront of the IT movement within the higher education community for over a decade now, and the new data center is a huge leap forward in the capacity to continue that innovation," he said.
Planning for the center took more than a decade, officials said.
Grants from state facility bonds covered $18.3 million of the facility's price tag. The rest, $14.4 million, came directly from IU.
Witte blasts agenda of 'Comrade Kruzan'
Mayor recently resigned from local chamber of commerce over differing stances
By Chris Fyall and Michael Malik
November 6, 2009, last update: 11/6 @ 12:29 am
A dour economic forecast luncheon took an explosive turn Thursday when an economist told hundreds of Bloomington businessmen about the new nickname he's given the city's mayor.
Bill Witte, a national economic expert and IU professor emeritus, said he and his family once knew Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan as "Mayor Mark."
Now Witte calls him "Comrade Kruzan." Sometimes he goes with "Commissar Kruzan," he told members of three Bloomington Rotary Clubs Thursday.
Audience members roared their approval.
The nicknames stem from Kruzan's stated intentions of restricting chain stores in the downtown area and encouraging affordable housing citywide, said Witte, who said the city should let the market solve those problems.
"I think the mayor's position is elitist," Witte said.
After the event, Kruzan seemed unfazed by Witte's remarks.
"Bill predicted that oil would be $60 a barrel in 2007; it went to $90 a barrel," Kruzan said. "He predicted that the country in 2008 would add 1 million jobs; it lost 3 million jobs. So if his predictions on what would happen to Bloomington -- with fewer chain stores on Kirkwood and the square -- are as right, then I'm in pretty good shape."
Still, Kruzan expressed worry that debate over restricting chain stores downtown could turn vitriolic.
Witte is the second prominent Bloomington business voice in two days to publicly oppose Kruzan's desire to restrict chain stores.
On Wednesday, the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce announced its own opposition. A ban could have an impact on real estate values, the ability to lease space at market rates and the ability of owners to maintain healthy buildings, chamber officials said.
The chamber's public denunciation of Kruzan's efforts comes more than two weeks after he wrote the chamber a letter stating his intentions to stop serving as an ex-officio, or nonvoting, member of the chamber's board of directors.
His letter criticized recent chamber actions.
"There have been a series of positions made in the name of the chamber that I professionally and personally disagree with, and I do not want any member of the public to be confused that I am associated with those decisions," Kruzan wrote.
Those positions include, Kruzan wrote, the chamber's 100 percent endorsement of plans for the Ind. 45/46 Bypass project, lack of support for the convention center expansion, and opposition to a minimum wage adjustment and to any public option for health care.
With Witte's comments Thursday, Kruzan said he's not worried about a surge in public opposition to his plan of restricting chain stores downtown.
Witte said there's no need for chain store restrictions downtown, because the market will take care of it.
For example, Witte said, if people don't want to eat at some future Taco Bell on Kirkwood, let them ignore it. "It'll leave, just like the McDonald's did," Witte said.
Witte wasn't the only business expert questioning how successful downtown chain store restrictions would be.
Timothy F. Slaper, director of economic analysis at the Indiana Business Research Center, said that a chain store ban would probably not be helpful to Bloomington's economy in the "short run." As credit markets tighten, larger stores should have more access to credit than smaller stores, Slaper said. Still, he sympathized with the mayor's goals to keep downtown Bloomington "unique and vibrant."
Letter: IU football coaches
Time for a change
To the editor:
Dear Mr. Glass,
It's a real shame to see a program that Coach Hep was building and fine-tuning into what was going to be an elite football program for years to come and have Coach Lynch with his suspect play-calling make us once again a laughingstock of the Big Ten. We as IU football fans deserve a program that we can be proud of. It sickens me to watch a team who obliviously can compete with other Big Ten teams lose.
I just hope when you rub that crystal ball of yours, you will not see Coach Lynch and his staff in it for next year. Use some of that money that we spend on firing coaches to buy us a coach for the future.
Tim Clarke, Bloomington
Letter: IU football
An idea for football
To the editor:
A modest football proposal: Let's play all IU football games on the road.
Our share of the away gate will be more than our share of the home gate. Who cares if we win? We'll have the lowest expenses in the league, keep a few old coaches off the unemployment line and pocket our share of the TV revenue. No more traffic on game day, no more trying to get people out of the tailgate area and into the game, no more agonizing over bad calls, just let it all go.
Think about a fall Saturday without the anxiety of IU football hanging over your head. The sweet peace of mind knowing the debacle will happen in some other town. Instead of schlepping to a football game, imagine a peaceful morning at the farmer's market, volunteering at the library, the money saved on football tickets you only bought to get the priority points to get basketball tickets. Best of all, the Rock can retire and go back to being just a rock; everybody wins.
Jay Wilkin, Bloomington
