> > I'm not saying the problems are the same, but I am saying that a > backplane making cooling "hard" is not a good excuse, especially when > the small empty chassis costs $10K+.
And, not to mention that some vendors do it sometimes. "The 9-slot Cisco Catalyst 6509 Enhanced Vertical Switch (6509-V-E) provides [stuff]. It also provides front-to-back airflow that is optimized for hot and cold aisle designs in colocated data center and service provider deployments and is compliant with Network Equipment Building Standards (NEBS) deployments." It only took 298 years from the inception of the 6509 to get a front-to-back version. If you can do it with that oversized thing, it certainly can be done on a 7200, XMR, juniper whatever, or whatever else you fancy. There is no good excuse. The datacenter of today (and yesterday) really needs front to back cooling; the datacenter of tomorrow requires and demands it. If vendors cared, they'd do it. Problem is, there is a disconnect between datacenter designer, datacenter builder, datacenter operator, IT operator, and IT manufacturer. No one is smart enough, yet, to say, "if you want to put that hunk of crap in my datacenter, it needs to suck in the front and put out in the back, otherwise my PUE will be 1.3 instead of 1.2 and you will be to blame for my oversized utility bills." Perhaps when a bean-counter paying the power bill sees the difference, it will matter. I dunno. I'll crawl back under my rock now.
