Virtual Tour
Access to the data center is managed by VUIT. We can provide tours of the ACCRE data center to Vanderbilt students, faculty and staff on request. Contact us for more details.
The ACCRE cluster is located in Hill Center, home to Vanderbilt’s IT department and located next to the Commons Center.
Previously, the room that houses the ACCRE cluster was the former dining hall of Peabody College. As you walk through the data center, you can still see the original glass windows:
One of the first things you will notice is that some of the corridors are warmer and some of them are cooler. The compute nodes generate a lot of heat, and keeping the nodes from overheating is an important factor in data center design.
We have a few air conditioning units that send cool air to the ground and into the cool corridors. The compute nodes take in the cool air and blow out the warm air into the warm corridors:
Data centers also have a special system for suppressing fires. A normal fire sprinkler system would damage the cluster. Instead, we use a system that would pump gas if a fire is detected.
Each panel of the floor can be removed. The space below is used for storing wires and circulating cool air. The original tiles of the Peabody dining hall can be seen below the panels.
With the lights turned off, the LED lights on the cluster produce an electric blue glow.