Downtown Data Center tour recap
On June 18, 2025, about 40 UIT employees received a guided tour of the impressive operations inside the unassuming building that houses the University of Utah’s Downtown Data Center (DDC).
Led by Data Center Manager Chris Pedersen and organized by University Support Services Engineering Director Jason Moeller, the tour began with a presentation describing the history of the building, power use and redundancies (backups), temperature controls, cable management, and plans for expansion. Some history of the building can be found in this Node 4 article.
The DDC has a large data center shell space in the south end that houses UIT and ITS warehouse operations. Once this warehouse is moved to the north end of the data center, the previous location will be available for more data center space to support research and AI computing needs.
The tour inspired awe and appreciation for the unsung heroes maintaining our institution’s data security and safety.
Each DDC “pod” consists of two rows of racks connected to doubly redundant power supplies. Heat from the equipment is rejected from the building.
Temperature, humidity, and air quality are carefully controlled through fans ...
... humidifiers ...
... and air filtering.
Bolstering the redundancy, chilled water pipes have manual valves, should automation fail.
Related articles:
- CHPC offers virtual tour of Downtown Data Center
- U of U staff honor DDC manager Glen Cameron
- ‘This is just a vision’ — Data center tour surprises, impresses visitors
- UIT Leadership team members tour DDC warehouse
Node 4
Our monthly newsletter includes news from UIT and other campus/ University of Utah Health IT organizations, features about UIT employees, IT governance news, and various announcements and updates.