30th April was an eye opening day for 15 of our CDS students, lecturers, Course Manager and our Director where we get the opportunity to go to a data centre in Singapore. The one located near Ubi Cresent. The IBM DCE (Date Centre East) is a cylindrical shaped building with tight physical security inside and outside. Even the location of the building is kind of desolated, or not, I rather say "ulu".
When we stepped into the fortress, we finally saw a mantrap right in front of our very eyes as we've only seen them in books and printouts. We were given visitor's cards for identification and before long we were lead into the meeting room where Mr Eugene and Mr Michael shared with us their industry knowledge and most importantly, introduced to us briefly how the system and standards work. We were also introduced to the various kind of devices used in the building itself. In addition we have also learnt a lot in areas like physical security and threat mitigation especially during the question and answer section as our curious minds were burning for more knowledge. Not forgetting about feasting our eyes on the devices and hardware too.
Learning points:
- The 10 domains in the IT world is very important as it is applicable in many places.
- Discipline and responsibility is very important in the IT industry. A quote from Mr Eugene, "Don't do more, don't do less."
Interesting facts:
- There are about 1500 mainframe and mid-range servers in IBM. EACH SERVER CAN BUY YOU A CAR!
- The air tanks used for putting out fire cost around 70000 a tank!
- Have you wondered why the building is build in a cylindrical shape? Think about the twin towers. Hee.
This field trip I must say have been a very enterprising, yet fascinating, yet memorable, yet more words to come. Such field trips should be held often as I believe it is beneficial to many especially students taking cyber digital security. So young ladies and men out there, DO sign up for such events next time as most field trips would be a first come first serve basis. Cheers!
