I think I’ve been intrigued by building with Lego sets as far back as I could remember.  I had a plastic case full of them that I would use to build spaceships and castles day in and day out.  I think much of that building experience paid off when I walked into the real world and I started building data centers.  Racks and rails are network engineering versions of the venerable Lego brick.  Little did I know what would happen later.

Ashton Bothman (@ABothman) is a social media rock star for Juniper Networks.  She emailed me and asked me if I would like to participate in a contest to build a data center from Lego bricks.  You could imagine my response:

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I like the fact that Ashton sent me a bunch of good old fashioned Lego bricks.  One of the things that has bugged me a bit since the new licensed sets came out has been the reliance on specialized pieces.  Real Lego means using the same bricks for everything, not custom-molded pieces.  Ashton did it right by me.

Here’s a few of my favorite shots of my Juniper Lego data center:

My rack setup. I even labeled some of the devices!

Ladder racks for my Lego cables. I like things clean.

Can’t have a data center with a generator. Complete with flashing lights.

The Big Red Button. EPO is a siren call for troublemakers.

The Token Unix Guy. Complete with beard and old workstation.

Storage lockers and a fire extinguisher. I didn’t have enough bricks for a halon system.

The Obligatory Logo Shot. Just for Ashton.

Tom’s Take

This was fun.  It’s also for a great cause in the end.  My son has already been eyeing this set and he helped a bit in the placement of the pirate DC admin and the lights on the server racks.  He wanted to put some ninjas in the data center when I asked him what else was needed.  Maybe he’s got a future in IT after all.

Here are some more Lego data centers from other contest participants:

Ivan Pepelnjak’s Lego Data Center

Stephen Foskett’s Datacenter History: Through The Ages in Lego

Amy Arnold’s You Built a Data Center?  Out Of A DeLorean?