Mason Phillips

CYSE 200T

Professor Duvall

10/6/2025

Tour of the ODU Data Center

BLUF: Our CYSE 200T class took a trip to the ODU data center.

Overview

Our CYSE 200T took a tour of the ODU Data Center, in which we got to tour and learn
about both the ITS Operations Center and the ODU server room. Our tour was led by Mr.
John Pratt, who has 27 years of experience at the university.

Items of Interest

The first thing that interested me was the ITS Operation Center. They oversee all the
networks and cameras on campus, watching for any issues or alerts. The ITS also runs 24/7
and almost every day of the year to take care of issues before they have any effect. Another
thing that interested me was the layout of the server room. Not just in the way the servers
were laid out but also in the way the power and network cables were organized. The power
cables were neatly run under the raised floor, and every tile was able to be pulled up so that
the power cords were able to be accessed, while the network cables were run on racks that
went across the tops of the servers close to the ceiling. The final thing that interested me is
the way that the server room is organized. One row of servers was entirely for enterprise,
one was for storage, and another for AWS. I thought this was a neat way to keep everything
clean and organized.

Conclusion

Conclusion: The tour to the ODU data center was very enlightening on the way that
the servers and networks are managed and how everything Is organized in a way so that it is
easy to manage at the same time.