I have to come clean: I am a data center geek.

I love visiting them, and talking to the people who design and run them. Maybe it was because I worked around mainframes at the beginning of my IT career. Maybe it is all that power coursing through all those wires, and those big, greasy generators. Or the thrill of getting access to the inner sanctum of IT after passing through various security checkpoints and ‘man traps.’

There is just something about a hyper-cooled raised floor that gets me excited. Okay, enough of that. But there are some interesting things happening in data centers, including companies that are trying to downsize them to save power and money.

My next column for Baseline is posted today, and talks about what Sun did to consolidate its data centers.