Sometimes you gotta have fun, and sometimes you just gotta keep the lights on. When you’re responsible for an enterprise datacenter environment, the company is relying on you to ensure that the infrastructure not only performs well and has sufficient capacity for compute, storage, and networking, but also that it’s extremely reliable and resilient. You need to take into account hardware failures, software bugs, power outages, extreme weather conditions, and much, much more.

Such as zombies. No, really – you never know what can happen:

If you attended NetApp Insight in Las Vegas you may have already seen the above video – it was playing on a continuous loop at the MetroCluster booth. The film was actually shot on NetApp’s RTP campus and the actors are almost entirely NetApp employees. Some of the featured actors include Mr. Pete Flecha (@vPedroArrow), co-host of the NetApp Communities Podcast, Mr. Troy Mangum (@CloudReveler), and Mr. Rhett Bigler (@CloudUnbound). DataCenter of the Dead is the brainchild of the FlexPod team’s resident creative geek, Mr. Dave Eckert (@TheGreeches) who wrote, directed, and filmed the entire thing.

Expect more video shenanigans in the future!

Dave is also the creative force behind another multimedia launch at Insight: the NetApp 3D FlexPod app! The app provides an interactive 3D view of a FlexPod Datacenter rack, including detailed information on the various components and even the actual cabling between the components. The app is now officially available for iOS devices (iPhone5+ or iPad3+), and will be coming soon to Android.

If you were at Insight, you may have seen this odd-looking obelisk on the solutions floor:

iPads at the booth were used to interact with that monolith and enable customers and partners to virtually view a FlexPod at life-size! Even with an actual FlexPod Datacenter standing next to it, the app & the monolith both got a lot of positive attention. Now you can play with it yourself by printing out a miniature version and using the iOS app on your own device. Yes – fold your own FlexPod! If that’s too much work, just use the app by itself and you’ll still get a cool (and informative) experience, but without quite as much geeky fun.