In 2013, the Exploratorium moved and expanded operations from its historic home in the Palace of Fine Arts to the newly renovated Pier 15 and 17 with over 300,000 sq feet. We were deeply involved in the planning, design and implementation of the IT infrastructure of that project.  It was a huge, multi-year project that consisted of many, many parts.

• Keep the existing location at PFA fully operational (and revenue-generating). We had only a couple of weeks of downtime between closing the PFA and opening the Piers.

  • This required a multi-campus approach and leveraged our colocation facility to house tech that could be reached from all locations. We coordinated with the City of SF to install dark fiber and link all 3 campuses.

  • This let us stage much of the tech at the Piers (like security systems) well before the move.

• Designing and implementing the new infrastructure at the Piers, including a new datacenter, a 4000 node network, all new computing and storage systems, etc.

• Working with and coordinating numerous contractors and trades. So many systems - building management, lighting control, security, access control, fire safety, AV, etc. - all run on IP networks that need to be properly integrated. 

  • Many of these systems were the first of their kind, from the specialty baycooling system that utilized baywater, to the a state of the art Meyer sound system for our theatre, to the latest solar technology to provide our own power. And all had IT components.

• Planning and implementing the move itself. We were directly involved in bringing up relocated tech and putting the new tech into production. We also helped staff get connected on their first days in their new offices. And provided endless training on the new systems staff would be using.

• Though the challenges were plentiful, we had a successful opening

We had a special security contractor install a security system (cameras, storage arrays, servers, and keycard system to control access). These systems should have been integrated with each other, but the contractor installed them as disparate systems. We intervened after frustrations mounted. We assessed the whole security system, connected the disparate parts, and made the whole thing work better.

During our assessment,  we discovered that the contractors had left the security systems and devices set to the default passwords. (Seriously. This is not uncommon. Devices that aren’t servers or computers are frequently overlooked when assessing security.) 

We set secure passwords and selected a new contractor to support the upgraded system.

The Kiewit Luminarium had a lighting control system installed.  Technically, the system worked, but only from one special device on one special wifi network. This device could not control or access any other system; this was quite inconvenient.  We made changes to integrate their network with the rest of the museum networks. This change allowed staff to use one device they were most familiar with to control the lights AND other museum systems. This improved functionality and morale greatly.  

This is an excellent example of how things can technically function without actually working for those that use them. These are problems we love to solve. 

It’s also an example of how it is more ideal to have someone like us help integrate the systems before they are designed and installed. 

We’ve had the luck of dealing with many disasters. From frequent power outages, construction crews clipping our fiber, flooded conduits, to exploding UPS units, cyber attacks, etc., we’ve seen a lot. Someone once threw burning coals into our fiber vault! We are facile with redundancy, backups of all sorts (local and in the cloud), disaster documentation, and mitigation. We’ve restored countless virtual and physical servers, databases, etc.  And we’ve found opportunities for improvement in each scenario.

We can help find your opportunities for improvement.

At the Exploratorium, we partnered and worked with many outside organizations. We selected CENIC’s academic network to be our main Internet provider. This robust bandwidth allowed for interesting experimentation, including high speed, low latency art projects and live webcasts and simulcasts with NASA. 

We worked with NOAA to provide interactive video conferencing between students and NOAA ships at sea. We wired the Piers with weather stations, buoys, radar, and other monitoring devices that research organizations leveraged. We networked cameras for live feeds for KGO’s broadcast and Salesforce’s tower. We assisted artists whose installations required various technologies. We worked with IndoorAtlas to create an indoor visitor tracking system, using various data, including geomagnetic fingerprinting.  

The Exploratorium has long partnered with NASA to bring eclipses to a global audience over the internet. As technology expanded, so did our imagination. We worked with NASA to broadcast eclipses from remote locations live to audiences onsite at the museum and anywhere on the internet.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to quickly pivot to support The Exploratorium’s 400 employees in working from home productively.  A percentage of our work was identified as essential, so we shifted to bringing that subset of staff back onsite. We tried many experiments, new ways of working and reaching our audiences during this period; many of these initiatives had a technical component. Additionally, we took advantage of the temporary closing of the museum to the public to identify and make physical infrastructure improvements