Compliance in the Best-Of-Breed Cloud
Forbes, 7/20/10
For years CIOs have had to choose between best-of-breed applications that were focused on solving one problem and combined suites of many applications built to work together. Companies often identified their IT strategies in these terms, stating they were "best-of-breed shop" or "wall-to-wall SAP." The trade-off was between getting cutting edge functionality that had to be integrated with the rest of your IT infrastructure and getting a suite of many applications designed to work together.
The success of SaaS-based applications has been a victory for best-of-breed. A wide variety of applications from Salesforce.com ( CRM - news - people ) for CRM, Taleo ( TLEO - news - people ) for recruiting and performance management and WorkDay for HR have shown the power of the SaaS model for delivering targeted functionality. There are suite vendors in the SaaS model such as NetSuite ( N - news - people ), but even there they use best of breed for certain components. For example, NetSuite uses Adaptive Planning's software to support financial planning and budgeting processes in its product.
Read the article.
Tackling Data Center Energy Efficiency Challenges
Data Center Knowledge, 6/15/10
Energy consumption is a growing concern for data centers. Advances in server equipment technologies and increased demand for computing power have increased load densities in the computer room, which in turn has caused corresponding increases in data center power consumption. Energy efficiency measures are thus of high importance for data center designers, operators, and owners. A new white paper from Schneider outlines an approach to the data gathering, trending, and analysis that are necessary to apply successful energy efficiency measures in data center environments.
According to the Uptime Institute, the typical 3-year cost (operating expenses + amortized capital expenses) of powering and cooling servers is approximately 1.5 times the cost of the server hardware itself, with projections of up to 22 times by the year 2012. The reason for increased energy consumption in the data center is, simply put, an increased demand for computing power. Since the heat generated by computer equipment must be removed in order to avoid overheating, increased computer load density results in increased heat density, which becomes a challenge for the HVAC equipment design. This power and cooling challenge is expected to continue.
Read the article.
Keeping Cloud Costs Grounded
Forbes, 6/4/10
The cost of cloud computing has generated little debate because the savings appear so self evident. IBM's CTO for Cloud Computing, Kristof Kloeckner, estimates that it reduces IT labor costs by up to 50%, improves capital utilization by 75% and reduces provisioning from weeks to minutes. The City of Los Angeles anticipates savings of more than $5 million with its move to Google Apps. Because of such apparent savings, few companies have taken the time to question the cost implications of working in the cloud.
The problem with this is that cloud computing takes on many forms, and, if not planned for properly, will not deliver the expected ROI. As Andy Mulholland, global CTO at Capgemini has said, "Relatively speaking, [cloud computing] is unstoppable. The question is whether you'll crash into it or migrate into it." Read the article.
Dissecting the Cloud: Cloud Computing Brings Up Myriad Questions
Forbes, 6/4/10
Although the proliferation of cloud computing has been rapid and has received a lot of attention, the implications of moving some or all of a computing environment to off-site, third-party environments have yet to be adequately parsed.
As its name would imply, definitions of this technology can be vaporous. "Cloud computing is on-demand access to virtualized IT resources that are housed outside of your own data center, shared by others, simple to use, paid for via subscription, and accessed over the Web," writes Information Week's John Foley. Read the article.
Savvis Buys Canadian Provider Fusepoint
Data Center Knowledge, 5/1/10
The deal activity continues in the data center industry. Today Savvis said it will acquire Canadian managed IT and colocation provider Fusepoint Inc. for $124.5 million in cash. Fusepoint, a portfolio company of M/C Venture Partners, operates three data centers in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal and has more than 330 customers.
The acquisition provides additional international expansion for Savvis (SVVS), which hinted in February that it was “selectively exploring expansion opportunities” that would expand its data center footprint into new markets. Fusepoint’s data centers have a total of more than 40,000 sellable square feet of space, with Toronto the largest at 28,000 sellable square feet. Read the article.
Agency vs. Direct Sales Model
Phone+ Blog, 4/20/10
It’s funny to think I have been in this business since 1991. I first started out selling New England Telephone 800 service and Centrex and WATS lines for SNET. Now, I can represent any carrier out there through my own agency, US Telecom Group.
When I worked for the direct sales force side, I was highly trained on the products and services of that particular company and its products. I was given a desk, computer (sometimes) and a phone (always). I was then sold on the value of our products and services over the competitors. I was given the juice. And like all good direct sales people, I drank the juice. Our company’s products and services were superior to the competitors.
Fast forward 13 years to 2005 when my partner and I started US Telecom Group. We now have the ability to sell any carrier we choose. This ability to sell multiple carriers feels so refreshing and gives us the ability to do what is right for the customer. This newfound feeling gives me the hindsight to understand how it really worked as a direct sales rep. Read the article.
Where Are Data Centers Being Built?
Data Center Journal, 5/21/10
Designing a new data center involves numerous considerations, ranging from how much space to construct to what kind of support infrastructure to include. These more technical considerations, however, are in many ways predicated on another critical choice: where to build the data center. Selecting an optimal location for a new data center is a matter that is far from trivial—location can affect everything from operating expense to availability of employee talent to risks posed by disasters and even political conditions. Thus, the choice of a location can be as important a decision as those revolving around the more technically oriented matters.
Traditionally, company’s simply built data centers in facilities located at their corporate headquarters. As demand for information technology services has risen, data center construction (especially for large, technology-oriented companies) has become less about clearing a particular room or floor in an existing office building—indeed, even onsite construction of a dedicated data center facility is inadequate in some cases. In addition, as companies have become increasingly reliant on the data stored in and services provided by their data centers, they have increasingly considered the prospect of financial loss owing to disasters (whether natural or man-made). These and other factors have been a strong driver toward off site location of new data center facilities.
Read the article.
Energy + Telecom: A Good Match
Phone+, 5/18/10
The telecom and energy industries have a long shared history. Many of the nation’s utilities also are its telecom service providers; they leveraged their private networks to not only serve residences and businesses but also to sell to telcos seeking deeper, diverse or off-net coverage. A case in point: WilTel, which was acquired by Level 3 communications Inc. in 2005, was part of the Tulsa-based energy outfit Williams Companies Inc. But there are many others still operating — PPL Telecom LLC, Edison Carrier Solutions, etc. There are so many – and they’ve been part of the telecom fabric for so long – that their origins hardly register.
Turnabout – telcos getting into the energy business – is fair play, but is it a logical, or better yet profitable, one? There is at least one carrier, some former telecom execs and scores of agents who say, “absolutely.” Read the article.
Earthquake Puts NASA Supercomputer at Risk
Tech Eye, 5/12/10
NASA has one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, but the expensive bit of kit is at risk because the outfit could not afford an electrical back up unit.
A review panel of scientists and engineers has warned that the decline of basic research at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration jeopardizes the agency’s ability to study and explore the cosmos. The problem is that the cash is not being spent on maintenance.
The panel pointed out, as an example, how the Ames Research Center in California in the earthquake-prone Bay Area, has been unable to afford a $15 million uninterrupted power supply for the supercomputer. Read the article.
FCC Riles Operators, Choosing ‘Third Way’
xchange, 5/6/10
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has decided to regulate Net neutrality, after all, but in a way perhaps many people did not expect. The news comes after several days of back-and-forth during which, at times, it seemed Genachowski would choose not to pursue open Internet rules at all.
That all changed on Thursday, when the FCC said it will institute a balanced approach to Net neutrality, one that won’t require Congressional action.
The Master would've liked it. In a Confucian attempt at a middle way, Genachowski has decided against a complete “Title II” approach. (Title II is the classification for telecommunications services, which are more regulated than Title I, or information, services such as Internet access.) Instead, the FCC proposes to view just the transmission component of broadband access as a telecommunications service and “apply only a handful of provisions of Title II ... that, prior to the Comcast decision, were widely believed to be within the commission’s purview for broadband,” said Genachowski. At the same, the FCC intends to install “meaningful boundaries” to guard against “regulatory overreach,” he added. Read the article.
Google: Crank up the heat in your data center
Network World, 4/29/10
Google's top energy executive has offered some simple steps for making data centers more energy-efficient, including raising the thermostat to 80 degrees Fahrenheit -- or 27 degrees Celsius -- to cut down on cooling costs.
Data center staff at some companies walk around in jackets because the buildings are kept so cold, said Bill Weihl, Google's "green energy czar," at the GreenNet conference in San Francisco on Thursday. "In our facilities, the data center guys are often wearing shorts and t-shirts," he said.
The tips he offered have been batted around at data center conferences for a few years, but it's likely that many companies still aren't making use of them -- especially to the degree Google does at its own tightly-run facilities.
By taking fairly basic steps, most data centers could lower their PUE to 1.5, Weihl said, compared to an industry average of 2.0 or more. PUE, or Power Usage Effectiveness, measures the total energy consumed by a data center against how much actually reaches the IT equipment.
Read the article.
Round Up: Force10 Networks, Telx, Akami
Data Center Knowledge, 4/21/10
Here’s a roundup of some of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:
Force10 Networks 40 Gigabit Ethernet.
Force 10 Networks
announced that the company plans to incorporate 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40 GbE) into its switch/router solutions to provide the most economical incremental step from 10GbE for dynamic data centers.
Telx selected by Epsilon.
Telx
announced that Epsilon, a global service provider of network connectivity services, has established a Point of Presence (PoP) within Telx’s 60 Hudson St. colocation facility. This will be a key connectivity hub for Epsilon, providing access to the company’s other network locations throughout Asia, Europe and North America.
Akamai Issues 4Q State of the Internet report.
On Tuesday Akamai (AKAM)
announced the release of its fourth quarter 2009 State of the Internet report.
Earthquakes and Data Centers
Data Center Knowledge, 4/5/10
Yesterday’s magnitude 7.2 earthquake in Baja California was felt in large portions of Southern California. It rattled nerves and shook up some equipment as well.
“Our data center had servers rolling back and forth on earthquake gliders,” reported Jake Duncan, manager at ProtectRite of Encinitas, Calif. (a San Diego suburb) on his
Twitter stream. “It was intense … All employees working today ran to parking lot. Pictures toppled on desks and server safety systems engaged.”
Earthquake gliders? Many data centers use seismic isolation technology to protect racks and servers in the event of a major earthquake. Last year Dylan Mason of WorkSafe provided a demonstration of his company’s ISO-Base platforms, which sit under the data center racks and allow them to shift independently of the building during an earthquake, reducing damage. This 2 minute video from TechFlash provides an example of how these systems work -
click here to watch video or
read the article.
Why Companies are Using Colocation
The DataCenter Journal, 3/22/10
Colocation has become a hot topic in information technology—the potential benefits of colocating their data center resources, especially for smaller companies, are myriad. Nevertheless, despite these numerous potential benefits, such as reliability, environmental friendliness, and cost savings, many companies appear to be turning to colocation for a few specific reasons.
Companies that require data storage and other computing resources can choose to construct all the necessary facilities onsite to provide these resources under company management. This approach requires installation and maintenance of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, cooling systems, and other infrastructure. On the other extreme, all data center resources can be fully outsourced to the cloud, which provides data storage and computing services.
In between these two extremes is colocation—the company owns and (often) manages its own servers and software, but it “outsources” the other data center infrastructure. The colocation provider divides the cost of security, uninterruptible power, equipment cooling, maintenance of network connections, and equipment monitoring among a number of customers. Thus, none of the client companies is required to bear the full brunt of data center infrastructure costs, thereby reducing the cost of maintaining data storage and computing resources.
Read the article.
March Madness Hogs Bandwidth
TechFlash, 3/19/10
The sun is shining in Seattle. And the March Madness basketball tournament is entering its second day. That begs the question: Is anyone getting any work done today?
Well, according to a
recent survey by Challenger Gray & Christmas, the NCAA basketball tourney alone could cost employers as much as $1.8 billion in unproductive wages. And, with
CBS now streaming every game live, the tourney is also hogging corporate bandwidth.
Integra Telecom
said it recorded a 15 percent spike in Internet business traffic yesterday, an increase it tied directly to the basketball tourney.
Read the article.
Collocation poised for growth or not?
The Data Center Journal, 2/16/10
All signs point to good days ahead for collocation businesses, but will a lack of financing stall it in its tracks. We caught up with Ken Baudry, Senior Vice President, Southeast - National Data Center Group for Grubb & Ellis after he addressed these and other real estate questions at the Data Center Dynamics Conference in Atlanta in January 2010.
Read the article. 3rd party data centers remain steady, but what should we expect in 2010?
The Data Center Journal, 1/21/10
The US 3rd party data center or collocation market has seen its spike in demand, but is it just a blip and are we seeing a possible new trend develop? Over the past three years US enterprise users in need of data center space have turned to the 3rd party or collocation market to deliver required space during a turbulent time where securing favorable financing has been difficult.
According to many enterprise owners the solution to go to a 3rd party data center provider was meant to be a short term fix, but with unpredictable expansion plans and a difficult lending market many enterprises have expanded their short term fix. Will this continue to be the case?
Read the article.The Internet Revealed: A film about IXPs
TheEuroIX, 1/15/2010
A simple video to better understand this thing called the Internet. Want to know what an IXP is? How does "peering" make the internet faster, better and cheaper? Watch this video and find out...
Click here.
Forbes and the Bandwidth Problem
Telecom Ramblings, 1/4/10
In an article on Forbes.com entitled
Solving the Bandwidth Problem just before the new year, Ed Sperling caught my attention by repeatedly declaring that there is a bandwidth shortage in progress. In the category of exhausted synonyms for our apparently overwhelmed infrastructure, there was bottleneck, traffic congestion, slowdown, overcrowding, and of course log jam. And the solution? Private networks apparently, paid for at a premium from the same providers supposedly unable to handle congestion in the first place. It’s the exaflood story all over again with existing fiber capacity soon to be maxed out worldwide, but without the need for video apparently since doomsday is already nigh. Really? Could have fooled me…
Read the article.The Decade in Data
Forbes, 12/28/09
All around us is evidence that we've been living in a decade ruled by 1's and 0's. A household in the U.S. is now 10 times more likely to have a broadband connection than in 2000. And analog cameras, music and media players have become quaint rarities during this past decade, replaced by their increasingly pervasive digital counterparts.
Here's a list that compares key data points from 2000 to 2009, or the latest available figures.
--Percentage of U.S. households with a broadband connection in 2000: 6.3%
--Percentage of U.S. households with a broadband connection in 2008: 63%
--Number of e-mails sent per day in 2000: 12 billion
--Number of e-mails sent per day in 2009: 247 billion
--Revenues from mobile data services in the first half of 2000: $105 million
--Revenues from mobile data services in the first half of 2009: $19.5 billion
Report: All Anyone Wants for 2010 is Bandwidth
xchange, 12/7/09
Sluggish economy be damned: Unprecedented appetites for bandwidth are pushing infrastructure service providers to invest in their networks. But providers are profiting from those investments and will continue to do so if one venture capital firm’s predictions for 2010 come true: that the demand for faster connections, from businesses and from service providers, will continue to soar.
That’s the forecast from
M/C Venture Partners in its recent report on the top 10 communications technology trends for next year. M/C predicts that operators will be forced to offer more powerful bandwidth thanks to wireless broadband on smartphones (the “iPhone effect”), ever-higher Internet transmission speeds and fiber-based data services.
While consumers will spur much of the forecasted upgrades, businesses are doing their part too. Indeed, the companies that specialize in infrastructure and transport for enterprises – think
Zayo Group’s bandwidth division,
RCN Metro and
AboveNet – are among the providers reporting income growth during the recession, even as they fund the buildouts needed to slake the thirst for high-speed connectivity.
Read the article.
Google Patent Reveals Data Center Innovations
DataCenter Knowledge, 11/30/09
Google has revealed some of the secret technology inside its mighty data centers, but its engineers are busy cooking up new secrets.
An example: Google is seeking to patent an advanced data center cooling system that provides precision cooling inside racks of servers, automatically adjusting to temperature changes while dramatically reducing the energy required to run chillers.
The cooling design, which could help Google slash the power bill for its servers, reinforces Google’s focus on its data centers as a competitive advantage in its battle with Microsoft and other rivals for leadership in cloud computing. The company has customized much of the operation of its data centers, which serve as the engines powering its massive Internet business. Google builds its own
servers and
networking switches, and now appears to be customizing the racks that hold them.
Read the article.Power Density Likely to Drive Expansions
Data Center Knowledge, 11/19/09
Average power densities continue to rise in data centers, and are affecting the lifespan of existing data center facilities, according to new
survey data from Emerson Network Power. A majority of data centers say they will run out of capacity within two years, suggesting a wave of expansions is in the pipeline.
Thirteen percent of the members of Emerson’s Data Center User Group (DCUG) said the average power density in their data centers was 12 kilowatts a cabinet or higher, with five participants reporting average power loads exceeding 20 kw a cabinet. Eleven percent reported average densities between 8 and 12 kw, while the largest group of users – 36 percent – cited loads of 4 to 8 kw per rack.
Read the article.
Internap Expands Seattle Data Center
Data Center Knowledge, 11/6/09
broader effort to shift more of its colocation business from partner data centers into facilities owned by Internap. The Seattle expansion is expected to cost $22 million, or nearly half of the $50 million Internap has earmarked for its
data center expansion.
The project will add 15,000 net sellable square feet of capacity to Internap’s current footprint in Seattle, with the new space expected to open during the third quarter of 2010. “Seattle was a compelling choice for expansion because of our multi-facility footprint, local market knowledge, existing sales and support infrastructure as well as our ability to leverage brand reputation,” said Internap CEO Eric Cooney. “We feel this market offers Internap a unique opportunity to expand with relatively low risk and relatively high reward.”
Read the article.Data Center Flash Tours
Data Center Knowledge, 11/2/09
Last week we featured an interactive Flash presentation providing an overview of
Cisco’s new data centers in Richardson, Texas.
Data Center Map takes a broader look at the use of Flash in data center marketing, compiling a list of other sites that have built virtual tours of their facilities. DCM’s Sune Christesen links to eight examples (including Cisco).
Read the article.
Equinix Buys Switch & Data for $689 Million
Credit Thaw Boosts Data Center Construction
Data Center Knowledge, 10/19/09
Bill & Melinda think big on national broadband plan
Equinix eases Ethernet handoffs, opens doors to US market
An inside look at Microsoft massive Chicago data center
Fisher Plaza forensic report cites failure of insulation in bus duct
Internet users expect websites to load twice as fast now as in 2006
Why 100% Uptime Often Is Not 100% Uptime
Pingdom, 9/7/09
In the New Data Center, Roofs Off and Taxes Down
The New York Times, 8/17/09
A Closer Look at Dell Double Decker Containers
tinet Extends U.S. Operations
Phone +, 8/14/09
A Data Center Shortage for Silicon Valley?
Data Center Knowledge, 8/12/09
Bandwidth Advisors attends Pacific Crest Mosaic Summit & Technology Leadership Forum
Disaster Planning: How one CTO avoided a web site disaster after data center fire
Broadband Stimulus: Feds Unveil Funding Details
Data Center Overload
Seattle Tops Boston as #2 Tech Spot in North America
TechFlash, 6/3/09
Study: Data Center Supply Near All-Time Low
Data Center Knowledge, 5/28/09
Tipping Point for Data Centers
Bandwidth Advisors Joins TCA as a Charter Member
Press Release, 4/13/09
Colo Agents Form Consortium
Phone+, 4/18/08