Tuesday, May 7th, 2013

Time	Event
12:49p	Telx CEO Eric Shepcaro Passes Away Eric Shepcaro, the CEO of Telx Group. Eric Shepcaro, the Chief Executive Officer of Telx, passed away Saturday after an illness. Shepcaro led the company through a period of tremendous growth, during which it became a national provider of interconnection and colocation services, with operations in major Internet gateways in markets around the U.S. He was a familiar speaker at industry events in the telecom and data center sectors. Shepcaro joined Telx as CEO shortly after the company was acquired by GI Partners in late 2006, and continued as CEO after Telx was acquired by ABRY Partners and Berkshire Partners in 2011. Prior to joining Telx, Shepcaro worked for AT&T, where he served as senior vice president of Business Development and Emerging Services and chaired AT&T’s Emerging Technology Customer Board. He has also held executive positions at Netelligence Technologies, Digital Island and Sprint. Shepcaro had recently taken time off from his duties, during which the day-to-day management of Telx was overseen by an executive team led by President and CFO Chris Downie and board member John Kelly. Eric was always generous with his time and eager to discuss Telx and the data center industry. He will be missed.  (Comment on this)
1:15p	EMC Unveils ViPR Software-Defined Storage Platform EMC World kicked off Monday with a big announcement about the EMC ViPR Software-Defined Storage Platform. EMC ViPR is built for cloud environments and service providers, and designed to serve as the foundation for a modern storage architecture for future application deployments. It provides the ability to both manage storage infrastructure (Control Plane) and the data residing within that infrastructure (Data Plane). The EMC World conversation can be followed on Twitter hashtag #EMCWorld Control Plane The EMC ViPR Controller can deliver improvements in automation by abstracting common storage management functions like provisioning or migration. This allows different storage arrays to be managed as a single pooled resource in exactly the same way. ViPR delivers a single point-and-click approach. It can leverage existing storage infrastructures for traditional workloads, and also provision new ViPR Object Data Services (with access via Amazon S3 or Hadoop APIs) for next-generation workloads. ViPR provides a self-service portal so application owners can browse the storage service catalog and provision service resources best suited for their needs. “Building the web-scale data center is critical for service providers and large enterprises,” said Amitabh Srivastava, President, Advanced Software Division, EMC. ”The rise of the Software-Defined Data Center is a groundbreaking step toward delivering the management and performance capabilities needed to protect and leverage data. Only by separating the data center from its underlying hardware can IT truly deliver resources as customizable, on-demand services. This is a game-changer for storage.” Data Plane For traditional workloads that utilize file and block, EMC ViPR steps out of the way and lets the underlying array fulfill the role of Data Plane, or the data stored within the storage infrastructure. However new workloads are emerging, often operating on vast quantities of data (Big Data) and servicing tens of thousands or millions of users. EMC estimates these workloads will grow approximately 700 percent by 2016 — an order of magnitude more than traditional storage. With storage infrastructure evolving to object storage and access methods changing to new protocols such as HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System), EMC ViPR provides Object Data Services. The ViPR Object Data Services will provide Amazon S3 and OpenStack Swift compatible REST APIs and HDFS access methods — existing software applications written to these APIs should run seamlessly. ViPR Object Data Services will support existing EMC Atmos, EMC VNX and EMC Isilon arrays as a persistence layer in addition to third party arrays and commodity hardware. “EMC’s new ViPR offering is key to how the storage industry and enterprises will evolve to a software-defined data center,” said Gary Budzinski, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Global Infrastructure Services at CSC. “By moving to an Infrastructure-as-a-Service model and virtualizing storage, network and compute environments, CSC has the ability to bring new business value to our clients including faster time to market, reduced complexity and increased innovation.” EMC staff offer videos and commentary on the ViPR announcement: EMC TV interviewed EMC Advanced Software Division Vice President Christopher Ratcliffe to discuss the company’s entry into the software defined storage market and its approach to storage virtualization.   EMC’s President of the Advanced Software Division Amitabh Srivastava discusses the ViPR software platform, and how the company is giving its customers the ultimate in choice and flexibility. Chuck Hollis, VP  and Global Marketing CTO at EMC posted an entry on his blog, putting the announcement in context and showing that storage virtualization has been around a long time, but the EMC ViPR platform is a very strong candidate for ‘software-defined storage’. (Comment on this)
2:42p	Intel Launches Low-Power Silvermont Microarchitecture Intel (INTC) announced its microarchitecture named Silvermont, which will support low-power devices from smartphones to servers. The new design is a 22nm Tri-Gate System on Chip (SoC) that delivers a three-fold increase in performance at dramatically lower power than Atom, Intel’s leading low-power processor core. “Silvermont is a leap forward and an entirely new technology foundation for the future that will address a broad range of products and market segments,” said Dadi Perlmutter, Intel executive vice president and chief product officer. “Early sampling of our 22nm SoCs, including ‘Bay Trail’ and ‘Avoton’ is already garnering positive feedback from our customers. Going forward, we will accelerate future generations of this low-power microarchitecture on a yearly cadence.” Silvermont will serve as the foundation for a range of innovative products beginning to come to market later this year, and is targeted at low-power requirements in market segments from smartphones to the data center. It will be manufactured using Intel’s 22nm Tri-Gate SoC manufacturing process, which brings significant performance increases and improved energy efficiency. A new multi-core and system fabric architecture scales up to eight cores and enables greater performance for higher bandwidth, lower latency and more efficient out-of-order support for a more balanced and responsive system. Silvermont also features enhanced power management capabilities, including a new intelligent burst technology, low- power C states and a wider dynamic range of operation taking advantage of Intel’s 3-D transistors. “Through our design and process technology co-optimization we exceeded our goals for Silvermont,” said Belli Kuttanna, Intel Fellow and chief architect. “By taking advantage of our strengths in microarchitecture development and leading-edge process technology, we delivered a technology package that enables significantly improved performance and power efficiency – all while delivering higher frequencies. We’re proud of this accomplishment and believe that Silvermont will offer a strong and flexible foundation for a range of new, low-power Intel SoCs.” In line with its announced processor roadmap Intel has the “Avoton” and “Rangeley” second-generation Atom SoC processors ready for launch in the second half of this year. “Avoton” will be used in micro servers, while “Rangeley” is aimed at networking and communications devices. “By taking advantage of both the Silvermont and Haswell microarchitectures, Intel is well positioned to enable great products and experiences across the full spectrum of computing,” Perlmutter said. (Comment on this)
3:00p	Enterasys Launches OneFabric Connect SDN Enterasys Networks, a Siemens Enterprise Communications Company,  introduced OneFabric Connect SDN, a software defined networking (SDN) solution that integrates with a community of partner offerings. The solution focuses on new services innovation through an open API and unique flow-based ASIC architecture which accelerates application integration for the entire network. The SDN component builds upon the OneFabric Connect offering that was launched earlier this year. Several partners have been integrated into the OneFabric Connect Central developer community, including not only data center solutions but also applications at the network edge and access, such as MDM, web filtering and Unified Communications. “Our customers today are tasked with finding solutions to combat the rapid rate at which network usage and complexity is increasing,” said Markus Nispel, Chief Technology Strategist, Enterasys Networks. ”OneFabric Connect SDN builds upon Enterasys’ heritage of providing flexibility in the network that solves our customer’s problems. Through OneFabric Connect SDN, IT is able to create a dynamic and agile network infrastructure that’s aimed at the deployment of new services through common APIs. As a result, our customers get the increased network reliability, simplicity and security they are seeking that extends far beyond the data center.” “ESG research indicates that organizations need SDN solutions to help them overcome problems like reducing or eliminating manual processes and accelerating application roll outs,” said Bob Laliberte, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. ”The Enterasys approach to SDN combines the scalability and simplicity of their OneFabric architecture with a technology partner ecosystem via open APIs to deliver a broad range of network service solutions to their customers.” (Comment on this)
5:37p	Brocade Integrates with EMC ViPR At the EMC World event this week in Las Vegas Brocade announced that its SAN solutions are integrated with EMC’s new ViPR platform, and Dimension Data adds tiered EMC storage to its Public Compute-as-a-Service offering. Brocade integrated in EMC ViPR Brocade (BRCD) announced its Gen 5 Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN) solutions are integrated with the new EMC ViPR Software-Defined Storage Platform. This solution will allow more than 50,000 joint EMC and Brocade customers to immediately realize the virtualization benefits of the new EMC ViPR software-defined storage platform within highly virtualized cloud environments. With Brocade technology integration, EMC Connectrix SAN customers can now utilize the EMC ViPR platform to enable existing SAN infrastructure to leverage existing storage infrastructures for traditional data center workloads, as well as provision new EMC ViPR Object Data Service and EMC ViPR HDFS Service through access to Amazon S3 and OpenStack Swift for next-generation workloads. This complete spectrum of capabilities can be run against enterprise or commodity storage. “As a crucial component of today’s storage infrastructure we are very excited with the work we’ve done with Brocade to ensure seamless integration of the networking stack with ViPR,” said Christopher Ratcliffe, vice president of marketing, Advanced Software Division, EMC Corporation. “The ability to automate and define policy across the entire storage environment extends our common vision to deliver proven, simple-to-use solutions for storage networks and private clouds with unparalleled ability to transform enterprise data centers. We look forward to continuing our long term strategic relationship to further improve the utilization of our customers’ existing and future storage investments.” Dimension Data Tiered storage Dimension Data announced the availability of tiered storage options as part of its enterprise-class Public Compute-as-a-Service (CaaS) offering. Public cloud clients can now access three tiers of block-based storage at $0.07 to $0.44 per GB per month, enabling businesses to increase efficiencies in the cloud and significantly reduce total storage cost by matching the level of protection, performance and accessibility of data to the storage media that best suits an application. The offering uses the EMC VNX storage platform, and is provisioned through a web-based user interface or API, enabling organizations to change the type of storage required for cloud servers on the fly. The new service leverages solid state drives (SSD) to accelerate performance for both the High-Performance and Standard options. “Dimension Data is committed to providing a high-performance cloud that is easy to use and customize,” said Steve Nola, Cloud Solutions Business Unit CEO at Dimension Data. ”Providing additional options around storage media is an important innovation that enables our clients to leverage the cloud for a variety of applications including high-performance databases, as well as less demanding applications such as archiving, backup and long-term data retention.” (Comment on this)
6:30p	Wall Street Going Wireless in Bid for Ultra-Low Latency Can wireless connectivity provide faster ultra-low latency connectivity for financial traders? (Image copyright David Neale and licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Licence) There’s growing interest in wireless as a way to get faster connectivity for financial customers conducting low-latency trading, a trend seen in several announcements this week. 325 Hudson announced the addition of a wireless Meet Me Room (MMR) through a partnership with NexxCom. Meanwhile, Hudson Fiber Network has added ultra low-latency wireless infrastructure through ULL Networks. In the race to zero latency, the technologies are changing and evolving. Wireless technology providers are one avenue that fiber providers and financial customers are looking at closely as they seek ever-faster connectivity for their trading systems. Wireless can offer speed advantages over cabling, as signals can travel faster through air than fiber, and wireless transmission can allow data to move in a straighter path than fiber cabling routes (see Telecom Ramblings for a good explainer on wired vs. wireless). Data center providers in the New York and New Jersey markets depend on their bread and butter ultra-low latency financial customers. Hudson Fiber Network bills itself as the premier data transport provider, targeting financial, content, carrier, and enterprise clients with flexible networking solutions. 325 Hudson is strategically located on fiber-dense crossroads of Hudson Street and the Holland Tunnel, and is also emphasizing its services for financials. 325 Hudson’s Wireless MMR 325 Hudson, the carrier-neutral core interconnection facility strategically located on the fiber-dense crossroads of Hudson Street and the Holland Tunnel in New York City has partnered with NexxCom Wireless for the first managed wireless Meet Me Room (MMR), which will operate from the 325 Hudson rooftop. Wireless services will be made available on both a private network basis and as a managed service, initially to several key sites in New Jersey. The design of the wireless MMR is provided by NexxCom, and is able to minimize frequency interference, maximize roof space and optimize customer ease of wireless connections. The building’s management says it will provide the lowest latency connections across Manhattan, Northern New Jersey and beyond to support users with financial exchanges, mobile backhaul and disaster recovery connectivity needs. “NexxCom’s proprietary wireless technology provides the first solution where high capacity, high availability and low latency aren’t mutually exclusive,” said Sal Benti, Chairman of NexxCom Wireless. “The wireless Meet Me Room will offer the state of the art in wireless capabilities from technology to planning to provide customers with a tailored solution to suit each user’s specific needs. “Our clients require data center access solutions that near the speed of light; these requirements have been the driving force behind our creation of these wireless links,” said Benti. “As a result, today we can provide point-to-point wireless access between key trading firms and financial data centers at latencies that are superior to traditional optical fiber solutions.” The wireless MMR will enhance connectivity to subsea cables, New Jersey data centers and exchanges and provide access into long haul fiber and wireless networks to Chicago and additional western points. The wireless offering is coupled with access to multiple fiber and core transport providers and acts as a low cost alternative for first or last mile connectivity from the building-wired MMR with 325 Hudson’s interconnection facility. “Our partnership with NexxCom Wireless to provide the first-of-its-kind, carrier-neutral wireless Meet Me Room in New York City further exemplifies our commitment to provide our customers with cutting-edge, state-of-the-art services,” said Hunter Newby, Joint Venture Partner at 325 Hudson Street. “We look forward to bringing the submarine and terrestrial lit transport communities together with the microwave and millimeter wave community at 325 Hudson.” NeXXCom Wireless is a broadband wireless equipment and systems business focused on low latency and ultra broadband networks, and specifically targets firms conducting High Frequency Trading (HFT). Hudson Fiber Network to distribute ULL Networks Hudson Fiber Network (HFN) is exclusively distributing ULL Networks’ ultra low latency RF wireless connectivity capabilities within the New York and New Jersey metropolitan areas. Wireless routes will be offered for connections between major New York and New Jersey exchange points, including the Equinix NY1, NY4, NY8 and NY9 facilities, and key financial data centers in Weehawken, Mahwah and Carteret, New Jersey. Nationwide routes to Chicago facilities will also be available. HFN will offer ultra low-latency RF wireless services at the maximum available bandwidth of 1 Gig with latency reduction ranging from 30 to 60 percent depending on the wireless route. HFN and ULL Networks will partner together to provide additional routes in the future. “Our clients are some of the most influential players in the financial industry,” said Brett Diamond, President of HFN. ”By introducing this capability to our extensive lowest-latency fiber routes, we have the versatility to offer the financial community stand-alone fiber and wireless services, as well as hybrid services, based on each customer’s specific needs. Our partnership with ULL furthers our capabilities as the premier provider of low-latency services across the board nationwide, with a specific focus on the New York and New Jersey metropolitan areas.” “HFN was the partner of choice for ULL networks in the New York/New Jersey market,” said Ed Kopko, CEO of ULL Networks. ”Their lowest-latency fiber routes, now coupled with wireless, are simply the best offerings in market. Our best-of-breed wireless services will help HFN’s financial customer base by giving them seamless access to ultra-low-latency options in the ongoing pursuit of the highest possible performance.” Both of these moves target latency sensitive customers, as well disaster recovery and business continuity operations. As providers look to appeal to financials, they’ll continue to  blaze new trails in terms of technology adoption in the hopes of gaining an edge. (Comment on this)

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