Wednesday, May 29th, 2013

Time	Event
11:34a	AMD Launches New Line of Low-Power Processors The wafer for the AMD “Kyoto” series processors, which make their debut today, offering improved power efficiency. (Image: AMD) In the continuing trend towards featuring ultra-low power processors in new classes of servers designed to run Internet-scale workloads AMD announced the Opteron X-Series, a new family of low power server processors formerly known as “Kyoto.” Optimized for scale-out server architectures, the new X1150 and X2150 processors feature four x86 CPU cores. “The data center is at an inflection point and requires a high number of cores in a dense form factor with integrated graphics, massive amounts of DRAM and unprecedented power efficiency to keep up with the pace of innovation of Internet services,” said Andrew Feldman, corporate vice president and general manager, Server Business Unit at AMD.  ”AMD has a proud history of server innovation, and the AMD Opteron X-Series processors challenge the status quo by providing unmatched capabilities to drive the most energy-efficient servers in the industry.” At as little as 11 watts, AMD says the Opteron X2150 is the first server APU system-on-a-chip integrating CPU and GPU engines with a high-speed bus on a single die. This enables customers to take advantage of leading-edge AMD Radeon HD 8000 graphics technology for multimedia-oriented server workloads. The AMD Opteron X1150, which consumes as little as 9 watts, is a CPU-only version optimized for general scale-out workloads. The X-Series processors will be a good fit for initiatives like Project Moonshot, HP’s low-power, many-core servers converged infrastructure. “Fundamental changes in computing architectures are required to support space, power and cost demands organizations need to deliver compelling, new infrastructure economics,” said Paul Santeler, vice president and general manager, Hyperscale Server business segment, HP. “The new x86 AMD Opteron X-Series processors integrated into future HP Moonshot servers will continue to push the boundaries of power efficiency for social, mobile, cloud and big data workloads.” Both X-Series processors have four “Jaguar” 64 bit x86 CPU cores, up to 32 gigabytes of DRAM and 2MB of L2 Cache. The X2150 also features 128 Radeon HD 8000 GPU cores.  Both Opteron X2150 APU and X1150 CPU are generally available now. (Comment on this)
12:00p	Data Center Jobs: BYTEGRID At the Data Center Jobs Board, we have a new job listing  from BYTEGRID, which is seeking a Facility Manager in Silver Spring, Maryland. The Facility Manager is responsible for directing and overseeing maintenance programs relating to the interior and exterior condition and appearance consistent with BYTEGRID objectives, communicating with staff to obtain input and recommendations that ensure operational and quality standards are maintained, supervising 30+ direct and outsourced staff to ensure effective implementation of services in accordance with contractual, performance and quality expectations of the Company, preparing and conducting the performance reviews and make salary recommendations for all direct reports, and as appropriate, reviewing and approving staff performance reports. To view full details and apply, see job listing details. Are you hiring for your data center? You can list your company’s job openings on the Data Center Jobs Board, and also track new openings via our jobs RSS feed. (Comment on this)
12:30p	Are You Suffering from PUE Envy? Tom Roberts is President of AFCOM, the leading association supporting the educational and professional development needs of data center professionals around the globe. TOM ROBERTS AFCOM It’s kind of become an “our PUE is less than your PUE” world as companies battle it out for green data center efficiency bragging rights. Of course, data centers with the most resources—financial, natural and manpower—have an advantage. Here’s recent examples: Yahoo! spent close to $200 million on its 1.07 PUE-boasting data center in Lockport, NY. Carbon-free hydroelectric power generated from Niagara Falls feeds its servers. Google, with an average PUE of 1.12 for its data centers, just purchased a $200 million stake in a wind farm in west Texas to add to an already impressive green portfolio that includes offshore wind power and solar. This brings the Internet giant’s total investments in alternative energy to more than $1 billion. Apple spent about $1 billion to build iDataCenter, its first data center facility in Maiden, North Carolina. With two massive solar arrays and a nearby fuel cell farm it also manages a 1.1 (or so) PUE. You are not alone if you’re experiencing a touch of PUE or budget envy from the previous examples. Slashdot.org recently reported “green fatigue” among data center managers who were tiring of the constant PUE chase. Let’s Get Real For most of us, building data centers next to magnificent rivers or buying huge chunks of real estate to place solar arrays is just pie-in-the-sky thinking. Our solutions must be much more grounded. In fact, Data Center World keynote speaker Brian Janous from Microsoft addressed this very real-world frustration. At the end of his talk, someone asked him: “It is great that (Microsoft) can experiment in using other sources of fuel to power its centers, but how do we (smaller data centers) benefit from that?” Well, because the Microsofts of the world can experiment with new ideas and renewable fuel sources, it takes the pressure off us to determine what is viable and what is not. If they find their experiment did not work as planned, they learn from it and try something new. Their experimentation turns into our future implementations. Practical Lessons from the Megascale Projects While we may not be able to match the scope of what these corporate giants achieve, we certainly can apply the lessons that make practical sense in our data centers. For example, you can thank the larger data centers for “discovering” the use of outside air and evaporative cooling to lower temperatures as well as establishing a safe threshold for raising them. Just choose the projects that make the most sense now, for your specific situation and budget. Research firm Gartner suggests keeping these guidelines in mind: More exotic projects, like alternative energy and green building design, may take a decade or longer. Five-year paybacks are probable for projects that attempt to change employee behavior, and for lifecycle management programs and green legislative initiatives. Two-year paybacks are possible for efficient facility designs, advanced cooling, processor and server designs, and heating and power issues. Try the below five methods (from AFCOM’s Communique newsletter) to make quick, cost-efficient differences in your energy usage: 1. Place Power Distribution Units (PDUs) in wider, warmer aisles in chimney-ducted rooms. Since they don’t need the low temperatures that cold aisles offer, PDUs shouldn’t be using up the colder air that other equipment requires. 2. Don’t use doors on the cold aisle sides of cabinets. Fans can produce both kinetic and radiant heat during regular operation. The easier time these fans have aspirating air through cabinet door perforations, the less heat they will produce, saving on required cooling. 3. Humidify using a combination of partial extraction of the warm return air, an atomizing spray of water, and a supply of 10-degree cooler air in back, overhead, and directly into the cross aisles. The natural vapor pressure will keep the area humidified. 4. Align cabinets with hot sides on the other side of a demising wall that forms the perimeter of the data center. Use a second concentric demising perimeter external to the first demising wall to form a security barrier and a warm air collection point for drawing heat in winter to warm office spaces. Finally, supply cooled air directly below exterior windows in an office area back to the interior of the computer room or NOC to assure a complete airflow/air replenishment circuit. 5. Use custom, break away ductwork in a chimney-ducted room. Affix the ductwork to the back door of cabinets that only vent horizontally, allowing hot air to redirect up and into a chimney when the back door is closed. The result is that the warm aisle stays cooler with less chance of mixing the warm air with the cold air within the data room. Follow the Leaders The challenges of lowering energy costs are here to stay. Whether you’re in a position to take on massive projects or nip away at smaller ones, be sure to keep your eyes open and ears peeled for the next great PUE-lowering strategy from the leaders in this arena. You—and the next generation of data centers—are bound to get something out of it. Industry Perspectives is a content channel at Data Center Knowledge highlighting thought leadership in the data center arena. See our guidelines and submission process for information on participating. View previously published Industry Perspectives in our Knowledge Library. (Comment on this)
2:14p	The eBay Dashboard Shows Company Performance eBay dashboard launched in March. With its Digital Service Efficiency (DSE) tool, eBay revealed just how truly efficient its infrastructure is across a variety of metrics. The company has now hit its first full quarter of public data that measures how the company performed against its own goals. In March, eBay launched its Digital Service Efficiency (DSE) methodology – a “miles per gallon” equivalent that displayed infrastructure effectiveness in real-time across 4 key business priorities: performance, cost, environmental impact and revenue. Among Q1 highlights, the company raised the number of transactions per kilowatt-hour and it exceeded its cost per transaction goal. Despite increasing its number of servers powering eBay.com, there was an increase of only 16 percent (2.69 MW) in power consumption, which the company contributes to the efficiency of new servers. There were also improvements across performance, cost, and environmental impact. In terms of environmental impact, a big boost came from the company’s Salt Lake City data center’s solar array, increasing the company’s clean energy use. While the solar array is small, it increased owned clean energy powering eBay.com by 0.17 percent, and there’s a fuel cell installation expected to come online this summer. The company’s goals were: •   Increase transactions per kWh by 10 percent transactions per kWh increased 18 percent year over year) •   Reduce cost per transaction by 10 percent cost per transaction decreased 23 percent in Q1 alone, exceeding the initial goal •  Reduce carbon per transaction by 10 percent carbon per transaction showed a net decrease of 7 percent; this was the only metric the company didn’t blow past. There’s its Utah Bloom fuel cell installation that will go live this summer, which will decrease and contribute significantly to the 10% carbon reduction goal set for the year. The company is confident it will remain on track to hitting this goal, recognizing that infrastructure is dynamic and changes. Some of these positive trends were driven by newer, smarter features on the site including feed technology rolled out last fall. The feed technology attempts to personalize the shopping experience by showing auctions that might be of interest based on a user’s history. Also important to note is that the company fine-tuned the methodology. It now only looks at server pools that receive external web traffic so it can measure “buy and “sell” traffic, calling all other server pools not receiving external web traffic “shared”. The company said it was making $337 million per megawatt last time around, but this metric has been fine tuned to measure Revenue per megawatt hour now to represent total consumption per quarter and year rather than quarterly averages. The auction giant had 52,075 servers then, which is up to 54,011 servers now. It was consuming 18 megawatts of power to support 112.3 million active users; now it consumes 19.08MW for 116.2m active users. Next quarter will paint a clearer picture of revenue per user, as on a Q/Q basis it seems to have dropped $1 from $15 to $14. For last year, the company showed revenue of $54 per user, and $117,000 per server. DSE provides a vivid example of the productivity of data center infrastructure, which typically has construction costs of $5 million to $10 million per megawatt for large users like eBay. All the information is publicly available at dse.ebay.com (Comment on this)
3:55p	Video: DC2 Datapod System Heads to Europe Data center manufacturer Datapod recently started deploying its first export to Sweden, delivering its Data Center 2.0 (DC2) modular data center technology. Datapod product has also been used for PNG ports and a number of global mining companies. The 1:54 video shows Datapod’s pre-fabricated modular units. “The export to Sweden is recognition that Datapod has developed a truly global data center solution that is more economical and quicker to deploy when compared to traditional bricks and mortar. The flexible, scalable and sustainable approach we take to data center manufacturing provides numerous benefits for our customers, including reduced carbon emissions, and lower CAPEX and OPEX,” said Datapod Director Adam Smith. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube. (Comment on this)
5:49p	Cisco Buys JouleX for $107 Million for Energy Management SaaS Cisco is acquiring JouleX, a provider of enterprise IT energy management for data center assets, for approximately $107 million. The acquisition enhances Cisco’s software-as-a-service offerings with energy management, fitting particularly well with Cisco EnergyWise. The acquisition is expected to be complete in the fourth quarter of this year. Joulex developed an agentless system that detects devices on IP networks and tracks their power use. The combined solution will provide customers with a way to measure, monitor and manage energy usage for network and IT systems without the need for device side agents, hardware meters or network configurations.  It uses capabilities of the network to gain visibility into and control of energy usage across global IT environments. JouleX previously raised $17 million back in 2011. “JouleX’s technology will strengthen Cisco Services’ Smart Offerings and complements our evolving services strategy,” said Faiyaz Shahpurwala, senior vice president, Industry Solutions at Cisco. “It extends our ‘Internet of Things’ capabilities and is a good alignment to Cisco EnergyWise. With network-enabled devices increasing exponentially, our partners and customers are asking for this solution today to operationalize their energy management capabilities in the network and reduce cost. JouleX’s cloud-enabled, agent-less architecture will allow our partners and customers to quickly deploy this solution at scale in addressing their IT energy management needs.” JouleX employees will be integrated into the Connected Energy Solutions team within Cisco’s Industry Solutions Group, reporting to David Goddard, vp and general manager. Cisco will pay approximately $107 million in cash and retention-based incentives in exchange for all shares of JouleX JouleX is headquartered in Atlanta with offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Paris, Munich and Kassel, Germany, and throughout the United States.. There is a big focus on network and IT energy efficiency, with enterprises seeking solutions to control energy consumption across infrastructure. JouleX gives Cisco some deeper intelligence around energy consumption, in a SaaS-based, agentless way, boosting its capabilities. The company is privately held with capital investments from Target Partners, TechOperators, Sigma Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners and Intel Capital. (Comment on this)
7:58p	Texas Data Center Tax Incentives on the Horizon Major data center tax incentives are expected to become law in Texas, and the state’s data center operators are excited about it. The Lonestar state is already a central data center and hosting hub, but the tax breaks are designed to bring in new technology firms and capital investment. In recent years, other states have begun offering aggressive tax cuts, and the new incentives will help Texas defend its prominent position. The Texas Legislature has approved legislation to create a temporary sales tax exemption intended to attract major data center projects to Texas.This exemption will apply to data centers with single occupants only. It now comes down to Governor Rick Perry, who has 20 days to sign, veto, or allow the bill to become a law without his signature. “We are a very competitive state for large data centers in terms of our economy, geography and climate, but we haven’t been in terms of our tax code,” said Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville, who authored House Bill 1223 creating the incentives. Data Center Providers Express Their Support Stream Data Centers, which has facilities in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, and Companies like CAPSTAR, who own a large property in the Dallas market, are notably excited. “Large data center users consider these economic incentives as part of their total cost analysis, and Texas was being priced out of the market,” said John Patterson, who works with CAPSTAR Real Estate Advisors and has a partnership in the 3000 Skyline Dallas data center building. “These tax incentives benefit the technology firms, but they also have a huge economic impact on the state and the communities where they are located.” If signed, effective September 1, 2013, the sales and use tax exemption applies to  personal property that is necessary and essential to operate a qualified data center, including electricity; an electrical system; a cooling system; an emergency generator; hardware or a distributed mainframe computer or server; a data storage device; network connectivity equipment; a rack, cabinet, and raised floor system; a peripheral component or system; software; and any other equipment or system necessary to operate qualified property, including a fixture; and a component part of any qualified property. Senate Adds its 2 cents House Bill 1223 passed last Friday, and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Harvey Hilderbran told the House he was willing to accept two important changes that the Senate made to the Bill: The Senate increased the minimum capital investment required to qualify for exemption. Projects involving a capital investment of $200 million qualify for a ten year sales tax exemption. Those with $250 million investment qualify for 15 year exemption The Senate defined a qualifying data center to require that the center be used by a single tenant. How to Qualify The significant thresholds are: $200 million investment over the first five years following certification in infrastructure, hardware, software, electricity, etc. 20 new full time jobs, which pay 120% of the existing county pay rate 100,000 SF building and larger Dollars spent on or after September 1st 2013. “This bill is significant because it isn’t location-specific,” said Todd Kercheval, a government affairs consultant who has lobbied for data center tax incentives. “These incentives are truly going to benefit enterprise companies, technology firms, and many communities all across Texas.” To qualify, data center owner, operator or occupants must jointly or independently meet required capital investment, create 20 full time permanent jobs that pay at least 120% of the average weekly wage of the given county, with these jobs maintained for five years. No investments made or jobs created prior to September 1, 2013 will count. The Comptroller of Public Accounts must pre-approveand will issue registration numbers. What the exemption doesn’t apply to: office equipment or supplies, maintenance or janitorial supplies or equipment, equipment or supplies used primarily in sales activities or transportation activities, property on which the purchaser has received or has a pending application for an enterprise zone refund, personal property not otherwise exempted that becomes an improvement to real property, equipment rented or leased for a year or less, or a taxable service that is performed on property exempted by the bill. “Data centers benefit communities by increasing real estate values in areas that are often underutilized,” Hilderbran said. “Higher real estate values mean more tax dollars for schools.” (Comment on this)

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