Friday, May 31st, 2013

Time	Event
12:58p	The Internet of Things: Buzzword or Big Business? The Internet of Things could be the next wave of truly disruptive technology. Although the term Internet of Things is over a decade old, advances in technology, proliferation of connectible devices and supporting ecosystem of clouds and connectivity have accelerated the market significantly. Gartner defines the Internet of Things (IoT) as the network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate, sense or interact with their internal states or the external environment. The burgeoning markets of energy management, smart grids, sensor networks and other intelligent systems, coupled with advances in IoT platforms and big data, have given birth to many innovations, start-up companies and big company acquisitions. The Google Trends chart below shows how fast the term “Internet of Things” has grown in interest over the past several years and that it is currently peaking. Companies Advancing IoT Proposition Google recently teamed up with O’Reilly’s Data Sensing Lab and deployed  hundreds of Arduino-based environmental sensors at Google I/O 2013 in order to collect and visualize ambient data about the conference. The Google Cloud Platform provided the software backend for the project, while the sensors network provided over 4,000 continuous data streams over a ZigBee mesh network managed by Device Cloud by Etherios. (In case you are not familiar, Etherios Device Cloud is a public cloud platform for device network management – providing secure application messaging, data storage and device management for networks comprised of wired, cellular and satellite-connected devices.) Many Players in the Marketplace Building on the foundation of the IoT, the Cisco (CSCO) vision is the Internet of Everything, which it defines as bringing together people, process, data, and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before. Cisco believes that there is a $14.4 trillion value at stake in this market, which combines the increased revenues and lower costs that is created or will migrate among companies and industries from 2013 to 2022. The factors driving the trend include mainstreaming of sensors, cloud computing and the migration of everything to IP networks. Last month, Cisco acquired  UK-based Ubiquisys, which makes miniature base stations that let wireless service providers expand connectivity to locations that are otherwise hard to reach, particularly indoors. This fits into the Cisco vision for the Internet of Everything, where billions of devices can stream real-time data to power all kinds of decisions. Cisco is also very active in energy management solutions, and has acquired JouleX to further enhance its software as a service offerings. The JouleX Energy Manager monitors, analyzes and controls energy usage of all network-connected devices and system. Intel (INTC) has developed an Intelligent Systems Framework for the IoT, and cites IDC data that predicts that by 2015 more than a third of the billions of connected devices will be intelligent systems – a market representing 4 billion units and more than $2 trillion in potential revenue. The framework addresses designs to enable connectivity, manageability and security, and looks at intelligent systems in communications, retail, vehicles, industrial and medical markets. IBM’s Smarter Planet strategy is over five years old and is designed to use data and analytics for decisions for building a smarter, instrumented, intelligent and interconnected planet. Recently the company launched IBM MessageSight, a new appliance designed to help organizations manage and communicate with the billions of mobile devices and sensors found in systems such as automobiles, traffic management systems, smart buildings and household appliances. MessageSight builds on Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) technology  which was developed by Cisco Systems, IBM, Red Hat and Tibco. LogMeIn division Xively uses the LogMeIn Gravity cloud platform to power its IoT Public Cloud, which offers a way for disparate devices to connect with each other. Recently ARM and Xively joined forces  to promote the Internet of Things development platform. As part of the agreement, the companies are cooperating on LogMeIn’s Xively Jumpstart Kit, a “rapid prototyping-to-production bundle” that “significantly reduces the cost, complexity and learning curve” required to bring Internet of Things-based connected products to market, said the partners. The Kit combines ARM mbed, a platform for rapidly building connected devices using ARM-based microcontrollers, with Xively’s cloud platform, making the IoT a practical reality for anyone wanting to build Internet-connected devices and associated cloud-based applications, from small entrepreneurs to established Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). French cellular network operator Sigfox offers a low cost data transmission service that is completely dedicated to low throughput Machine-to-Machine/ Internet of Things applications. With its patented Ultra-Narrowband (UNB) technology and low throughput network it is transmitting the billions of data of the Internet of Things in a cost-effective, eco-responsible, efficient and reliable way. The Industrial Internet A facet of the IoT, called the industrial internet, layers smart software on top of big machines, generating big data to analyze. The promise of the industrial internet is that it will bring intelligence to industries that are capital-intensive and create broad value that all of the industrial internet’s participants will share. In a white paper on the topic General Electric (GE) views the rise of the industrial internet as a third wave, following the industrial revolution, the internet revolution, and on to the industrial internet, which is automated and predictive, and provides machine-based analytics. GE believes about 46 percent of the global economy, or $32.3 trillion in global output can benefit from the industrial internet. At a recent Cloud Connect conference, GE VP and Corporate Officer Bill Ruh said that businesses will experience a transformation as industrial machines become connected and intelligent devices. “We’re not discussing business intelligence,” Ruh said. “We are discussing deep statistics, machine learning, and modeling to change our understanding of what is happening. This will require a foundational shift in our systems.” GE invested in its industrial internet strategy recently by partnering with EMC and VMware backed Platform as a Service company Pivotal, advancing a broad research and development and commercial agreement. GE invested approximately $105 million in Pivotal. The investment and agreement with Pivotal will accelerate GE’s ability to create new analytic services and solutions for its customers. European Advancement Building on the increasing Internet of Things trend, Helsinki, Finland will host IoT Week 2013 June 16 – 20. At the event, they will bring a global perspective of the IoT, view IoT technologies and research, and discuss IoT entrepreneurship and business models. Also, CASAGRAS (Coordination and SupportAction for Global RFID-relatedActivities and  Standardization) is a European Framework 7 project. Its mission has been to consider the international dimensions concerning regulations, standardization and other requirements for realizing the concept known as the Internet of Things, and the role within it of radio frequency identification (RFID). Academic institutions are also involved. The UK Universities and science minister David Willetts recently announced a £6.2 million  competition  focused on the Internet of Things. The competition hopes to spur innovation in the area, announcing that eight business-led projects will develop smart applications across areas such as transport, energy and the “built environment.” Disruptive Potential With trillions of end-point ‘things’, device cloud platforms, subnets for humans, machines, sensor networks and rampant innovation being fostered globally, the Internet of Things could have the same disruptive potential as the Internet itself. Big data analytics opportunities will ride the wave as well — working to parse and make sense of the flood of data coming from these intelligent systems. (Comment on this)
1:23p	Midwest Heats Up with Multiple Data Centers Planned for Columbus, Ohio Central Ohio — home to the Buckeyes and site of the Wright Brothers’ workshop — will be growing more than crops, with new data centers planned for the developing Tier 2 market. Compass Datacenters, Expedient Communications, and DataCenter.bz all have something in the works in the Columbus area, according Columbus Business First. The region around Columbus, Ohio is showing a lot of progress as a second-tier market. Many nationwide fiber optic networks pass through northern Franklin County making it a popular destination both for enterprise, and increasingly, multi-tenant data centers. Compass to Locate in New Albany > Compass Datacenters is planning its first entry into the Central Ohio market with a $61.3 million project in New Albany. The company plans to build five separate 21,000 square foot facilities at the rate of one a year. The project is expected to bring 26 or so jobs with a payroll of approximately $2 million. The project is up for a development agreement in the June 4 City Council meeting. The city anticipates netting about $4 million in new tax revenue to the city and schools over the course of the 7-year, 65 percent property tax abatement, according to Columbus Business First. Compass’ strategy is building data centers in strong secondary markets — something it is able to accomplish fairly quickly and cost effectively through the use of modular construction. Expedient Looking for Second Site, Expanding into Upper Arlington Data center services provider Expedient Communications has been busy, doubling its Baltimore footprint, expanding in several locations and is now looking to place a second Ohio data center along the north Interstate 270 corridor from Dublin to New Albany. It is also expanding a data center in Upper Arlington, Ohio. The company is investing $17m across these projects, including expansions to sites in, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis. Expedient purchased the former CompuServe Corp. data center in January 2011, entering the Ohio market. It built a portion of the interior in a phased approach, and that facility is already 75 percent  full. The rest of the building is expected to add one more year’s worth of capacity, so the company is proactively looking for its next location. “It’s highly likely I look for an existing building,” Smith told Columbus Business First. The company is looking for a building with reinforced construction, ample power sources and connection options to fiber optic routes. Columbus is also a supporting market for the IO Ohio project in Dayton. Further, DataCenter.bz is building a $100 million complex, announced in October of 2012, a year after the company expanded its original Columbus facility. In 2011 Zayo Colocation (zColo) announced it was expanding into five new markets, including three cities in Ohio including Colombus. (Comment on this)
1:30p	NextriaOne Launches Cloud with Equinix Equinix, Latisys, and CyrusOne all announce customer wins, while Interxion builds out yet again in Frankfurt, Germany, to keep pace with customer demand. NextiraOne launches cloud with Equinix.  Equinix (EQIX) announced that NextiraOne has selected the Equinix London LD5 international business exchange as the primary data center to support the roll-out of its new modular private cloud infrastructure portfolio. NextiraOne is extending its partnership with Equinix because of the network-rich environment and dense ecosystem of enterprise and cloud providers it will have access to in LD5. “The past twelve months have seen a significant increase in the number of businesses consolidating IT legacy systems, which have proven costly to update and slowed commercial growth,” said Geraint Davies, head of business development, Data Centers, NextiraOne. ”By locating in Equinix, we will not only be able to deliver our services to customers but also have direct access to a prospective client base of cloud driven customers and partners through Equinix Marketplace portal.” Equinx also announced that it has received an award from the European Commission Joint Research Center that oversees the EU Code of Conduct (CoC) on Data Center Energy Efficiency for the company’s new Amsterdam (AM3) data center. Equinix received the Participant category award for innovative technologies adopted to improve data center energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption. Interxion to build eighth Frankfurt data center.  Interxion (INXN) announced that it will construct its eighth data center in Frankfurt (FRA 8). Responding to continued demand in the area FRA 8 will be built in four phases, with each phase providing approximately 900 square meters of equipped space. The first phase is scheduled to be operational in the first half of 2014, and Interxion has secured 6 MW of available power for the facility. “The consistent demand we are experiencing in the Frankfurt market is driven by cloud service providers, digital media, and financial services customers attracted to our vibrant Connectivity Hub,” said David Ruberg, Interxion’s Chief Executive Officer. “We are prudently allocating capital in phases to respond to this demand from our communities of interest while maximizing returns.” CyrusOne selected by Prelude Services. CyrusOne (CONE) announced it was selected by Prelude Services, which provides information technology (IT) services for senior living and long-term-care organizations. “Prelude Services is bringing our current and future senior-living clients IT systems supported by exceptionally high levels of scalability, reliability, and redundancy,” said Joe Traynor, director of sales and marketing at Prelude Services. “We chose CyrusOne and its Hamilton, Ohio, location due to the redundancy built into their facility for power, cooling, and connectivity, as well as their proven track record of availability and uptime. With our selection of the CyrusOne facilities, we will be better able to give our clients uninterrupted access to their critical business applications and the data needed to provide the quality care they give to their clients. We know CyrusOne will help us stay on the cutting edge of technology and systems management, which will immensely benefit our healthcare clients.” Latisys selected by Digitech.  Latisys announced an agreement with Digitech Systems, a leading provider of Enterprise Content Management solutions. Denver based Digitech selected Latisys for its broad portfolio of hybrid IT infrastructure services, and for its second Denver data center, which can support average power densities greater than 220 watts per square foot. Latisys’ IT Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform will underpin Digitech’s Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions—including ImageSilo—Digitech’s flagship service that creates a competitive advantage for customers by giving them the ability to get any document, anywhere, anytime. ”We’re excited to partner with Latisys for data center services as we continue to deliver unparalleled uptime and information security to our ImageSilo cloud ECM clients,” said Scott Matthews, Chairman and CTO of Digitech Systems. “Customers count on ImageSilo to improve business efficiencies, boost information control, and save them money every day. Latisys’ new Denver data center and commitment to availability and security complements ImageSilo’s industry-leading record of reliability.” (Comment on this)
2:41p	Friday Funny: Seeing the Light It’s Friday and we’re happy to share some chuckles with our readers. So let’s get to our Data Center Knowledge caption contest, with a new cartoon drawn by Diane Alber, our favorite data center cartoonist! This week, we present “Red Lights” from Diane. She writes: “I’m sure data center managers are always finding little surprises when they go into a data center. . . We’ll looks like Kip and Gary find a red glowing surprise in one of their cabinets. . .I wonder what it could be???” Click to enlarge. Enter your caption suggestion below. Please visit Diane’s website Kip and Gary for more of her data center humor. For the previous cartoons on DCK, see our Humor Channel. (Comment on this)
3:22p	Latisys Adds 10,000 SF, 1.35 MW in Chicago View of Latisys Chicago high-density expansion space. Ready for the IT equipment. Latisys has expanded its CHI-02 Oak Brook facility in Chicago by adding 10,000 square feet of high density space and 1.35 megawatts of critical power. Latisys’ Oak Brook, Illinois facility serves as the Midwest hub of Latisys’ national IT Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform, which includes Denver as an ideal Disaster Recovery site and Southern California and Northern Virginia as gateways to Asia Pacific, Europe, and South America. “Chicago is a very important market and key component of our national IT infrastructure as a service platform,” said Pete Stevenson, CEO of Latisys. “We remain focused on providing new and existing enterprise customers with the highest quality data centers powering innovative and highly secure, hybrid IT infrastructure solutions.” Latisys’ growth in Chicago reflects an increasing national market demand for data center, hosting and cloud services, with Gartner predicting the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) market will grow by 47.8% through 2015. CHI-02 is a 49,000 sq. ft. purpose-built Tier III facility adjacent to CHI1, with the power and cooling capabilities to deliver 175-225 watts per sq. ft. of usable data center space. Latisys now provides some of the highest density colocation in the Chicago area. CHI2 is tied directly to existing fiber carriers in the buildings, monitored 24x7x365 by on-site NOC personnel and systems, and operated under SOC 2 Type II and SOC 3 audited controls. This replaces the SAS 70 guidebook. Latisys delivers several key features to meet a variety of critical business drivers: Capacity to meet increasing demand for power and space among Chicago-based organizations whose existing capacity has been reached Key proximity to downtown Chicago and CME, offering organizations in the Central Business District and surrounding areas latency as low as sub 1ms Flexible, tailored solutions to meet the dynamic needs of today’s nimble businesses—who want a single provider that can right-size solutions both for today and for tomorrow End-to-end IT outsourcing platform spanning colocation, managed hosting and cloud—with the flexibility to tailor solutions to complex requirements and changing needs Full suite of managed services including network management, managed server hosting, server virtualization, storage, backup, replication and security services Latisys’ national expansion has been ongoing through 2012 and into 2013. Last fall, Latisys opened DEN-02 — Latisys’ newest state-of-the-art data center in Denver—and expanded ASH1 adding 22,000 sq. ft. of secure, ultra high-density raised floor in Northern Virginia. Earlier this year, Latisys announced an additional 12,000 square feet in its Irvine, CA data center, making Latisys the largest data center operator in Orange County. Latisys’ total data center platform now exceeds 343,000 square feet across seven data centers in four major markets. (Comment on this)
6:31p	Data Center Jobs: Property Manager At the Data Center Jobs Board, we have a new job listing  from CBRE, which is seeking a Property Manager – Critical Facility in Levittown, Pennsylvania. The Property Manager – Critical Facility is responsible for managing, coordinating, and exercising functional responsibility for Property Management services within assigned facilities and geography, providing overall property services in accordance with standard processes and procedures including application of policies and programs, coordination of information, preparing, submitting and managing property budgets with the clients goals and objectives addressed, track and explain variances, and ensure smooth recovery process, supporting prompt collection of management fees and reimbursements from 3rd party tenants occupying space with our owned premises, maintaining interface with third party owners (Landlords), ensuring total contract compliance (the Lease), accurate and timely reporting, and resolving critical impact tenant relations issues 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)

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