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Wednesday, June 5th, 2013
- Caching is ideal for businesses that transmit similar but large files between offices, e.g. a design firm working with large design files that, day-to-day, are only modified slightly. To reduce traffic demands, a firm can cache the original file at the receiver’s side and then only send along parts of the file that have been changed (think backup protocols).
- Conventional compression works well for situations where the data traffic is not encrypted or is not already compressed.
- De-duplication reduces transfer of redundant data across the WAN by sending references instead of actual data.
| Time | Event |
| 12:45p | Zayo Acquires Austin Provider Core NAP Zayo Group expands its nationwide footprint by acquiring Core NAP, SunGard launches Managed Oracle Services, and Savvis extends its cloud-based application database to Asia. Zayo acquires Core NAP. Zayo Group announced its acquisition of Core NAP, an Austin-based data center operator. Core NAP’s Austin data center offers carrier-neutral colocation consisting of a dense enterprise footprint with over 220 existing customers. This acquisition expands Zayo Group’s zColo national footprint to 21 data centers. “The purchase of Zayo’s latest zColo facility marks our first data center in the region and a great addition to our zColo roster of colocation facilities,” said Chris Morley, President of Colocation at Zayo. “Austin is a thriving technology community as well as an attractive market for disaster recovery due to proximity to other major markets and its low risk to most natural disasters.” SunGard Launches Managed Oracle Services. SunGard announced support for virtualized platforms for its SunGard Managed Oracle Services.. Known as Oracle Red Stack the managed services are designed for ERP applications and Oracle Databases with pre-certified Oracle server and storage hardware and software. Key benefits of the offering include day-to-day technical support for managing the Oracle E-Business Suite application environment, personnel who provide application and database administration as well as infrastructure support services, and a configurable infrastructure which allows Oracle ERP users to manage both performance and licensing requirements. “We’ve worked with SunGard Availability Services for 12 years now, relying on them for management of our Oracle E-Business Suite,” said Nicole Khoshnoud, vice president, Accounting, DecisionQuest, a SunGard Availability Services customer. “SunGard is an extension of our group that feels like part of our organization. They know who we are and have the relationship and expertise to consistently support our business.” Savvis extends Cloud Database to Asia. Savvis, a CenturyLink company (CTL) announced the expanded availability of its Cloud Application Database service to Asia. Serving Oracle and Microsoft SQL environments, the Cloud Application Database service supplies everything necessary for a complete, secure operational database or disaster recovery solution. The service, now available in Asia, Europe and North America, complements the Savvis cloud solutions portfolio and Savvis’ commitment to global expansion. ”Companies value our Cloud Application Database service because it offers them instantly scalable, pay-per-use solutions without software lock-ins or costly hardware provisioning,” said Mark Smith, Asia managing director at Savvis. “Businesses can scale the database service up or down for as short or long a term as needed, giving them the agility they need and expect from a cloud-driven database solution.” |
| 12:58p | Three Paths to WAN Stress Relief for Distributed Businesses Cahit Jay Akin, is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Mushroom Networks, a privately held company based in San Diego, CA, providing broadband products and solutions for a range of Internet applications.  CAHIT JAY AKINMushroom Networks The emergence of the WAN transformed the entire concept of the branch offices. It enabled scattered real estate agents, retail store fronts and bank branches to operate in perfect synchrony with the headquarter office, making distance from the data center a non-issue. Then came the deluge. WANs today face an unprecedented variety and volume of traffic generated by cloud computing, virtualization, big data and globalization combined with millions of new devices and communications technologies – from smart phones to VoIP. As a result, the WAN infrastructure that branch offices have come to depend upon is stressed to the brink, threatening distributed access to data and applications and day-to-day productivity. It’s a problem that can’t be ignored – in part because data volumes are going nowhere but up and they are not getting less mission critical either. So, what’s the IT team to do short of shelling out for a premium service upgrade? Here are three solutions to consider. 1. Reconfigure the plumbing (virtually) More effective traffic management and QoS are also possible with WAN virtualization, converting real WAN resources like existing private WANs and various Internet WAN links like DSL, cable, fiber and wireless into virtual IP pipes. The Broadband Bonding approach to WAN virtualization lets network managers bundle connections into fast connections with better redundancy and reliability to preserve IP connectivity even if a link fails. Because it uses existing infrastructure, this is an especially cost-effective way for firms with branch offices to beef up their networks. There are also network service providers who will be providing managed services that for now bond multiple, similar lines such as DSL to enhance bandwidth to distributed locations. 2. Redistribute the payload While WAN virtualization focuses on the network fabric itself, network managers can also streamline the data payloads themselves using WAN optimization. This demand-focused approach uses three tactics to speed transmission and minimize traffic. 3. Reshape your traffic Of course, traffic monitoring in general is also essential. Review your business applications according to bandwidth consumption and watch for non-work-related activities that should be eliminated from the pipeline. As device, application and user needs continue to change, businesses will need these kinds of cost-effective ways to keep the data center, HQ and branch office users all working in harmony. These options are worth exploring and ideally combining to keep bandwidth issues from compromising your business. 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. |
| 1:30p | The Analysts’ Take: The IBM-SoftLayer Deal What’s the significance of IBM’s acquisition of SoftLayer Technologies? Analysts, bloggers and pundits all weighed in on the deal, which rumored to be a $2 billion transaction and is designed to boost IBM’s cloud computing offerings. Here’s our roundup of noteworthy analysis and commentary from around the web: Gartner – From Lydia Leong at the CloudPundit blog: “SoftLayer’s secret sauce is its automation platform, which handles virtualized and non-virtualized servers with largely equal ease. One of their value propositions has been to bring the kinds of things you expect from cloud VMs, to bare metal — paid by the hour, fully-automated provisioning, API as well as GUI, provisioning from image, and so forth. So the value proposition is often “get the performance of bare metal, in exactly the configuration you want, with the advantages and security of single-tenancy, without giving up the advantages of the cloud.” And, of course, if you want virtualization, you can do that — or SoftLayer will be happy to sell you VMs in their cloud.” GigaOm - From Barb Darrow: “IBM’s issue: It says it has a public cloud presence in SmartCloud but most of the world doesn’t know about it. Granted, IBM can sell SmartCloud to its existing (and large) customer base of Fortune 500 companies, but if it wants to be relevant at all to newer, nimbler and more innovative customer accounts, it needed to do something. And, despite IBM’s claims to the contrary, many of those big existing enterprise customers are also either thinking about or actually putting more of their work on AWS. As a recent Morgan Stanley report put it, AWS is a very real threat to IBM and the rest of the legacy IT superstars” The Register is skeptical: “What we see no evidence for is a plan by IBM to standardize all of its systems around SoftLayer – or vice versa – and in the cloud, that’s what matters. Unless you can use truly massive scale, we find it hard to believe you can truly deliver low-cost cloud computing infrastructure. That’s not to say that you can’t make some decent cash by offering customers a reliable hosting solution with a bit of scalability, but could you become a home for Netflix as is Amazon? Not likely.” WSJ.com – “Before the deal, IBM had found more traction offering large companies and governments so-called private clouds, systems that the companies typically own and maintain. The acquisition could help IBM compete more aggressively for small and medium-size businesses, and offer a broader range of Amazon-like ‘public cloud’ options to large enterprises.” ReadWrite – “IBM has its own servers that seem likely to displace those from Supermicro. The cloud controller software that SoftLayer uses now will be a little harder to parse out. The cloud controller and APIs are how administrators and developers connect to the cloud servers and get them to deliver the performance and storage that an application needs. SoftLayer’s customers connect and control their cloud instances via this very software.” NYTimes – “Beyond the acquisitions, I.B.M. hopes to offer the company’s homegrown technology as cloud services, like its Watson artificial intelligence software, which I.B.M. announced last month was being tailored as a smart customer service assistant. ‘Watson has a lot more potential because of the cloud delivery model,’ IBM’s Ric Telford said.” |
| 2:00p | DataBank Expanding In Minneapolis DataBank’s Minneapolis expansion is underway. The managed data center provider, headquartered in Dallas, acquired VeriSpace last March along with its 10,000 square foot data center in Edina, Minnesota. Just a few months later, the company is announcing today that it is expanding that facility to a total of just over 17,500 square feet of data center capacity. The expansion is being performed in two phases, and also includes the deployment of an additional UPS and a cooling augmentation to support higher-density server installations. “This expansion has been largely customer driven,” said Tim Moore, DataBank’s CEO. ”We felt there was an immediate need for high-quality space here and acted swiftly to address that need.” Edina is known as the South Minneapolis technology district, and the facility boasts a number of the prominent regional companies as clients. Construction on the data center expansion is already underway and the updates to the current office space and shared customer areas will follow shortly. “This illustrates our commitment to the current customer-base and their growth needs, to fulfill those request first was a very high priority,” said Moore. “This expansion only represents the one step in our overall process in this market, with more to come.” Minneapolis Heating UpThere’s been a ton of recent activity in Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs. ViaWest is building a Tier IV facility there, Cologix has been growing quite nicely in the market, Digital Realty’s been picking up properties there, and Compass Datacenters has a planned project in Shakopee. There’s a burgeoning local tech scene there, growing demand from enterprises and growing awareness of the region’s outsourcing and cooling cost advantages. DataBank has a comprehensive suite of managed services and creates custom solutions that meets an organization’s specific business needs and objectives. DataBank added a sizeable facility of 60,000 square feet in Richardson, a North Dallas suburb in early 2013. It also operates six data centers within 400 South Akard in Dallas. The formerly Dallas-centric company is finding Minneapolis to be a solid market, as this expansion proves. |
| 2:12p | Mellanox Enhances Interconnect, Launches Virtual Modular Switch  A slide from Mellanox shows how the IPtronics products will be integrated end-to-end. Click to enlarge graphic. Mellanox Technologies (MLNX), a supplier of interconnect solutions, announced its intent to acquire privately-held IPtronics A/S, a leader in optical interconnect component design for digital communications. The $47.5 million deal is expected to close in the second half of 2013. With IPtronics products currently embedded in Mellanox solutions, the acquisition enhances its ability to deliver complete end-to-end optical interconnect solutions at 100Gb/s and beyond. IPtronics offers Multichannel Vertical Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) Drivers, Modulator Drivers (MD) and Transimpedance Amplifiers (TIA) with significantly lower power consumption. Mellanox will gain the IPtronics technology that bridges the gap between optical and electrical interfaces and enables system providers to overcome the physical constraints of using copper-based connections in high-speed interfaces and backplanes. The company expects to establish its first Research and Development center in Europe at IPtronics’ current location in Roskilde, Denmark, and further expand its customer support presence within Europe. Also, Mellanox currently intends to retain IPtronics’ existing product lines to ensure continuity for customers and partners. “The proposed acquisition of IPtronics is highly complementary with our recently proposed acquisition of Kotura. IPtronics’ parallel optical interconnect ICs further solidify our strategy to have a full end-to-end solution for the server and storage interconnect,” said Eyal Waldman, president and CEO of Mellanox Technologies. “The new and emerging Web 2.0 and cloud applications that influence our day to day living depend on fast manipulation of data, which is growing exponentially. Mellanox’s interconnect provides the fastest and most scalable solution for moving data between server-to-server and server-to-storage, allowing the continuous development, use and expansion of these applications. We expect that the acquisition of IPtronics’ technology and their development team will better position us to continue to offer faster interconnect solutions at 100Gb/s and beyond, with higher-density and lower power at a lower cost.” Virtual Modular Switch Mellanox also announced the availability of the Mellanox Virtual Modular Switch (VMS) solution, an Ethernet data center aggregation switch infrastructure. It provides up to 720 ports of 40 gigabits per second with latency lower than 2 microseconds while reducing capital expenses by up to 85 percent and power consumption by up to 90 percent. Moreover, Mellanox VMS offers the best-in-class resiliency, maintaining up to over 90 percent of the aggregation bandwidth at the time of a switch failure, compared to traditional chassis-based switches. “Cloud, Web 2.0, and enterprise data centers which require large aggregation Ethernet switch networks are moving away from legacy modular switches, due to high expenses and rapid obsolescence, to fixed switches that bring scalability and efficiency,” said Gilad Shainer, vice president of marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “The Mellanox Virtual Modular Switch solution, comprised of Mellanox’s 10, 40 and 56GbE switches, enables our customers to achieve a new level of scalability, while future-proofing their investment and reducing expenses.” The Mellanox VMS solution is constructed by connecting Mellanox’s SwitchX-2 based 40 and 56 Gigabit Ethernet systems connected in a non-blocking topology and managed with the widely-used Puppet and Chef management applications. |
| 2:38p | Partners Support Microsoft Server and Cloud Updates Microsoft partners Riverbed, Arista Networks and Mellanox announced support for Microsoft products at the TechEd 2013 conference this week. Riverbed Supports Windows Server 2012 environments. Riverbed Technology (RVBD) announced Stingray Traffic Manager application delivery controller (ADC) software and Virtual Steelhead wide area network (WAN) optimization appliances support on Microsoft Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and the cost-free Hyper-V Server 2012. With the announcement companies can deploy Stingray Traffic Manager in any virtualized data center or cloud environment using Hyper-V, which allows them to take advantage of Stingray Traffic Manager’s advanced Layer 7 application services. Organizations that deploy Riverbed Virtual Steelhead appliances will be able to accelerate applications and data transfers in Hyper-V environments without having to purchase, setup, provision, and maintain multiple physical servers in branch offices. “This continuing alliance couples two global leaders in delivering integrated enterprise solutions for the mutual benefit of our customers,” said Venugopal Pai, vice president, global alliances, at Riverbed. “Working hand-in-hand over the years, we have helped customers maximize the value of enterprise solutions in several key technology areas. Our customers are able to increase IT efficiency, improve application performance, and enjoy cost savings in a variety of Microsoft cloud, physical, and virtual deployments that now includes Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and Hyper V Server 2012.” Arista supports Microsoft Open Management Infrastructure. Arista Networks announced full support for Microsoft Open Management Infrastructure (OMI) across all Arista platforms through Arista EOS (extensible operating system) software version 4.12. “Microsoft’s Cloud OS is built on Windows Server, System Center, and Windows Azure and aligns with Microsoft’s commitment to openness, supporting standards (DIM + WS-Man) using OMI,” said Chris Phillips, Partner Director PM, Windows Server, Microsoft. “Arista’s manageable switch’s support for Microsoft OMI gives customers flexibility and cost effectiveness as they implement networking across public and private cloud environments.” Mellanox speeds VDI with Server 2012 over Hyper-V. Mellanox (MLNX) announced that its 10GbE with RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) interconnect solutions achieved a new record of application performance and efficiency for Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (VDI). Mellanox internal benchmark results from the combined VDI solution of Mellanox 10GbE, LSI Nytro MegaRAID Application Acceleration Card, and Windows Server 2012 over Hyper-V, delivered 105 virtual desktops with less than 5 seconds response time. The new performance results were enabled by Microsoft SMB Direct protocol implemented in Windows Server 2012 running under Hyper-V and connected to File Storage with an LSI Nytro MegaRAID Application Acceleration card, all connected by Mellanox’s end-to-end 10GbE with RoCE interconnect solution. “Storage can represent 40 to 60 percent of the cost of a VDI installation,” said Tony Afshary, director of marketing, Accelerated Solutions Division. “The PCIe flash LSI Nytro MegaRAID card with Mellanox’s 10GbE RDMA adapter allows more VDI desktops to be supported by combining low-latency server-side flash technology with intelligent flash caching. Since only a fraction of VDI data needs flash acceleration, the balance of the data is maintained on more economical, capacity optimized hard drives. The joint solution is designed to enable more virtual desktops per physical server while providing significant cost benefits over traditional Fibre Channel-attached storage subsystems.” |
| 2:58p | M & A Frenzy For Cloud Companies As technology companies are opening up their checkbooks to make acquisitions and gain innovation, it appears there’s a bit of spending spree going on. Yesterday, IBM boosted its SmartCloud strategy with the acquisition of the world’s largest privately-held cloud infrastructure provider, SoftLayer, at a price tag of an estimated $2 billion. Meanwhile, Salesforce.com made a move to dominate the marketing arena with a $2.5 billion acquisition of ExactTarget, an email marketing platform, and Intel pumped $100 million to bring human-like sensing technology to devices. On the flip side, online gaming company Zynga announced substantial cost reductions, as it essentially shuts down OMGPOP one year after acquiring it for $200 million. Salesforce.com acquires ExactTarget for $2.5 BillionSalesforce.com (CRM) continues to dominate the Chief Marketing Executive office, with an announcement that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire ExactTarget in a transaction valued at approximately $2.5 billion. By combining ExactTarget’s leading digital marketing capabilities with Salesforce.com’s leading sales, service and social marketing solutions, Salesforce.com will create a world-class marketing platform across email, social, mobile and the Web. ExactTarget is a comprehensive marketing automation solution, and lists many of the world’s largest consumer brands among its more than 6,000 customers. “ExactTarget’s mission is to revolutionize how businesses connect with their consumers using data-driven digital marketing across all channels,” said Scott Dorsey, ExactTarget chairman, chief executive officer and co-founder. “Salesforce.com’s tremendous strength in social marketing, along with its leadership position in sales and service, not only will accelerate this vision, but also provide our customers with a powerful, integrated CRM platform to transform their end-to-end customer experience.” Intel invests $100 million towards sensing technologyIntel Capital, Intel’s Global Investment and M&A Organization, announced a $100-million investment fund to accelerate the development of software and applications that bring human-like sensing technology to life across the spectrum of Intel architecture platforms. Intel’s (INTC) vision is to integrate human-like sensing technology into devices, ultimately delivering more natural, intuitive and immersive computing experiences. Intel has already launched the Perceptual Computing Challenge, an early kick-off contest for developers to create innovative applications using the SDK with up to $1 million in awards. “Devices with human-like senses – the ability to see, hear and feel much like people do – has long been a subject of science fiction but is now within reach given recent innovations in compute power and camera technology,” said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital and Intel executive vice president. “This new fund will invest in start-ups and companies enabling these experiences, helping them with the business development support, global business network and technology expertise needed to scale for worldwide use.” Yahoo! gobbles up Tumblr, Wants Hulu Next?After spending $1.1 billion on acquiring blogging platform Tumblr, Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer is said to have an interest in online video web site Hulu. Bloomberg reports that at least seven bidders are interested in acquiring Hulu, with 3 bidders offering over $1 billion. Yahoo may receive $800 million from China’s largest e-commerce company Alibaba Group in a stock buy-back program, as it is currently seeking $8 billion in loans. |
| 3:15p | TELUS Ventures Invests in DCIM Provider Vigilent  A look inside the TELUS data center in Rimouski, Quebec. TELUS Ventures has invested in Vigilent, which makes energy management tools. (Photo: Skanska) TELUS Ventures has made a venture investment in Vigilent, a Silcon Valley-based company that makes sustainable energy management systems for cooling buildings that give off a lot of heat, including data centers. Vigilent uses artificial intelligence and wireless technology to deliver data center infrastructure management (DCIM) to help clients reduce energy costs, increase equipment reliability and become greener. “We feel that this is a very wise investment for our company,” said Mathew George, vice president of TELUS Ventures. The venture capital comes from a previous, successful relationship. Vigilent has been deployed in three TELUS data centers and several telecommunications buildings over the last year. Four more data center conversions are in progress, so TELUS is obviously seeing results with Vigilent. “We deployed Vigilent technology into existing data centers and telecommunications switching buildings and in a week we were able to dramatically reduce the amount of power they use for cooling,” said Lloyd Switzer, TELUS senior vice-president of Network Transformation. As part of TELUS’ next-generation cloud computing strategy, the company recently opened a new Internet data center in Rimouski and will open a similar facility in Kamloops this summer. The company has a focus on environmental sustainability; it has a data center in Vancouver where it uses excess heat to warm condos, as one example. The new data centers meet the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold standard, and are designed to use up to 80 per cent less power than a typical data center of their size. The combination of new highly efficient footprint plus Vigilent technology deployed in existing facilities provides TELUS with tools to substantially reduce cooling energy consumption. “We are proud to be offered the chance to work with TELUS to improve the energy efficiency and reliability of one of the best telecommunications networks in the world,” said Mark Housley, Vigilent CEO. “Our close collaboration with TELUS over the last year has delivered impressive results and we are enthusiastic about how our joint efforts will make for a more sustainable planet, while also delivering immediate reductions in energy costs and significant mitigation of cooling-related risk.” |
| 4:22p | 7×24 Exchange Presents Lifetime Achievement Award to Kenneth Brill  Kenneth Brill7X24 Exchange Ken Brill, one of the founders of 7×24 Exchange International, an organization for those who design build, operate and maintain mission critical infrastructures, was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at its spring conference. “7×24 Exchange International is honored to recognize Ken for his lifetime of accomplishments,” said Bob Cassiliano, Chairman & CEO of 7×24 Exchange International and President & CEO of Business Information Services. “It is a uniquely special individual that influences an industry with their leadership. Ken Brill is such a person with his significant and demonstrable contribution to the Mission Critical Industry.” In 1989, Kenneth Brill co-founded the Uninterruptible Uptime Users Group (UUUG), now known as 7×24 Exchange International along with Dennis Cronin, the late Alan Freedeman, Frank Gialanella, Paul Fox, Jon Jackson and Howie Levison . Mr. Brill also founded both Upsite Technologies and the Uptime Institute, a leading authority dedicated to improving data center performance and efficiency through research, collaboration, innovation and education. Described as brilliant, curious, independent and unyielding, Mr. Brill has worked extensively to promote data center uptime and IT energy efficiency. Brill was the originator of a number of data-center innovations, such as the industry’s widely-adopted tiered system for evaluating and classifying data center availability levels. Mr. Brill has also been recognized by the Uptime Institute Symposium and the British Computer Society. W. Pitt Turner IV, accepted the award on Mr. Brill’s behalf. “I am honored to be able to accept this award on behalf of my friend and leading data center pioneer, Ken Brill,” said Pitt Turner. “Ken’s leadership in the data center space over the last thirty years has led to increased efficiency and operational excellence within the industry.” Various other industry professional paid tribute to the industry leader. “Ken’s character and perseverance throughout his career sets him apart from the rest. Thank you Ken for your perseverance and raising the bar in the industry.” said David Schirmacher, President of 7×24 Exchange International and Senior Vice President of Operations at Digital Realty. Dennis Cronin, COO of Steel ORCA and one of the founders of 7×24 Exchange International noted, “Ken has great knowledge, provided great solutions and is a tremendous influence on the mission critical industry.” 7×24 Exchange, which is convening this week in Florida at the Boca Raton Resort & Club, has a mission is to improve end-to-end reliability by promoting dialogue among those who design, build and operate mission critical infrastructure. |
| 5:32p | A Data Center Blooms in the Desert What grows in the desert Southwest? Data centers, of course. Take a peek at the process of CyrusOne’s construction of a new facility in the outskirts of Phoenix. (Chandler, AZ to be exact.) The 1:33 minute video is a time-lapse (you know we love time-lapse at DCK!) look at the project from shovel-in-ground to commissioning. The timeline spanned from May to December 2012. Data Center Knowledge has covered the project along its lifecycle, with stories such as these CyrusOne Going ‘Massively Modular’ in Phoenix and In Phoenix, the Birth of a Data Center. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube. |
| 9:32p | IO Expands Factory to Boost Module Production  A look at two of the production lines inside IO’s modular data center factory near Phoenix. (Photo: IO) IO is ramping up production of its modular data centers. The company has opened an expanded factory in Chandler, Arizona that will double its manufacturing capacity. The new facility will help IO meet growing demand for its suite of modular components, which are built in a factory but can be assembled on site to create a fully-configured enterprise data center. The move is part of a global expansion that now spans data centers in Phoenix, New Jersey, Ohio and Singapore, with London soon to follow. IO President Tony Wanger says the new site in Chandler allows the company to scale its manufacturing operations to keep pace with customer demand. “We can run four simultaneous lines,” said Wanger. “It’s a much larger campus and we have the ability to expand further.” More Than 100 WorkersThe factory in Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix, employs more than 100 workers, including industrial and manufacturing engineers, assembly technicians and specialized technology subcontractors to produce modules on assembly lines. Each line is manned by 15 to 17 workers, who are spread across work stations where components are installed to support the power, cooling and mechanical systems. Each IO Anywhere unit begins as two half-size module shells, which are put together to form a module that is 42 feet long and about 13 feet in height. IO uses large air casters – also known as “air skates” – to move the modules move down the production line. The air casters use compressed air to raise heavy loads (similar to a hovercraft) and allow one or two IO staffers to move modules as heavy as 20 tons. When the modules are completed, they are moved to a nearby commissioning area. “IO continues to lead the global transformation of data centers from a construction to a standardized, just-in-time assembly business,” said Troy Rutman, IO’s Director of Communications. “IO Factory is the lowest-cost and most rapid data center delivery mechanism in the industry. We are thrilled to be part of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S, and the city of Chandler and its business community have been tremendously supportive.” Keeping Production CentralizedEven as it builds at home in Phoenix, IO is expanding internationally, including a Singapore data center that will support IT operations for Goldman Sachs and other customers. Despite the cost of shipping modules across the Pacific, Wanger doesn’t see IO adding an overseas factory. “Right now IO and its customers are best served by a centralized U.S. factory,” said Wanger. “There’s so many savings in centralization and cost control.” Meanwhile, the growth at IO and other modular specialists is eroding the notion that factory-built data centers are a niche product. “The debate is over,” said Wanger. “Our competitors are all identifying, to some extent, that they are approaching construction in a modular way. Standardization and modularity and incremental builds are standard.” |
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