Monday, December 16th, 2013

Time	Event
1:13p	Customer Wins for IO, Iron Mountain, Sudlows IO, Iron Mountain and Sudlows all announce new customers. Multiple wins for IO’s Intelligent Control Platform. IO announced new customers its Phoenix, Scottsdale and New Jersey data centers. Managed Service Provider unity Technology Group selected IO Phoenix, Rhino Staging and Event Solutions selected IO Scottsdale, and multiple customers have IO New Jersey for data center services. “IO welcomes these innovative organizations to Data Center 2.0,” said Peter McNamara, Executive Leader, Global Sales and Customer Operations, IO. “DCaaS provides customers the best of all worlds. It allows them to achieve cost, energy and operational benefits from IO hardware and software, with minimal capital expenditures, guaranteed uptime, and the ability to stay focused on their core businesses.” Iron Mountain selected by SOLABS. Iron Mountain (IRM) announced it has signed a multi-year colocation agreement with SOLABS, an Enterprise Quality Management software (eQMS) provider for life sciences companies. SOLABS will co-locate aspects of its data center operations within Iron Mountain’s underground data center complex in western Pennsylvania. SOLABS is preparing to offer the software as a SaaS/cloud offering, and in doing so sought a secure and compliant data center home for this new offering. SOLABS selected Iron Mountain based on its track record of protecting customer information in secure and compliant facilities.  “We appreciate SOLABS’ business and believe our secure data center colocation facility is a perfect home for their company’s new SaaS offering,” said Mark Kidd, senior vice president and general manager, data centers, Iron Mountain. “Iron Mountain Data Centers is designed to help companies like SOLABS in highly regulated businesses. From employee training to the infrastructure of our buildings, we take a stringent approach to complying with industry-specific regulations such as PCI, FISMA and HIPAA. Our DNA in managing information assets from creation to destruction also differentiates us to these organizations. No one in today’s data center market has our track record in security and facilitating compliance.” Sudlows selected by Swinton Insurance.  European data center provider Sudlows announced it has been awarded a new £700,000 ($1.1 million) contract to deliver a key data center upgrade to Britain’s biggest high street insurance broker, Swinton Insurance. The new upgrades will deliver a data centre that is more energy efficient and will enhance the operational capacity to accommodate commercial growth, improve resilience and reduce the potential risk of downtime. “These essential mechanical and electrical upgrades, to the Swinton data centre, will provide a new platform to support staff located within the Manchester HQ and throughout the brokers significant regional branch network,” said Andy Hirst, Global Director for Sudlows. (Comment on this)
1:32p	What Intel’s IT Team Has Learned about DCIM Jeff Klaus is the general manager of Data Center Manager (DCM) Solutions at Intel Corporation. Jeff leads a global team that is pioneering power- and thermal-management middleware, which is sold through an ecosystem of data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software companies and OEMs. JEFF KLAUS Intel Wasn’t 2013 supposed to be “the big year” for adoption of DCIM solutions? Despite analysts’ predictions, many legacy data center managers still have a “wait and see” attitude about data center power and management platforms and practices. And in fact, whenever we initiate talks about our Intel Data Center Manager (DCM) solution, the data center architects eventually have raised the same question: “What DCIM solution(s) does your (Intel) IT organization use, and what results have they obtained?” A few years ago, IT@Intel published a white paper about the in-house evaluation of Intel Power Node Manager and Intel DCM as part of a company-wide DCIM planning process. Since then, our IT organization continues to serve as a rigorous test bed for the latest power and management technologies and practices. I recently checked in with the Intel IT team supporting our company’s data centers in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region. Last year, the team carried out a local evaluation of the latest Intel DCM solutions for managing power and cooling, and this Q&A with Ofer Lior, Intel IT data centers manager, and Paul Vaccaro, Intel IT data center operations and planning, shares the lessons they learned. The team worked closely with the product team, and their findings helped drive enhancements in the latest versions that have been released since their proof of concept (POC). Q: What steps did you take to evaluate Intel DCM? Based on our typical POC guidelines, we started with a very small number of devices (10 servers) to check the capabilities and usability of the tool without putting our production environment at risk. Since then we approved a larger deployment in additional data centers in the EMEA region. As of today, Intel DCM is deployed in eight data centers in the EMEA region and is monitoring more than 3,500 devices. We are working to increase these numbers as we refresh our legacy servers that lack power-reporting capabilities. Q: Which features did you find to be most useful? We found that Intel DCM can give our data center operation managers some of the more important DCIM capabilities, with relatively short deployment times. In particular, the solution provides: Server power characteristics. To plan new server landings in the data centers, we used the Intel DCM “Server Power Characteristics” function to learn actual server power consumption for specific server models. Prior to this, power consumption was either estimated or set to the manufacturer’s specified maximum value, either of which could result in over-shooting our requirements because these numbers are typically very conservative and worst-case. With actual data for a large sample of same-model servers, it was easy to analyze actual server power consumption and accurately plan future capacity. We could see what the room would support. We found this to be one of the most powerful tools from Intel DCM in our environment. Cooling analysis. Intel DCM can monitor a large number of temperature sensors. We were able to gather cold aisle temperatures by reading server front-panel temperature-sensors and then use the cooling analysis function to get a good idea of our cooling efficiency. We used this data to make improvements such as moving loads to underutilized areas of the room. In one case, it helped us tune the mechanical cooling, airflow, and set points. Using the “Energy Optimization-Cooling Analysis” function, we were able to identify hotspots. Alerts from several servers in the same row indicated a cooling issue in that area. Further investigation indicated that malfunctioning temperature sensors in a specific server model caused this, and the data was shared with the server vendor for issue resolution. Ghost and underutilized servers discovery. We have been able to assess a large number of devices monitored by Intel DCM by using the “Server Utilization Analysis” function. This capability allows us to recognize ghost and underutilized servers (servers installed in the environment and working in very low utilization or in idle modes). These physical devices have shown to be good candidates for migration into virtual servers in the environment and have shown a potential for both power saving and reuse of non-utilized assets. We have used these inputs from the DCM tool to challenge their existence. Did you discover any unexpected or unanticipated benefits? What were they? One unexpected benefit we found stemmed from the fast deployment. When we first started the project, we were not sure how much effort would be involved. It took two weeks to gather the data (server identification, configuration details, locations, and IP addresses), but the data upload and installation of Intel DCM middleware took only a few hours. When we started validating the results, we found that some systems were not reporting power and temperature. We also found that some servers lacked full communication with Intel DCM. An additional three days were spent scrubbing data inaccuracies and troubleshooting communication issues. The identified problems were then addressed and resolved within two days. Overall, the technical side of the implementation took less than one month. Note: this did not include all the necessary approvals and documenting POC results. What advice would you offer your data center peers considering DCIM tools for their data centers? Deploying any tool across multiple facilities requires careful consideration of the costs-and-benefits analysis. Consideration should be made regarding the terms of the required capabilities, the desired level of integration with existing platforms, the resources required to deploy these tools, and the costs to sustain the tools. If you lack sufficient power and cooling monitoring, then we recommend starting small. Introduce any one of the available monitoring capabilities to increase awareness for the need for and value of monitoring. Once you have been able to see the value gained from the introduction of the first capability, then go to the next phase. Intel DCM offered us significant capabilities for managing data center power consumption with a minimal amount of investment and integration. Long term, we believe this capability will be an important part of our overall DCIM plans. We also believe that using the IT equipment as the data collectors and monitor points will provide the most cost-effective and efficient means for the instrumentation of our data center facilities. We will continue to leverage advances in hardware Power and Thermal Aware Sensor (PTAS) and DCIM software capabilities as key components of our plans. We believe others can benefit from a similar approach, and minimize their investment of precious OPEX dollars and resources. 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)
7:23p	Private Investment Firm Littlejohn & Co. Acquires Hostway Corporation This article originally appeared on TheWHIR. Web host Hostway Corporation has been acquired by Littlejohn & Co., a Greenwich, CT-based private investment firm whose resources are expected to enhance Hostway’s managed, cloud and web hosting efforts and their promotion. Hostway already provides hosted IT solutions to more than 500,000 small and medium-size businesses and enterprise customers. As demand for hosted IT solutions continues to grow, Littlejohn will serve as an active shareholder and board of directors, and support Hostway’s efforts to acquire new customers and further differentiate its offerings. “We are extremely pleased to partner with Littlejohn and gain access to additional resources to help us grow our managed, cloud and web hosting businesses,” Hostway president John Martis said in a statement. Hostway currently has more than 250,000 square feet of data center space across four continents and 12 countries, and it is one of the largest cloud hosting and IaaS providers in the world. Littlejohn managing director Michael Kaplan said in a statement, “We look forward to working with Hostway’s management to accelerate growth by continued investment in Hostway’s technology platform, enhancing its sales and marketing efforts and selectively making acquisitions targeted at enhancing the customer experience.” Over the past few years, private equity firms have shown great interest in large web hosts. In July 2013, Host Europe Group, a company with more than a million customers, was bought by European private equity firm Cinvin for £438 million (or roughly $671 million at the time). And in 2011, web host Go Daddy was bought by KKR & Co., Silver Lake Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures. With the backing of their private equity partners, many of these hosting companies have, in turn, had greater power to grow through acquisition. For instance, with the help of its backing, Go Daddy was able to make a recent string of purchases including web host Media Temple and domain marketplace Afternic. In the Hostway transaction, Cowen and Company, LLC acted as exclusive financial advisor to Littlejohn, and DH Capital, LLC acted as exclusive financial advisor to Hostway. Original article published at: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/private-investment-firm-littlejohn-co-acquires-hostway-corporation (Comment on this)
8:00p	AFCOM Expands Conference Schedule, Adding Regional Events AFCOM President Tom Roberts said the addition of six new regional AFCOM Symposium events for 2014 “reflects the ongoing evolution of our events.” (Photo: Colleen Miller) AFCOM, the industry association for data center professionals, is expanding its conference schedule with a series of regional events in 2014, the group said today. The addition of six AFCOM Symposium events fills out an active 2014 agenda for the group, which includes two Data Center World conferences in the U.S. as well as one in the Asia/Pacific region. AFCOM says it is rebranding its two major U.S. events. The Spring Data Center World conference will become the Data Center World – Global Conference, reflecting the conference’s size, scope and reputation for gathering together a diverse attendance base. This year’s edition of the Data Center World – Global Conference will be held in Las Vegas, from April 28 – May 2, 2014 at The Mirage. Meanwhile, in 2014 the Fall Data Center World conference will become the Data Center World – Leadership Conference. With a strong focus on long-term data center strategy for senior level data center executives, the Data Center World- Leadership Conference will focus its educational program towards executives who recognize the growing importance of the data center in accomplishing overall business strategy. It will take place in Orlando, Florida from October 19–22 at the Orlando World Center Marriott. The biggest new initiative for 2014 is AFCOM’s expansion into regional events with six one-day Symposia being staged in conjunction with local AFCOM chapters throughout the U.S. The goal of each single-day symposia will be to gather professionals within a specific region together to learn, collaborate, and collectively address regional issues around data center development. The symposia will be held in the spring in Atlanta, in the summer in Boston and Dallas, and in the fall in Philadelphia, Southern California, and Southern Ohio. Final dates and locations will be announced in coming months at the AFCOM web site. In the past three years, AFCOM has held a symposium in Australia. This event will now become the Data Center World – Asia/Pacific Symposium. “As the data center market has matured, so have each of our Data Center World conferences,” said Tom Roberts, AFCOM President and Chairman of Data Center World. “The new positioning for each of our conferences in 2014, as the Data Center World – Global Conference, the Data Center World – Leadership Conference, and the Data Center World – Asia/Pacific Symposium, along with the addition of 6 new AFCOM Symposia, reflects the ongoing evolution of our events ensuring we meet all of our customer’s education and networking needs. With more than 30-years as the leading organization serving data center professionals around the globe, these changes reflect our continued commitment to meeting a growing skillset demand for every level of responsibility within a data center.” (Comment on this)
8:03p	The Year in Downtime: The Top 10 Outages of 2013 The Year in Downtime: The top 10 Data Center Outages of 2013 Fires. Floods. Power problems. Software updates gone bad. Thermal events. There were wide range of causes for data center downtime in 2013. The year’s major outages covered the spectrum, affecting clouds, companies, payment networks and governments at the federal, state and local level. Each incident caused pain for customers and end users, but also offered the opportunity to learn lessons that will make data centers and applications more reliable. Here’s a look at our list of the Top 10 outages of 2013: 1. The Healthcare.gov Disaster: Downtime doesn’t get much more epic than this. The federal government’s online insurance marketplace has become the poster child for an IT project gone wrong. It wasn’t just a matter of a single downtime incident, it was a series of hard outages and an ongoing soft outage in which the site was barely functional. They tried adding more hardware, but it wasn’t until the Obama administration’s “IT surge” addressed software and data bottlenecks that the site became usable in early December. Given the status of the Affordable Care Act as the signature legislation, and the accompanying political scrutiny, the web site’s performance amounted to a perfect storm of  the many ways in which key systems can fail. If nothing else, Healthcare.gov transformed web site performance into front page news. 2. Major Outage for BlueHost, HostGator, HostMonster – The year’s most extensive web hosting downtime occurred Aug. 2, when a  Utah data center supporting some of the industry’s best known brands suffered extended networking outage. The problems at a Provo, Utah facility operated by Endurance International Group led to downtime for customers of BlueHost, HostGator and HostMonster. Endurance attributed the incident to a hardware failure during routine server maintenance that “quickly cascaded throughout the network.” 3. Visa Downtime Across Canada – Downtime is particularly costly in the financial sector, as many Canadians learned Jan. 28 when they were unable to use their Visa cards for much of the day due to a data center power outage at Total System Services Inc. (TSS), one of the largest processors of card-payment transactions in North America. The issue affected Visa cards issued by CIBC, Royal Bank of Canada and TD Canada Trust. 4. Windows Azure, Xbox Live Problems as Xbox One Launches - Xbox One launch day in November turned out to be a rough ride for the Windows Azure cloud computing service, which helps power Xbox Live. The platform was plagued by problems for much of the day, including storage and network issues. It wasn’t the only high-visibility hiccup for Microsoft’s cloud operations. In March a heat spike in a data center caused a major outage for Microsoft’s web-based email services. Both Hotmail and Outlook.com were offline for up to 16 hours after a failed software update caused the heat to spike in one part of a data center supporting those services 5. Power Outage Knocks DreamHost Customers Offline – Web hosting provider DreamHost experienced an extended outage on March 20 when power systems failed at its data center in Irvine, Calif. The incident created hours of downtime across two days for DreamHost’s more than 350,000 customers. Continue with numbers 6 through 10 (Comment on this)

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