Friday, December 20th, 2013

Time	Event
12:30p	Datameer Secures $19 Million for Big Data Analytics Big data analytics firm Datameer raises $19 million to grow the company, DataOn becomes certified to take advantage of the Storage Spaces feature on Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2, and Panzura helps Mead & Hunt offload storage to the cloud. Datameer raises $19 million.  Big data analytics company Datameer announced the completion of a $19 million Series D round. Investors include Workday, Citi Ventures, and Software AG, and the round was led by Next World Capital (NWC), an international, expansion-stage venture capital firm headquartered in San Francisco with a strong presence in Europe. The funds will allow Datameer to meet increasing enterprise demand for the company’s Big Data Analytics application plus fuel the company’s rapid expansion into international markets. In the past year, Datameer has nearly tripled in size and now counts more than 130 leading brands from every major vertical as customers, including British Telecommunications, Cardinal Health, CDW, Sears, and Visa, among others.  “This funding is entirely about allowing us to meet the nonstop global demand for our product. Across every industry, companies are moving past Hadoop science projects and realizing they need a proven big data analytics tool that finally frees them from schemas and ETL,” said Stefan Groschupf, CEO of Datameer. DataOn Storage earns Microsoft certification. Storage provider DataOn announced that its portfolio of Cluster-in-a-Box solutions and JBOD enclosures achieved certification with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2, with full support for the Storage Spaces feature, introduced by Microsoft. DataOn also proceeded to certify the massively scalable dual-node Cluster-in-a-Box (CiB) platform for Windows Server 2012 R2 Storage Spaces.  The flagship product—CiB-9470—utilizes the server failover and resiliency features of Storage Spaces to achieve high availability (HA) dual-node clustering with a hybrid storage capacity up to 280TB in a 4U enclosure. This design requires 75% less rack space than the traditional high availability clustered scale-out file storage offerings and provides a power savings of more than 30%, to give Windows Server 2012 R2 IT administrators a cost-effective appliance solution. “Windows Server 2012 R2 is a cornerstone of Microsoft’s Cloud OS vision, and with Storage Spaces and Windows Failover Clustering, it is positioned to provide a cost-effective alternative to legacy, high-availability SAN storage,” John Loveall, principal program manager, Windows Server, Microsoft.  “The Cluster-in-a-Box, which takes advantage of Storage Spaces, is set to become a formidable platform that directly addresses the benefits of high availability and auto-tiering storage with SDDs and HDDs.” Panzura selected by Mead & Hunt.  Cloud storage provider Panzura announced  that Mead & Hunt, an Engineering and Architectural firm, has deployed the Panzura Global Cloud Storage System to centralize storage and deliver rapid expansion as the company opens new offices. With a large percentage of employees across 16 states regularly using design applications like Autodesk Civil 3D and Revit, providing maximum performance for this distributed workforce was becoming increasingly difficult. By using Panzura Global Cloud Storage Controllers to store project data into the Amazon S3 cloud, Mead & Hunt have seen significant reductions in storage costs because hardware previously required for both backups and disaster recovery is no longer necessary at each remote office. “By moving files to the Amazon S3 cloud with Panzura, Mead & Hunt has eliminated the need for local NAS storage at each remote office and given its employees rapid access to shared project files,” said Randy Chou, president and CEO of Panzura. “As a result, this AEC firm has slashed IT costs, reduced the time it takes to set up a new office, and improved employee productivity.” (Comment on this)
1:00p	The Top 10 Data Center M&A Deals of 2013 In one of the largest M&A deals in the data center sector this year, GI Partners bought the One Wilshire carrier hotel in Los Angeles. (Photo: CoreSite Realty) The theme this year was small, targeted acquisitions as well as acquiring complementary technology.  There were a lot of one-off facility acquisitions to expand into smaller, emerging markets as well as a continuing trend of sale-leasebacks. Two tech giants, BMC and Dell, went private. While we highlight ten noteworthy deals of 2013, it’s important to note the quantity of smaller deals that occurred throughout the year. Acquisitions during 2013 were more targeted and strategic for the most part. There were some blockbuster deals, such as IBM’s acquisition of SoftLayer and NTT’s acquisition of RagingWire, but single facility acquisitions were the big trend. IBM Acquires SoftLayer “We went out and looked for partners that can accelerate what we could become,” said SoftLayer CEO Lance Crosby. “We chose IBM for this, as well as several other reasons such as data center locations, access to technology, and what has become really apparent the last few months, the people.” IBM has made more than a dozen strategic acquisitions around cloud since 2007. IBM cloud revenue grew by 80 percent in 2012, and the company expects to reach $7 billion annually in cloud revenue by the end of 2015. The company known for completely revamping its business model several times throughout the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s has done it again: IBM can safely be called a cloud company. Japan’s NTT Acquires RagingWire In a move that will dramatically expand its presence in the U.S. data center market, Japan’s NTT Communications acquired an 80 percent equity interest in RagingWire Data Centers for $350 million. The deal more than doubled NTT Com’s data center footprint in the U.S. with an additional 650,000 square feet of space. RagingWire has annual revenues of approximately $85 million, and has been growing at about 30 percent a year. The company began construction of a 150,000 square foot data center in Sacramento, as well as plans to build 1.5 million square feet of space in Ashburn. NTT could make this list twice in the same week, also announcing it would pay $525 million to acquire Virtela Technology Services, a Denver-based firm that specializes in managed network services, including software-defined networking (SDN) and enterprise cloud services. Between them, the Virtela and RagingWire deals represent an $875 million investment by NTT in the global data center market. GI Partners acquires One Wilshire Carrier Hotel One Wilshire is an iconic building, often seen dotting the Los Angeles skyline in movies. Private equity firm GI Partners acquired One Wilshire, the leading carrier hotel in Los Angeles and one of the most wired buildings in the world. The reported deal price of $437 million reinforced the premium value of data center real estate. The company also acquired a Telx-operated data center in Clifton, New Jersey, as well as hit paydirt with IBM’s acquisition of SoftLayer. The company led the buyout of SoftLayer in 2010. Digital Realty Continues Its Acquisition Spree If you see a Starbucks in a bad neighborhood, there’s a good chance that that neighborhood is up and coming. It’s because the company spends millions annually figuring out which neighborhoods offer a promising future. The same could possibly be said of Digital Realty Trust in terms of data center markets, in that the company strategically buys into the most promising up-and-coming markets. The largest data center REIT expanded its footprint with acquisitions of properties in Osaka, Amsterdam, Bay Area, Austin, Minnesota, Toronto, Paris and Sydney. The company didn’t complete one single deal that stands out from the rest, but rather smartly acquired single facilities and smart portfolios in markets that are either emerging or growing rapidly. It also acquired fully-leased facilities during the year, representative of a larger sale-leaseback trend in the industry. Here’s a rundown of the company’s activity in 2013: Digital Realty enters the Japanese market with a facility in Osaka. Digital Realty said it has paid $10.5 million to acquire a 15,000 square meter site in Osaka. Purchased a 5.3 acre site in a suburb of Amsterdam, where it plans to build an 11.5 megawatt data center. Acquired a portfolio of six data centers in Austin adjacent to its data center at 7500 Metro Center Drive. This acquisition added 337,000 square feet to the company’s portfolio, most of which is fully leased. Continued its initiative to buy fully-leased income properties and expand its portfolio with a facility in suburban Minnesota. Fully-leased income properties generate revenue through rent from existing tenants. Citing strong demand and limited supply in the Toronto data center market, Digital Realty Trust acquired a mixed-use property in Markham, Ontario. Completed the acquisition of a three-property data center portfolio in Paris area from Bouygues Telecom for €60 million ($80.3 million US). Continued to build its presence in the Asia-Pacific region, acquiring a fully-leased data center in Sydney, Australia for $11.75 million ($12.3 million US) CenturyLink Acquires Tier 3 CenturyLink continues to build its cloud computing operation through acquisitions. CenturyLink (CTL), which previously bought up Savvis and AppFog, acquired public cloud provider Tier 3. CenturyLink said Tier 3’s products will form the foundation of its cloud strategy and anchor the new Seattle-based CenturyLink Cloud Development Center. Verizon Acquires CDN Provider EdgeCast Networks Verizon entered into a definitive agreement to acquire CDN provider EdgeCast Networks in December. The combination of complementary capabilities from Verizon, a prior acquisition, upLynk, and EdgeCast, further boosts performance of Verizon Digital Media Services’ end-to-end services. BMC Acquired by private investors Data center management is hot, and investors are picking up on the trend. BMC was acquired by private investors for approximately $6.9 billion. There are several reasons why BMC would choose to go private. At the top of the list is the flexibility it provides from a strategic standpoint. Answering to investors is difficult, particularly in times of technological paradigm shifts such as these cloud days. Dell buyout led by Silverlake PC and server vendor Dell Inc. agreed to be taken private in a $24.4 billion leveraged buyout led by Silver Lake Partners and Michael Dell, the tech industry legend who founded the company in his dorm room and built it into a juggernaut.The long-rumored deal came at a crucial point in the life of the company, which is facing challenges to its core markets for PCs and volume servers, and is seeking to build its own suite of cloud computing services. Host Europe Acquired for $667 million The year was rife with hosting provider acquisitions. Internap acquired iWeb, GoDaddy bought MediaTemple, and Hostway was acquired by private equity. But perhaps the biggest hosting provider to get acquired in 2013 was Host Europe Group. Cinven Group acquired the European web hosting provider for approximately $667 million from Montagu Private Equity. Western Digital Goes on SSD Spending Spree: Acquires Virident, sTec, funds Skyera Western Digital spent over a billion on acquisitions boosting its SSD storage offerings. Western Digital acquired Virident Systems for $685 million. The deal positions Western Digital’s HGST unit for growth in the market for server-side Flash solutions Western Digital (WDC) and sTec (STEC) announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement under which sTec, an early innovator in enterprise solid-state drives (SSDs), will be acquired by HGST, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Western Digital for $340 million. SSD storage specialist Skyera announced that it received strategic funding from Western Digital Capital (WDC) as part of its recently announced Series B round of financing. (Comment on this)
1:30p	An Integrated Approach to DCIM: A Parallel Evolution in Data Center Facilities Management Suvish Viswanathan is the senior analyst, unified IT at ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corp. You can reach him on LinkedIn or follow his tweets at @suvishv. This is a second part of a three-part series, with this article focusing on “The Evolution of Infrastructure Management.” SUVISH VISWANATHAN ManageEngine In my last post, we looked at the evolution of IT infrastructure management. As demand for data and computing resources grew, so too did the complexity of the IT infrastructure — but so too did the complexity and power of the software we use to manage this infrastructure. Today, we have software tools that can manage enormous numbers of physical servers, each of which hosts hundreds, if not thousands, of virtual servers. The same software can help IT managers track changes in switches and firewalls, storage systems and more. But the same software rarely keeps tabs on the temperature fluctuations inside the racks supporting all these IT assets. The same software rarely monitors the physical security of the individual racks, the rack cages or even the doors to the data center itself. And can that same software tell you how much diesel is in the tank in case you need your backup generators? You can probably guess the answer. A Different World for IT The physical data center itself — the brick and mortar building that surrounds all those physical and virtual machines — consists of electrical supply systems; backup power systems; power distribution units (PDU); heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems; fire detection and suppression systems; biometric security and surveillance systems; water systems and more. Data center managers pay as much attention to monitoring, managing and maintaining these systems as IT managers do to their IT assets. And just as IT management has evolved to deal with the increasing complexity of the IT environment itself, so too has data center facilities management evolved to deal with the complexities involved in that world. Today’s data center managers have tools and technologies for monitoring each of the systems and services just mentioned. Some of these tools may be brilliantly integrated for security purposes — access control systems, for example, that can collect and validate input from biometric devices and then unlock the doors only to specific data center areas, even to specific data center cabinet enclosures. If the visitor attempts to access an unauthorized area or rack enclosure, the access control system can detect the attempt and automatically retrain the security cameras while alerting data center security. If the unauthorized access attempt persists, the system can automatically alert local law enforcement officials. Other systems have been developed to optimize data center operations for cost savings. Computer room air conditioning (CRAC) systems, for example, may monitor the temperature from hundreds, even thousands, of locations around the data center and make micro-adjustments to hundreds of air flow and cooling units to distribute heat more effectively through the complex. This can both optimize energy use where cooling is required (which can lower operating costs) and maintain an optimal operating environment for the IT assets whose performance is temperature sensitive. At the same time, the fact that these systems make use of sophisticated automation to monitor and manage the complex features of this environment also means that the data center can keep its personnel costs in check. There is much to be managed and maintained, but if the systems can do the bulk of the work without the need for physical intervention on the part of an administrator, then the data center can operate in a lean and efficient manner. But It’s the Same Mission The reality is, though, that all these efforts to enable greater efficiencies — in both the IT and data center management worlds — have only partially succeeded. Each world may operate more efficiently, but they remain two parallel worlds. IT and data center managers might quickly agree that they had a common purpose — to enable the optimal delivery of a service to customers — but the levers they pull and the buttons they push are very different. The IT and data center worlds should not need to operate in parallel, though. What they need is to operate as one, in a truly integrated manner. That’s what DCIM — data center infrastructure management — should be all about. Instead of the CRAC system simply monitoring temperatures throughout the data center and making micro-adjustments to fans and airflow systems, for example, what if it were integrated to do more than that? The CRAC system should be working intimately with a virtual machine management system so that the broader data center management system — call it the DCIM system — could proactively move virtual machines from a hot server in one part of the data center to a cooler machine in another part of the data center as part of a broader management strategy. This more fully integrated universe of service delivery management — one that consolidates IT management and data center facilities management — is where the next breakthroughs need to come. The assets under facilities management and the assets under IT management need to be integrated into the same asset management tool so the entire service delivery infrastructure can be tracked and managed throughout its lifecycle. And that means an evolution within both worlds. An asset management system supporting both worlds needs to be able to capture data from infrastructure components using not just protocols such as SNMP but also protocols such as Modbus, BACnet and others. Similarly, all the management tools must themselves interact with greater communications interoperability — whether that’s building/space management (BSM), security and fire suppression units or any other. With greater communications flexibility, you will not have to rip and replace existing tools as quickly in the future, and you won’t get locked down to a single vendor. Finally, service managers relying on these tools will need an analytics engine that can make sense of the information collected within this system. Only with strong analytical tools will decision-makers be able to make truly well-informed decisions. If we can integrate the tools we use to monitor and manage the IT assets and the tools we use to monitor and manage the physical facilities in which these assets reside, then we can see levels of operational efficiency and service delivery performance that we have not seen before. So what might such a world look like in practice? Stay tuned. You can already guess what I’m going to write about next… 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)
1:30p	IBM Speeds Big Data File Transfers with Aspera Acquisition IBM announced an agreement to acquire Emeryville, California-based Aspera. Aspera’s technology helps companies securely speed the movement of massive data files around the world. The patented fasp technology from Aspera overcomes inherent bottlenecks in broadband wide area networks that slow the transfer of extremely large files, such as high-definition video or scientific research files, over distance. Licensed to clients and partners either in the cloud or on premise, Aspera’s high-speed transfer technology reduces transmission times for large files or data sets by up to 99.9 percent – potentially cutting a 26 hour transfer of a 24 gigabyte file, sent halfway around the world, down to just 30 seconds. “Our experience working with thousands of clients on Big Data projects tells us that companies can better compete and win when they can quickly extract value from massive volumes of data,” said John Mesberg, Vice President, B2B and Commerce Solutions, IBM. “With this acquisition, IBM addresses a key challenge for globally integrated enterprises by allowing them to move large data files much faster to the individuals who need them, wherever in the world they may be.” Aspera moves Big Data to, from and within the cloud faster than traditional methods while providing security, bandwidth control and predictability. Aspera makes cloud computing even faster, more predictable and more cost effective for big data transfers such as enterprise storage backup, sharing virtual images or bursting to the cloud for increased computing capacity. Its fasp technology is licensed to many leading cloud computing services and will be integrated with IBM’s recently acquired SoftLayer cloud infrastructure later next year. Aspera recently received an Emmy award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development in recognition of its fasp protocol. The academy commented that fasp is an “an industry game changer” used by “virtually all the major broadcast television networks, Hollywood studios and CG/animation houses.” “Our team has redefined how the world’s biggest data can be moved quickly, securely and reliably around the world,” said Michelle Munson, president and co-founder, Aspera. “By tapping into IBM’s innovative capabilities and global resources, we will solve ever expanding data movement challenges for our customers now and in the future.”   (Comment on this)
5:16p	Oracle Acquires Responsys For $1.5 Billion Oracle (ORCL) announced that it is acquiring cloud-based B2C marketing software provider Responsys (MKTG) for approximately $1.5 billion.  Responsys is used by B2C brands across the globe to orchestrate marketing interactions across email, mobile, social, display and the web, at massive scale. Growing its Customer Experience Cloud, Oracle will use Responsys to extend Commerce, Sales, Service, Social and the Oracle Marketing Cloud. By bringing together Responsys and Oracle Eloqua in the Marketing Cloud, for the first time CMOs that support industries with B2C or B2B business models will be equipped to drive exceptional customer experiences across marketing interactions and throughout the customer lifecycle from a single platform. “Recognizing the unique needs of the CMO in B2B and B2C industries, the Oracle Marketing Cloud is now the only platform to unite enterprise-class leaders in these historically distinct marketing-automation fields,” said Mark Hurd, President, Oracle. “Our strategy of combining the leaders across complementary technologies signifies Oracle’s overwhelming commitment to winning and serving the CMO better than any other software company in the world.” “Responsys has always been focused on helping marketers realize their largest opportunity – coordinating their marketing touch points across channels, across the customer lifecycle, and across industries, and as a part of Oracle, we will only accelerate our efforts,” said Dan Springer, CEO, Responsys. “Oracle not only shares our vision, but is the proven leader in bringing together best-in-class technologies and companies to realize the largest enterprise opportunities. We couldn’t be more excited about what this means for our customers and employees.” (Comment on this)

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