Tuesday, January 7th, 2014

Time	Event
12:30p	Data Center Jobs: Microsoft Corporation At the Data Center Jobs Board, we have a new job listing from Microsoft Corporation, which is seeking a Director, US Data Center Construction in Redmond, Washington. The Director, US Data Center Construction is responsible for managing the DCD PMs in the United States to build top notch data centers in the United States, acting in the DCD Directors absence to manage the Project Controls, Project Administration Office, Integration, and Commissioning activities, driving process improvement and standardization across the spectrum of Microsoft Teams and stakeholders, being accountable for owning schedule, scope, and budget outcomes for all efforts, and providing support for renovations and upgrades of existing facilities and equipment. 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)
1:00p	CloudFlare Planning Significant Data Center Expansion Web performance and security provider CloudFlare saw another stellar year for growth in 2013 and is planning a significant expansion of its data center network in 2014. Page views, revenue and traffic all rose by more than 400 percent. CloudFlare will expand its data centers significantly during 2014, adding facilities in regions where it believes it currently lacks coverage, including Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Asia. The company says it is seeing tremendous growth in emerging markets, with China and Brazil its second and third largest markets, respectively. The company notes that, along with this positive customer growth, the number of denial of service attacks it saw also reached record levels. The company said 2013 was its “refactoring” year, updating its architecture  and upgrading its existing facilities through added equipment and network redundancy. The per server infrastructure was upgraded from a 1Gbps platform to a 10 Gbps platform. The entire DNS infrastructure was rebuilt from scratch. It created a new, fully customizable, rules-based Web Application Firewall (WAF) to augment its original heuristics-based WAF. APIs are being cleaned up and re-written, and its logging infrastructure is close to being able to keep better pace with the 100GB of  data it generates every minute, meaning better real-time intelligence in regards to threats. “We learned a lot in 2013,” wrote CEO Matthew Prince on the company blog. “We learned what 10Gbps switches can (and cannot) keep up CloudFlare-scale traffic. We learned how to double, and then double again, the maximum number of requests per second a server on our network could handle.” The company is also rolling out SSL with perfect forward secrecy support to all its customers, even at the free tier. “That is a significant challenge for a number of reasons, but we believe it’s disappointing that there are only about 2 million SSL-protected sites online today,” wrote Prince. “One day in 2014 we plan to double that. We think it’s one of the most important things we can do to further our mission of building a better web.” Big Strategic Partnership with 1&1 CloudFlare also announced a partnership with 1&1 Internet one of the largest web hosting providers in the world. “1&1 has been eager to collaborate with an innovative CDN such as CloudFlare in order to further strengthen our Web hosting platform for both businesses and developers world-wide,” said Robert Hoffmann, CEO Hosting, 1&1 Internet. ” Impressive website experience, improved traffic and reduced bounce rates are all tangible results that customers gain from such a strong partnership.  CloudFlare will deliver new advanced CDN features to us in the coming months.” Now included in several 1&1 Web hosting packages are expanded ClouldFlare features including Mirage and Railgun. Mirage optimizes images for all connections and screen sizes (smartphone, desktop, laptop or tablet), and Railgun identifies and delivers changes to dynamic content quickly for faster loading times, regardless of the visitor’s location. (Comment on this)
1:30p	Intelligent Infrastructure Management: The Best-Practice Platform for Data Centers Tal Harel, Director of Marketing, RiT Technologies Ltd. Tal has over 10 years of international marketing experience helping high tech companies, including RDT Group and Jacada Ltd, to improve pipelines, shorten sales cycles and increase earnings. TAL HAREL RiT Technologies The complexity and scale of today’s data centers are creating tough management and budgetary challenges for every IT team. Tight space and power constraints, combined with manual tracking methods, are making MACs harder to plan and to execute, assets more difficult to track and documentation all but impossible to maintain; leaving many data centers wondering when – not if – costly errors will occur. Although Intelligent Infrastructure Management (IIM) systems are proven solutions for enhancing visibility and efficiency, the data center industry has been slow to embrace them. In many cases, this reluctance was due to the fact that prior-generation IIMs could not be deployed without converting the data center from inter-connect topology to a cross-connect topology – a disruptive, costly and potentially risky undertaking. The availability of next-generation IIMs, such as RiT Technologies’ PatchView+, has however eliminated this concern by working equally well in cross-connect, inter-connect and “mixed” environments, as well as with copper, fiber or “mixed” cabling. As a result, all data centers can now deploy IIMs in existing data center environments, enabling enterprises to cut operational costs by 20-30% or more, decrease downtime, optimize power and space utilization, accelerate service deployment and enhance security. This is why many in the data center industry have become advocates of IIM as a best practice platform for bringing manageability, security and controllability to all data centers. IIM in Brief The IIM concept is both simple and elegant: it means the continuous monitoring of a “self-aware” network, and power and environmental apparatuses, which together determine network status in real time; used with a central data repository and intelligent processes to streamline and error-proof operations. These components of next-generation IIM bring efficiency and automation to a broad range of previously-manual tasks, including: Provisioning and Service Deployment: When an IIM takes over provisioning, you can be sure that regional power and cooling limits will never be compromised. The IIM can independently decide where to locate a new blade server, create multi-team work orders, monitor their execution and test the result. With correct and efficient provisioning, human error is slashed, downtime is reduced, productivity is increased and resources are utilized optimally. Fault Management: IIM systems continuously monitor all connections at the patching level, and provide immediate alerts when faults or disconnections are sensed, enabling immediate correction of the problem. IT Asset Management: IT asset management systems continually track each and every device, and can even re-discover lost or “orphaned” equipment. The resulting savings can often more than justify the entire IIM investment. Security: IIMs continuously scan all connections, looking for “suspicious” activities and sending out immediate alerts when irregularities are sensed. Environment and Power Management: IIMs help organizations reduce their power usage, generating significant savings while complying with tough legislation. Bringing IIM to the Mixed Environment In the past, IIM technologies required multiple IIM components to be “embedded” into an existing infrastructure: a model that required a transition to a cross-connect topology. Recent technological advances, however, enable next-generation IIM technologies to uniquely identify every piece of network equipment by means of their existing connectivity components (whether RJ45/copper or LC/fiber) with no need for the addition of extra identification components or layers. As such, state-of-the-art IIMs, such as RiT Technologies’ PatchView+, are able to provide full monitoring and other capabilities on all types of networks: whether inter-connect, cross-connect or mixed; fiber or cable; with a hierarchical or flat topology; and independent of data transfer rates. As a system that is separate from any underlying network, the IIM “future proofs” the data center, delivering uninterrupted value as the data center upgrades and evolves its infrastructure. To further ease the burden of deploying an IIM in a resource-constrained environment, today’s advanced IIMs combine previously-separate scanners, expanders and masters into a single cabinet-mountable box that requires no u-space. As a result, all data centers, no matter what their current infrastructure or their upgrade plans, can now enjoy the full range of IIM benefits, including improved visibility, streamlined management, automated daily operations, improved planning, enhanced security and optimized overall performance. IIM Has Multiple Benefits IIMs are best-practice platforms that reduce operational costs significantly by enhancing ongoing operations, security and scalability. Now that they work equally well in all types of topologies, their usage should be explored by data centers of all sizes and complexities, to maximize visibility, controllability and security, and to enable the full range of DCIM applications. Industry Perspectives is a content channel at Data Center Knowledge highlighting thought leadership in the data center arena. See our guidelines and submission process for information on participating. View previously published Industry Perspectives in our Knowledge Library. (Comment on this)
2:00p	How to Best Control a Private Cloud Environment Private clouds require that you monitor and manage a variety of moving parts. Cloud computing technologies have presented an entirely new way for organizations to compute. Many are exploring with hosted or completely off-site data center solutions. Still, one of the most prevalent cloud platforms currently in the industry is the private cloud. In fact, private connectivity over the WAN and LAN were used to distribute data long before the term cloud came into use. In deploying an enterprise cloud solution, it’s important to understand one very important fact: Cloud computing isn’t just one solution; rather, it’s a combination of technologies which all work together to deliver data and information. Because of that, there can be numerous moving parts within a cloud environment. To control the data and how it’s distributed, it’s important to understand what these moving parts are and how the help create a powerful cloud environment. Control mechanisms, for a cloud platform, should be deployed around the following technologies: Storage. To this day, storage is expensive. Improper storage utilization can lead to bad performance for an entire environment. Since cloud computing is heavily virtualization-based, administrators must have constant visibility into the amount of storage being used and the utilization of the storage environment, including the number of concurrent connections and dedicated IOPS for various processes. The storage piece of a cloud computing model has become even more important over the past few years. In fact, some storage solutions actually help shape cloud offerings. Disaster recovery, business continuity, and replication services all revolve around a good storage solution. WAN/LAN and bandwidth. Make sure to monitor your network both internally and externally. Since a private cloud is used to potentially connect user and branch offices, ensure that you have the right amount of both LAN and WAN bandwidth to handle connection needs. In some cases, administrators can deploy software-defined networks (SDN) to better control the flow of data. In the cloud world, latency can be detrimental. Another point to consider is the utilization of intelligent WAN optimization technologies. Creating logical connections between very distributed points can be optimized by controlling data as it traverse your cloud. Resources. When it comes to cloud – resources mean everything. The term resources may be a bit all-encompassing. However, specific to a private cloud – administrators must have clear visibility into the following components: CPU utilization. RAM usage. Number of virtual servers or instances (desktops, applications, servers). Storage metrics. Networking metrics. Rack and data center information UPS and power data. This isn’t a full list, but it’s important to get the idea across. If any one of the above parts isn’t properly monitored or managed, the private cloud will not be performing optimally. Private cloud platforms must prevent resource mismanagement at all costs. Remember, at the very heart of the resource conversation sits the data center. Although it’s important to monitor cloud infrastructure resources – ensuring optimal data center performance will also have a direct impact on your cloud infrastructure. Security. Regardless of the type of cloud model you deploy, security will always be on the list. Monitoring the security of a private cloud is a must. It now becomes even more challenging as more users bring in their own devices to connect into the corporate cloud. This is where a new type of control needs to be evaluated. In working with next-generation technologies, administrators can leverage advanced access control lists (ACLs), intrusion prevention/detection services (IPS/IDS) and data loss prevention (DLP) solutions. All of this will allow for a controlled flow of data through the internal and external network. Furthermore, using Mobile/Enterprise Device Management (MDM/EDM) solutions will help administrators to better manage the numerous new types of devices that the end-use decides to bring in. End-user. Finally, one of the most important control points for a private cloud environment will be the end user. This means that administrators must maintain constant visibility into the end-user environment. Monitoring and controls should be established around the following: Logon times. Latency. The type of device being used. Location of the connection (external/internal and secured/unsecured) By seeing what the user is accessing and how that session is behaving, administrators are able to maintain higher levels of performance. In establishing user controls, IT managers can further deliver a more powerful private cloud computing experience. Remember, the end-user environment continues to evolve. The way that users are consuming information has changed and so has the end-point. Mobility and new end-point technologies can create direct efficiencies for your cloud environment. The cloud continues to be a very powerful platform. It has the capability to streamline processes and deliver large applications or even desktops almost seamlessly to any device given an Internet connection. The popularity of the private cloud is growing – but so it the management concern. In designing a solid cloud platform, take the time to understand all of the underlying components and how to best manage them. (Comment on this)
3:18p	Compass Buys Land for Ohio Data Center Campus A look at a data center designed and built by Compass Datacenters, which will build a new data center campus in New Albany, Ohio. (Photo: Compass) Compass Datacenters has bought land for a data center campus near Columbus, Ohio where the company plans to build up to five data centers, representing up to $60 million in investment. Compass acquired a 9.2 acre parcel of land in New Albany, Ohio for $1.93 million. The property is located within the 3,000 acre New Albany Business Park, a hub for corporate headquarters, technology firms and other companies in the fast-growing Columbus region. The announcement highlights the rising profile of Ohio as a data center market. Expedient and DataCenter.bz are also building data centers in the Columbus market, while IO has a facility near Dayton and CyrusOne has a dominant presence in the Cincinnati market. Columbus fits with Compass strategy of building compact wholesale data centers in secondary markets with an active business community. Strong Demand in Columbus “We chose the Columbus market as the location for our next data center development because multiple firms have expressed an interest in having a facility in this area, indicating that there is strong demand for data center space in Columbus,” said Chris Crosby, CEO of Compass Datacenters. “We are investing in New Albany to provide companies with the ability to obtain data center facilities they traditionally could only get by developing in a larger market such as Chicago and New York or through a lengthy and costly process of building a facility themselves. Our feature-rich product includes all of the must-haves that enterprise customers and services providers look for in a mission critical facility.” New Albany Business Park is home to a number of corporate data centers, including facilities for Nationwide Insurance, TJX, Motorist Insurance, Abercrombie & Fitch and American Electric Power, according to Bill Ebbing, President of the New Albany Company. “Data centers have a significant impact on an area’s economic health, not only through the direct investment of building of facilities but also through the impact these technology buildings play in helping companies grow and support new jobs,” said New Albany Mayor Nancy Ferguson. “We want the world to know that New Albany is a great place to work and do business, and Compass’ investment here will make this an even more attractive place for companies who want grow.” Compass has worked closely with Internet service providers, building data centers for Windstream in Raleigh, N.C. and Nashville, and is working with Iron Mountain on a new facility in Massachusetts and Savvis/CenturyLink on a new site in the Minneapolis market. The company uses a design that features the CompassPod, which provides 10,000 square feet of column-less raised floor space supported by 1.2 megawatts of electrical power with 2N power distribution. The facilities delivers a PUE of 1.2 to 1.5 at power loads as low as 25 percent. CompassPods are contained within the CompassStructure, a hardened, energy-efficient, highly-secure structure for the facility’s mission critical IT systems. THe facilities are built to an Tier III design, and Compass typically seeks certifications for LEED Gold and Uptime Tier III construction. (Comment on this)
4:20p	Will the Netflix Model Gain Traction? Why Service Providers Should Take Note Venture capital firm Battery Ventures has hired Adrian Cockroft, the head of the infrastructure team at Netflix, who will advise the firm on investments to help enterprises shift to the “cloud native” approach pioneered by Netflix. Cockroft has been a thought leader in the DevOps movement, which empowers developers to integrate operations skills and practice “continuous delivery” of enhanced code. He has been a popular speaker at conferences, evangelizing the Netflix architecture and its reliance on the Amazon cloud computing platform. Cockroft has predicted that more enterprises will adopt the highly-automated cloud native architecture, and Netflix has made much of its code available as open source software to equip others to follow its lead. With his shift to Battery, Cockroft will help guide investment in technologies that can accelerate this shift. “In my new role at Battery Ventures I will be continuing my conversations with large enterprise companies planning a move to cloud native, and SaaS vendors who are re-architecting for scale, to understand the gaps and demands of this market,” Cockroft wrote on his blog. “With that context I will work in the Battery Ventures team that is looking for opportunities to fund companies who are enabling the transformation of enterprise IT, and I will also provide advice and mentoring for portfolio companies.” The Netflix Model as A Data Center Disruptor Shifting enterprise IT from the on-premises data center to the cloud isn’t a new opportunity. But the Netflix “all in” approach to cloud has always been a notable outlier in the way large companies manage their infrastructure. As Cockroft notes: “The industry reaction to Netflix’s all-in public cloud strategy has evolved from ‘It won’t work’ through ‘It only works for unicorns like Netflix’ to ‘How do we get there?’” The Netflix architecture is notable in that it relies almost entirely on AWS and a content delivery network. As such, it represents a larger threat to data center business models than the hybrid cloud model, which maintains opportunities for housing physical gear in both on-premises and third-party data centers. Wider adoption of the Netflix approach could boost Amazon at the expense of service providers. Cloud pundits have often blathered about “the death of the data center.” My response is that “there is no cloud – it all lives in data centers.” The only thing that changes is the name of the data center operator. That’s true for Netflix as well. But the Netflix model concentrates infrastructure at a single provider – most likely to be Amazon- to a greater extent than other approaches to the enterprise cloud. As such, it’s a trend that bears watching. There are good reasons why few enterprises have contemplated the leap to a Netflix-like dependence on a single cloud provider. It will be interesting to see if Battery’s $900 million warchest results in investments that meaningfully advance the “cloud native” model. (Comment on this)
4:41p	Intel Innovates and Collaborates for Wearable Tech Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, who took over the post last May, used a keynote address to make announcements about new technologies at CES 2014. Taking the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) by storm this week in Las Vegas, Intel (INTC) made several announcements for wearables, and a rebranding of McAfee to Intel Security. During a pre-show keynote, Intel’s Brian Krzanich outlined a range of products, initiatives and strategic relationships aimed at accelerating innovation across a range of mobile and wearable devices as well as individual inventors’ own connected creations. Wearables The Intel Smart Headset design was showcased, which features a fully integrated compute system that’s housed in a Bluetooth earpiece with a battery, speaker and microphones on board. Citing numerous immersive and intuitive technologies that Intel will begin to sell Krrzanich said that the company is empowering an era of integrated computing defined not by the device, but by the integration of technology into people’s lifestyles in ways that offer individuals new utility and value. Krzanich said Intel is actively pursuing a range of products and initiatives, with the goal of accelerating wearable device innovation. For example, Intel unveiled a reference design for smart earbuds that provide biometric and fitness information. Aimed at fitness enthusiasts, the earbuds are combining biometrics with the most common accessory people where when they exercise — stereo earbuds. The Intel smart earbuds provide full stereo audio, and monitor heart rate and pulse, while the applications on the user’s phone keep track of run distance and calories burned. Also included is Intel-developed software, allowing the wearer to both precision-tune workouts and the earbuds act as a coach, automatically selecting music that matches the target heart rate profile. Also, Intel has developed a reference design for a hands-free, smart headset that is always ready to engage and can integrate with existing personal assistant technologies. (Pictured above.) Intel announced collaborations with Barneys New York, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and Opening Ceremony to explore and bring to market new smart wearable technologies, and to increase dialogue and cooperation between the fashion and technology industries. Intel will work with CFDA to create a community for technology developers and fashion designers to network, match-make, cultivate and exchange ideas on wearable technology. “The collaborations we announced today are indicative of Intel’s collective and conscious approach to the wearable market,” said Ayse Ildeniz, vice president, Business Development and Strategy of Intel’s New Devices Group. “Through these initiatives we will combine Intel’s leading technologies with Opening Ceremony’s design prowess, Barneys New York’s track record to identify the next consumer trends, and CFDA’s commitment to advance innovation within the fashion industry. Our shared vision is to accelerate wearable technology innovation and create products that both enhance peoples’ lives and are desirable to wear.” In addition to developing reference devices for wearable technology, Intel will offer a number of accessible, low-cost entry platforms. These are aimed at helping lower entry barriers for individuals and small companies to create innovative Internet-connected wearables or other small form factor devices. Underscoring this point, Krzanich announced Intel Edison, a new Intel Quark technology-based computer housed in an SD card form factor with built-in wireless capabilities and support for multiple operating systems. From prototype to production, Intel Edison will enable rapid innovation and product development by a range of inventors, entrepreneurs and consumer product designers when available this summer. Intel Security Krzanich also unveiled the Intel Security brand, which will identify Intel products and services in the security segment, and disclosed plans to transition McAfee products to the Intel Security brand while retaining the familiar red shield. Intel Security this year will offer Intel Device Protection technology for Android, and will offer elements of McAfee’s security solutions for mobile devices for free. “The complexity of keeping digital identities safe grows as mobile applications and devices become a more important part of our daily lives,” Krzanich said. “Intel’s intent is to intensify our efforts dedicated to making the digital world more secure, and staying ahead of threats to private information on mobile and wearable devices.” (Comment on this)
7:48p	T5 Enters New York Market With Westchester Facility T5 Data Centers is working with Lincoln Rackhouse to develop T5@NY (pictured above), a new data center located in Briarcliff Manor in Westchester County, N.Y. (Photo: T5 Data Centers). T5 Data Centers is entering the New York market. The wholesale data center specialist said it is working with Lincoln Rackhouse to develop a new data center in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., about 30 miles north of Manhattan. The project is T5′s seventh data center project, and its first in the Northeast. Lincoln Rackhouse is the data center division for Lincoln Property Company, and previously worked with T5 on the company’s T5@Dallas project. The new powered-shell data center is a completely renovated 38,000 square foot property that previously served as a data center for Sony Corporation. Located on 9.4 acres, T5 says the site is ideal for disaster recovery or use as a “mirror” data center location for enterprise, financial services, trading, and technology firms. It has 2 megawatts of power available immediately, and can be expanded to 4.25 megawatts, with fiber telecommunication connections available from multiple providers. “When we decided to open our T5@NY facility, we applied what we learned from Hurricane Sandy,” said Aaron Wangenheim, Chief Marketing Officer for T5 Data Centers. “We chose Briarcliff Manor because we believe it to be one of the safest data center locations in the New York metro, as evidenced by the fact that the area was largely unaffected by Sandy and never lost power. It’s also in the heart of a booming technology region. T5@NY is a great addition to our portfolio, expanding our presence into the Northeast and giving us access to new clients seeking data center resiliency and customization.” T5@NY is located in the “BioHud Valley,” home to major biotechnology companies and regional medical and research institutions in New York State. T5 says the property can serve as a dual function, with data center space as well as laboratory or incubator space. The facility is expected to be operational by the second quarter of this year. T5 currently has business-critical data center facilities in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Charlotte with new projects announced in Portland and Colorado. All of T5’s data center projects are purpose-built facilities featuring redundant and reliable power and telecommunications and have 24-hour staff to support mission-critical computing applications. (Comment on this)
8:35p	CyrusOne Expanding its Austin Data Center Campus Colocation provider CyrusOne continues to expand in Texas. While it’s been growing in Houston and San Antonio, the latest expansion is in Austin. The company purchased 22 acres in the MetCenter business park, which it intends to use for increasing its data center capacity. It currently has 54,000 square feet of colocation space at its Austin data center campus. The 22 acres is in addition to 54 acres purchased earlier in 2013 in San Antonio and Houston, as well as 24 acres the company owns in Dallas. In total, the company owns more than 100 acres in Texas. CyrusOne has around 920,000 gross square feet of space in Texas and 560,000 square feet of net usable data center space. The company has a lot of space and room to grow in Texas, with the space it owns capable of yielding an additional 2.5 million gross, 1.6 million net square feet of data center capacity. “Securing the ownership of 100 acres in Texas markets where we already have a strong presence allows for construction of what we believe is the largest multi-facility interconnected data center platform in the country,” said Gary Wojtaszek, president and CEO of CyrusOne. “Our Texas data centers are connected to the CyrusOne National Internet Exchange (National IX), which enables customers to efficiently replicate their existing IT infrastructure using our solution in one or more of our data centers. For example, the CyrusOne platform connects our high-performance computing Houston data center, which can handle 900 watts per square foot densities for super computer applications, to our other facilities in cities such as San Antonio and Austin for backup and replication.” (Comment on this)
9:14p	Greater New York Data Center Summit CAPRATE Events presents its Third Annual Greater New York Data Center Summit on February 27 in New York City. A national ​​data ​​center ​​real ​​estate ​​estate ​​and  ​technology ​​infrastructure ​​series brings together leading data center real estate and technology infrastructure executives from New York, New Jersey and around the nation. Join investors, developers, owners, debt sources, equity sources, architects, engineers, end-users and industry service providers for discussion of the trends in the data center marketplace. For more information and registration see CapRate Events, LLC website. Venue 32 Old Slip (between Water St. and FDR) New York, New York 10005 United States 917-460-3572 Telephone registration/questions: Ronnie Niederman | 212-873-3484 For more events, return to the Data Center Knowledge Events Calendar. (Comment on this)

<< Previous Day

2014/01/07 [Calendar]

Next Day >>