Thursday, January 9th, 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 Data Center Construction Senior Program Manager in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The Data Center Construction Senior Program Manager is responsible for the delivery of the data center project within a defined scope, schedule, and budget, managing the general contractor to ensure that the data center is built to the contract documents and specifics issued, directly managing project controls and Project Administration to include Proposals, Change Orders, Pay Applications, etc, coordinating & communicating with the Data Center Engineering Team and supporting specialty PM’s to resolve issues during construction and to coordinate all integrated related tasks to include MSIT, GNS, RE&F, and OSSC (Security). 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)
1:30p	Google Glass: A Vision of the Future for Data Center Maintenance Jeffrey Dutschke is an industry research specialist and blogger at Maintenance Assistant Inc, a provider of innovative web-based CMMS. CMMS software offers a way to manage facilities and infrastructure equipment at data centers. JEFFREY DUTSCHKE Maintenance Assistant How will your facilities maintenance team complete their work orders in three years time? Google Glass is one highly probable answer. Walking along the data center floor, I spotted the telltale signs of a water leak from a CRAC unit. “OK Glass, create a work order. Asset: Crac021. Issue description: water pump leak.” Introducing Google Glass Google Glass is a portable computer worn like a pair of glasses. It makes accessible, without being touched, a camera, microphone, and speaker, with wifi and Bluetooth communication. The Glass wearer can communicate with the Glass using voice commands and tap gestures on the touch pad. Glass communicates to the user with a bone-conducting speaker and a heads-up display positioned above the right eye. Using the camera, the wearer can take photos and record video and send to friends and colleagues. Basically, it’s a smart phone you wear! See Data Center Maintenance Differently Through Google Glass When fitted with safety lenses, Google Glass provides a great opportunity to revolutionize the way data center technicians perform their daily tasks. When dedicated maintenance and repair applications are developed, the data center technician will directly connect to the maintenance database when completing usual maintenance activities, and more. Today’s Applications for Google Glass For the data center maintenance technician of today, Google Glass technology will easily integrate with their day-to-day work activities. SMS messages, twitter and email messages can be read on the heads-up display of Google Glass.  Instantly, this makes the device an ideal way to receive work orders sent via email or text message. The device is also a video telephone which can be used to get help when diagnosing a fault; help from more experienced technician or from the help center of the equipment manufacturer. For apprentices and new hires, this will be an amazing way of interacting with their supervisor and getting advice while on the job. Tomorrow’s Applications for Google Glass When CMMS vendors develop applications that run on Glass, the future maintenance and repair applications for Google Glass are endless. Here are some ideas for data center facility maintenance: 1. Revolutionized Work Orders Voice commands will become commonplace in data centers. “OK Glass”, will start, followed by “submit work request”, “complete work order”, “view previous work orders”, “add photograph”, or “add video”. No pen or keyboard will be required to record maintenance data, it will be done with speech-to-text recognition. It will help keep your CRAC, HVAC and backup generators in optimal working condition. Regular preventive maintenance is critical to maintaining the reliability of your data center infrastructure. SOP, EOP and MOP procedures and labor tasks for planned maintenance will be presented on the heads-up display as the technician works. When he or she needs, technicians can access to vital information for the equipment on which they are working, while they are working. Details such as schematics, bill of materials and safe operating procedures will be easily viewed.  Imagine looking at a circuit diagram whilst in a dark and confined space fixing the actual circuit. It will be possible with Google Glass. Procedural videos could be recorded by experienced technicians could be attached to the asset or work order in the CMMS and will be viewed by another technician doing the same job in the future. 2. Fast Parts Identification and Reordering As new parts are being installed during work, its QR code will be scanned with the camera, and the part automatically consumed in the work order. Its costs will be accounted for, and replacement stock ordered from the supplier. Defective parts will be quickly scanned and replacements ordered from stores. 3. Real-Time Heat Mapping Power failures are one of the biggest causes of datacenter downtime. Subject experts recommend performing IR scans on electrical connectors at least once a year. Maybe a little further in the future, Glass came with an infrared camera option. When datacenter technicians are performing their regular planned work, Google Glass could be using the infrared camera to inspect electrical connectors heat signatures as the technician works and highlight any pending issues. 4. Advanced Data Capture Furthermore, because Google Glass makes the process of gathering and recording information easy, it could be used as an audit trail. How Far Away Is This Future? Until now, Google Glass has only been available in limited quantities to selected users, but it has been reported that Google Glass will be released for public sale in 2014. The device could be employed in data centers immediately but maintenance specific functionality will only become available when CMMS and EAM software developers develop the required apps. Making the transition to an innovative CMMS solution early will make for an easy transition to Google Glass easy when they become available. Technicians will love the functionality they offer, engineers and accountants will appreciate the data they provide, and management will love the cost savings they deliver. 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)
1:57p	Investors Offer $3 Billion to Acquire Riverbed Application Performance Infrastructure company Riverbed (RVBD) has been given an offer from Elliot Management for acquiring the company for $19 a share, or approximately $3 billion. Hedge fund group Elliot owns approximately 10.5 percent of the common stock of Riverbed. A letter written by portfolio manager Jesse Cohnand asks Riverbed to either accept its buyout offer, or seek other offers. “We are aware that numerous parties have expressed acquisition interest in Riverbed, and this structure guarantees that the company will secure a healthy premium for its stockholders while holding open the opportunity to obtain an even higher premium,” Cohn wrote. San Francisco-based Riverbed has also responded to Elliott’s earlier advance with several safety measures. It instituted a stockholder rights plan or so-called “poison pill” to make it more difficult for Elliott to gain a controlling stake in the company. Riverbed responded to the Elliot letter with a statement saying that its board “will review the offer and communicate its views in due course.” As a secondary defensive move, Riverbed has brought on Goldman Sachs as an advisor, to help defend against a hostile takeover – according to a person familiar with the situation. Elliot has tried similar buyout tactics before, with Compuware, but backed off when it sold parts of its business. It successfully asked for other companies to sell themselves, including Novell and BMC Software. Riverbed stock closed Wednesday up almost 10 percent, at $19.53. (Comment on this)
2:00p	A Supercomputer Under the Hood: NVIDIA Chips Automate the Car The 64-bit version of Tegra K1 processor uses a custom, NVIDIA-designed 64-bit dual Super Core CPU. NVIDIA rolled out a mobile version of the Tegra K1 chips at CES 2014 (Photo: NVIDIA). NVIDIA is harnessing the power of supercomputers to automate the automobile, enabling cars to detect pedestrians, monitor your blind spot, and provide warnings if a driver is wandering out of his lane. At CES in Las Vegas this week NVIDIA (NVDA) launched the Tegra K1 mobile processor, an automotive-grade version of its GPU which is used in the world’s top supercomputers. The K1 is intended to power a range of automotive applications in ways not previously possible with such low power consumption. The Tegra K1 features a quad-core CPU and a 192-core GPU using the NVIDIA Kepler architecture, the basis for NVIDIA’s range of powerful GPUs. It will drive camera-based, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) – including pedestrian detection, blind-spot monitoring, lane-departure warning and street sign recognition — and can also monitor driver alertness via a dashboard-mounted camera. Preparing for the Self-Driving Car Also hardened to withstand a wider range of temperatures, the K1 supports CUDA, NVIDIA’s parallel computing platform. It is also fully programmable, so it can be updated with over-the-air software updates that support new functionalities as they become available from automakers. “To process the steady deluge of sensor and camera data required by a self-driving car, NVIDIA is bringing highly energy-efficient supercomputer technology inside the vehicle,” said Taner Ozcelik, vice president and general manager of the Automotive business at NVIDIA. “Tegra K1 solves this by providing 10 times the computing power of previous mobile processors without consuming additional energy.” Tegra K1 will be available to automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers as a visual computing module (VCM), an innovative design first introduced two years ago. The Tegra K1 VCM delivers a full computer system for the vehicle, capable of running various operating systems including QNX, Android, Linux or Windows. Today there are more than 4.5 million cars on the road powered by NVIDIA processors, including the newest models from Audi, BMW, Tesla Motors and Volkswagen. NVIDIA and Audi Also at CES, NVIDIA announced that three new in-vehicle systems powered by the NVIDIA Tegra Visual Computing Module (VCM) will soon begin shipping in Audi’s vehicles. The solutions include a connected infotainment system, an automotive-grade tablet, and a high-resolution cockpit with unprecedented 3D graphical displays. The Tegra VCMs powering these systems are highly flexible platforms, incorporating an automotive-grade NVIDIA Tegra mobile processor with an NVIDIA 4-Plus-1 core CPU, a multi-core GPU and dedicated audio, video and image processors. An Audi auto-infotainment system powered by NVIDIA Tegra VCM. (Photo: NVIDIA) “Audi is a true leader in the development of advanced vehicle electronics,” said Ozcelik. “Breakthroughs like the first navigation system based on Google Earth and the first automotive-grade tablet demonstrate Audi’s strategy to fast track consumer electronics technology into the car.” Appearing first in the 2015 Audi TT sports coupe, a new fully digital instrument cluster will present information to the driver on a 12.3-inch, high-definition display. The virtual cockpit features refined digital gauges with smooth needle animation, as well as beautiful 3D maps, delivering an elegant, informative display. Drivers have the ability to configure the dashboard controls based on their personal preferences. “Audi and NVIDIA engineers work closely together to develop hardware and software that truly delight customers,” said Mathias Halliger, chief architect of Infotainment Systems at Audi. “With the flexible VCM platform, we are able to quickly bring to market a new generation of Tegra-based infotainment systems, as well as an integrated mobile computer, matching the rapid cadence of the consumer electronics industry.” (Comment on this)
3:05p	Peak Secures $4 Million For Channel-Centric Cloud Offerings Channel partner-focused IaaS provider Peak has secured $4 million in new financing from its current investment group, Meritage Funds and Sweetwater Capital. The funding will support key partnerships such as the recently announced Telx partnership. The company retargeted its efforts to focus purely on the channel, offering cloud computing to value-added resellers, distributors, agents and service providers who white label or re-sell Peak’s cloud as their own solution. The shift in strategy has been paying off, as the high profile partnerships suggest. The new funding will help the company expand its reach. “By securing additional funding, Peak manifests its destiny by expanding into additional markets coast to coast, and serving a larger client base,” said Luke Norris, CEO and Founder of Peak. “With our patented technologies we are helping companies realize the many benefits of enterprise cloud computing more readily and more economically. As such we have seen over 430 percent growth over the past two years. We are excited about our year ahead and further serving our reseller and agent community with our best-in-class solutions.” Peak has nodes located in eight geographies across the U.S. and Europe, including Silicon Valley, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, New Jersey, New York, Atlanta and the United Kingdom. The funding will help expand its already growing footprint. Peak’s cloud is suited for a variety of services including disaster recovery, production workloads, storage and backup to the cloud. It offers a 100 percent uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA). The company was formerly known as PeakColo, but changed its name to better represent its channel-centric cloud offerings. (Comment on this)
4:43p	Oracle to Buy Carrier SDN Startup Corente This article originally appeared on The WHIR. Technology giant Oracle is acquiring Corente, a carrier software-defined networking startup, which Oracle expects to be able to leverage in SDN-enabled cloud deployments that virtualize both the enterprise data center LAN and the WAN. SDN is a growing trend that allows more software control over networking equipment, generally allowing for more flexible and robust networking capabilities. It is also becoming a sought-after feature for cloud environments with complex networking needs and ones that span different geographies. Corente’s software-defined WAN virtualization platform allows customers to securely and simply provision and manage global private networks connecting to any site, helping accelerate cloud deployment, according to Oracle chief corporate architect Edward Screven. “Oracle customers need networking solutions that span their data centers and global networks,” Screven said in a statement. “By combining Oracle’s technology portfolio with Corente’s industry leading platform extending software-defined networking to global networks, enterprises will be able to easily and securely deliver applications and cloud services to their globally distributed locations.” The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. As investor news site Seekeing Alpha points out, Cisco and Juniper have acquired carrier SDN startups, and carrier SDN adoption is expected to take off in 2016-17 given that SDN can leverage commodity hardware. This move towards commodity hardware could negatively affect the sales of traditional carrier switch and router providers who don’t adapt. Rather than give up on the telecom market, Oracle is upping its efforts to remain relevant 2013 with the purchases in 2013 of session border control technology provider Acme Packet and network signaling, policy control and data management software provider Tekelec. These purchases in the past 12 months align with Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s statement in March 2013: “Our ambition is to be the primary technology provider to the telecommunications industry.” This article was first published at: http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/oracle-buy-carrier-sdn-startup-corente (Comment on this)

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