Thursday, February 20th, 2014

Time	Event
12:48p	Data Center Jobs: Power Distribution, Inc. At the Data Center Jobs Board, we have a new job listing from Power Distribution, Inc., which is seeking a Field Service Technician in Dallas, Texas. The Field Service Technician is responsible for energizing, servicing, and repairing Power Distribution Units, Line Conditioners, Static Automatic Transfer Switches, Branch Circuit Monitoring, and other electrical equipment as required to support PDI’s business, traveling across the US and internationally, performing Preventative Maintenance (PM) visits as scheduled, conducting start-up installations as scheduled, positively representing PDI during all contact with customers and conducts all actions consistent with PDI values. Must have customer focus on all job sites, providing service to all customers when emergency service is needed, and must be available to react to emergency situations in a timely basis. 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	Top Five Hot Data Storage Trends Alan Atkinson serves as vice president and general manager, Dell Storage. ALAN ATKINSON Dell Storage As the speed of change in businesses continues to accelerate, the pressure for organizations to provide the most cost-effective and highest performing supportive IT services around the clock has never been greater. Information is an organization’s most valuable asset—and often the most costly to maintain. Users are accessing data more frequently from more devices than ever before. As a result, new solutions (including flash storage and converged infrastructures) are better suited for a world where digital data creation is growing by around 50 percent per year and organizations work to keep pace and stay within budgets. Today’s organizations understand that quickly storing, securing, accessing and analyzing data, while managing it securely and cost-effectively, can mean the difference between business success and failure. Enterprises will continue to demand IT infrastructures that allow them to rapidly and efficiently deliver quality services. Here are five enterprise storage trends that Dell expects to see heat-up this year. Flash Storage Economics Flash storage has been gathering momentum as use cases increase, technologies advance, and, frankly, overall costs decrease. Flash storage’s ability to handle data at much faster rates than traditional spinning disk has organizations weighing the options of performance versus cost. While performance elevates flash over traditional spinning disk in the storage hierarchy, its cost has remained the number one barrier to adoption – until now. According to a 451 Research survey in 2013, hybrid flash arrays (arrays that combine flash and disk drives) are the leading choice for organizations, followed by server-side flash and all-flash, which has traditionally been the most expensive variant. More and more, organizations are seeking vendors that break through the traditional cost boundaries to deliver flash at significantly lower prices. For example, combining technologies such as various flash drive types (e.g. MLC, or multi-level cell, and SLC, or single-level cell) with automated tiering (autonomously assigning data and applications to the most appropriate storage medium) is a proven way for customers to get all-flash performance at economics equal to disk prices today. Flash at the Server In today’s world, instantaneous results are being demanded by consumers across the globe, and there is no better example of this immediate need for speed than looking at the appetite for rapid online transactions. Flash cache technology brings the most frequently accessed data closer to compute resources by placing flash on the server system bus thereby minimizing data travel from the server to storage through the network, improving response time and accelerating both read and write performance. While point products for flash at the server exist today, organizations will gain more value from integrated server and SAN flash technology in the server – such as Dell’s Fluid Cache for SAN becoming available this year – to vastly increase response times without sacrificing availability for consumers in industries such as healthcare, finance and retail where instant transactions can redefine the customer experience. For applications like databases, server-based flash cache can reduce data access latency by as much as 90 percent. With point products, users are forced into a “silo-ed” management approach or one that sacrifices traditional SAN data protection features, such as snapshots and replication. With an integrated approach, users can treat flash in the server like another tier of storage and benefit from the traditional SAN features and the cost advantages of automated tiering when server-side flash becomes managed as a “Tier 0” from their SAN. Convergence As enterprises look toward converged infrastructures, the complexities associated with heterogeneity within their environments will be front and center. The driving force behind converged infrastructures is the opportunity to increase efficiency and agility in operations, applications and service management. The benefits go far beyond “one throat to choke” to include reduced cost of running applications, faster infrastructure deployments, simplicity and speed of management, and improved time-to-value for application and cloud deployments. The road to convergence will be easier as organizations can choose from physical converged infrastructure offerings – where server, storage, networking and management are included in the same chassis – or a software-based management layer that aggregates customers’ heterogeneous infrastructure investments into a virtual converged infrastructure. Software-Defined Storage – Real Trend or Hype? The often discussed concept of Software-defined storage (SDS) has found its way into the enterprise storage and the broader software-defined discussions. However, there’s much debate and market confusion on the true definition of SDS, a la early days of defining “cloud computing.” The allure for SDS is around flexibility, but more significantly, reducing the overall cost of storage. Organizations that manufacture both servers and storage arrays today already offer SANs incorporating the lowest cost industry-standard servers with help from economies of scale. Offerings dubbed “SDS” today typically don’t provide the full-featured benefits of traditional SANs, and it’s uncommon to see these vendors provide full service on both the storage software and the hardware on which it resides. As user appetites grow and available SDS offerings mature, real-world benefits and models for the software-defined data center will become clearer, and even more innovative solutions will emerge. Automation – Make Your Machines Work for You Innovative storage vendors place a significant focus on automation and easier-to-manage storage environments to not only reduce storage complexity, but also reduce costs. Innovations like automated tiering, snapshots, virtual server and desktop integration/optimization, and de-duplication and compression are ways for organizations to apply additional “under-the-covers” automation to reduce overall storage costs. For example, automated tiering helps organizations manage data when and where they need it, and in the most cost-effective storage tier. Many organizations buy storage that is capable of more performance than they might ever consume because they aren’t confident in their ability to measure and configure precise real-time demand for performance. Storage systems with automated tiering allow users to let the system determine the optimal tier for data workloads. Over time, it allows data to gravitate toward the media choice that best fits its actual needs and budget considerations. Expect to see automated tiering open the flood gates for flash adoption in the coming year, as blending tiers of MLC and SLC flash drives, for example, will enable customers to get all flash performance for what they spent on spinning disks last year. Furthermore, automating processes such as storage provisioning, snapshots, and integration with virtualization software vendors, can remove a substantial amount of mundane IT staff hours spent implementing and managing a successful storage environment. Smart automation leads to easier to use systems that can lower the overall total cost of storage for users. There’s a lot of storage innovation in the days ahead. The continued data explosion and advancements in technology will keep driving momentum in these key areas as storage users demand innovative solutions to cost-effectively keep pace. 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	A10 Networks, Aerohive Networks File for IPOs F5 enhances its Sythesis architecture to extend the reach of software defined application services, A10 networks and Aerohive Networks file for an initial public offering of stock, and Level 3 is selected by Tata Consultancy Services to expand its services in Brazil. A10 Networks files for IPO. A10 Networks announced that it has publicly filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission relating to the proposed initial public offering of shares of its common stock. Morgan Stanley, BofA Merrill Lynch, J.P. Morgan and RBC Capital Markets are acting as joint book runners for the proposed offering, and Pacific Crest Securities and Oppenheimer & Co. are acting as co-managers for the proposed offering. A10 Networks was recently selected by the University of Kansas Hospital for an Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs) to deploy Microsoft Exchange across its network. KU selected A10 to increase performance and scalability with new hardware and software, and to add flexibility with virtualization for multi-tenancy with Application Delivery Partitions. Aerohive Networks files for IPO. Aerohive Networks, a provider of controller-less Wi-Fi and cloud-managed mobile networking for the enterprise market, announced that it has publicly filed a registration statement on Form S-1 relating to the proposed initial public offering of shares of its common stock. Founded in 2006, the Sunnyvale, California company has disrupted traditional enterprise Wi-Fi systems with its cloud-enabled networking solutions – shipping over 500,000 access point devices. Its solution eliminates the need for a controller, and as such has saved 19,808 controllers from being deployed. Deloitte named Aerohive as the fourth fastest growing Communications and Networking company in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 awards. Goldman, Sachs & Co. and BofA Merrill Lynch are acting as joint book-running managers for the proposed offering, and Piper Jaffray & Co., William Blair & Company, L.L.C., and JMP Securities LLC are acting as co-managers for the proposed offering. F5 enhances Synthesis architecture. F5 Networks (FFIV) announced new offerings that enhance the benefits of the F5 Synthesis architecture model. F5 technologies are designed to help organizations quickly deploy applications and streamline the mix of services needed to ensure success for security, data center, cloud, and mobility initiatives. The Synthesis architecture was launched late last year, and provides intelligent programmability, visibility, and extensibility for application services. The BIG-IP version 11.5 software has been enhanced for application delivery and security, its virtual solutions support hybrid and virtual appliance deployments, and expanded VIPRION offerings with  the new 2250 performance blade for multi-tenant density.  BIG-IQ version 4.2 offers simplified management and comprehensive orchestration, and the new BIG-IQ Device solution gives enhanced configuration capabilities for physical and virtual BIG-IP devices. “Like Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), F5 Synthesis is focused on efficiently delivering applications by taking a fabric-based approach to networking and services architectures,” said Soni Jiandani, SVP, Marketing, Cisco. “With our growing technology partnership, we see many opportunities to combine the capabilities of Cisco ACI with F5’s layer 4-7 application services to automate and centrally orchestrate ADC-enabled data centers. Currently, both companies are jointly developing Cisco Validated Design (CVD) frameworks around Cisco ACI that take advantage of F5 Synthesis offerings and illustrate the customer benefits of deploying ACI and Cisco APIC controllers in concert with F5 BIG-IP physical and virtual appliances.” Level 3 selected by Tata for expanded Brazil communications. Level 3 Communications (LVLT) announced it has signed an agreement with Tata Consultancy Services to deliver Ethernet virtual private line (EVPL) and dedicated Internet access (DIA) services to its offices in Brazil. The new services will connect the company’s headquarters in Sao Paulo to its recently opened office in Rio de Janeiro, increasing communications efficiency between the two locations. ”Tata has seen a sizeable uptick in communications among our employees, requiring increased investments in our Internet services. Level 3 has a long history of providing secure, reliable LAN to LAN connectivity and dedicated access to the Internet, and we’re excited to work with them,” said Rodrigo Ferrarez Pereira, information security manager of Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. in Brazil. “The agreement with Level 3 provides TCS with the necessary bandwidth, transparency and control to maximize the performance we need to keep pace with our growing business.” (Comment on this)
2:30p	Cyrus One Will Build 40 Megawatt Facility in Northern Virginia An illustration of the planned CyrusOne data center in Herndon, Virginia, where the company has bought 14 acres of land. (Image: CyrusOne) Data center service provider CyrusOne will build a 420,000 square foot, 40 megawatt data center in northern Virginia, the company confirmed today. CyrusOne recently purchased 14 acres of land in Sterling, Virginia, which will serve as the campus for its first East Coast data center. CyrusOne officials said the company will expand into one other new market in 2014, which will be announced later this year. The company has a footprint of 1 million square feet of space in 20 data centers concentrated in Texas, Ohio and Phoenix. CEO Gary Wojtaszek said CyrusOnethe expects to be successful in northern Virginia, one of the most competitive data center markets in the country. “That’s the market where we’re gotten the most requests from our customers,” said Wojtaszek. “We’ve been building space around the country and selling it out at a record pace. We’re seeing a lot of demand, and we feel pretty confident.” CyrusOne expects to spend between $26 million and $30 million to build out the first phase of the northern Virginia facility, which will feature about three megawatts of critical power capacity. It can expand in phases, and expects to construct new data center space at an average cost of about $7 million per megawatt over the life of the facility. Entering A Crowded, Competitive Market Loudoun County is already home to 5.2 million square feet of space in more than 50 existing data centers, with another 1 million square feet of space under construction. Service providers that are active in the market include Equinix, DuPont Fabros Technology, Digital Realty Trust, RagingWire, Latisys, COPT, AT&T, Verizon Terremark, CenturyLink Technology, EvoSwitch and many others. In a conference call with analysts, Wojtaszek said CyrusOne isn’t intimidated by the competition in Ashburn’s “Data Center Alley.” “In Dallas, we compete every day with everyone,” he said. “We feel we can be complementary to the existing product in that market. If we stick to our knitting, we know we’ll be successful in Virginia. DFT and DLR (DuPont Fabros and Digital Realty) are predominantly doing wholesale deals without a lot of services.  Our sweet spot is smaller deals with more services attached.” CyrusOne leased approximately 47,000 square feet of colocation space in the fourth quarter, or about 7.3 megawatts of power. The company added one new Fortune 1000 customer in the quarter, bringing the total to 129 customers in the Fortune 1000 and 612 customers in total. About 85 percent of the company’s colocation footprint is occupied, compared to 78 percent at the end of 2012.  (Comment on this)
3:25p	Customer Wins for CloudBees, Server Farm Realty, CenturyLink Here’s a look at some of this week’s announcements of customer wins and collaboration: CenturyLink Expands Services to Procter & Gamble - CenturyLink announced that The Procter & Gamble Company has expanded a web hosting relationships with CenturyLink Technology Solutions that began in 1999 when CenturyLink operated as Savvis. Under the arrangement, CenturyLink will offer hybrid IT infrastructure services through a consumption-based pricing model, empowering Procter & Gamble employees to bundle and select the technology services they need, when they need them. In addition, CenturyLink will provide Procter & Gamble with access to technologies from its ecosystem of solutions from Cisco, NetApp, SAP and other key alliances. In presenting Procter & Gamble with a comprehensive IT strategy, CenturyLink devised a customized solution blending consulting, dedicated support desk and application services with cloud and managed hosting capabilities to drive agility, flexibility and access to new technologies within Procter & Gamble’s IT organization. “We look forward to working closely with Procter & Gamble, as we have over the past 15 years as Savvis and now as CenturyLink, consistently delivering innovative technologies as we both evolve and grow,” said Jeff Von Deylen, president, CenturyLink Technology Solutions. “We are proud to expand our relationship by helping them drive a strategic IT vision that delivers more value for its global business.” CloudBees and Verizon Add Enterprise PaaS to New Verizon Cloud: Enterprise Platform as a Service (PaaS) provider CloudBees has announced an agreement with Verizon Enterprise Solutions to make the CloudBees PaaS available on the new Verizon Cloud. This agreement is part of Verizon’s ongoing strategy to add enterprise-class services to Verizon Cloud, the company’s new cloud computing and cloud storage platform, creating an ecosystem of enterprise technologies in the cloud. Verizon Cloud was announced in October and is now in public beta. It includes an IaaS platform, Verizon Cloud Compute, and an object-based storage service, Verizon Cloud Storage, that are built for the enterprise but nimble enough to meet the needs of small and medium-sized businesses, individual IT departments and software developers. “We are working with best-in-class enterprise technology companies to bring additional value to our customers above the core availability, performance and security we’ve built into Verizon Cloud,” said John Considine, chief technology officer at Verizon Terremark. “CloudBees is a leading PaaS provider with an experienced team. We’re pleased to formalize this longstanding relationship with CloudBees and its proven service for our customers’ benefit.” ChinaCache and Server Farm Realty to Collaborate on Cloud Infrastructure – ChinaCache has signed a memorandum of understanding with Server Farm Realty, a leading data center developer throughout North America, to form strategic partnership relating to ChinaCache Atecsys International Data Center (“Atecsys”) in the Tianzhu Comprehensive Bonded Zone in Beijing. The cloud data center will focus on helping multinational enterprises host their cloud services in China.Server Farm Realty’s senior management recently visited Atecsys, which has been under development since 2013, and is strategically located in Beijing’s tax free, custom bonded zone. Atecsys is a green, eco-friendly and low-carbon data center that meets national cloud computing data center standards.”We believe the combination of ChinaCache’s leading experience in CDN and Server Farm Realty’s deep technical capabilities in data center development and service, will create a highly complementary partnership that is uniquely qualified to offer the best business solutions to meet the needs of China’s data center growth,” said Mr. Avner Papouchado, President and CEO of Server Farm Realty.> (Comment on this)
6:46p	NetApp Launches Scale-Out Storage To help manage storage across private and public clouds NetApp (NTAP) introduced FAS8000 series scale-out enterprise storage systems with the I/O flexibility to simplify and eliminate complex upgrades as IT needs change. With new FlexArray virtualization software, NetApp V-Series becomes a software option enabling the FAS8000 to virtualize and manage multi-vendor data storage platforms, paving the way for software-defined storage. “As they adapt their IT operations to improve service delivery and embrace cloud mandates, CIOs recognize the advantages of shared storage infrastructures,” George Kurian, Executive Vice President, Product Operations at NetApp. ”Our proven, flash-accelerated FAS enterprise storage systems combine scale-out innovation and rich data management capabilities in a single unified platform. Our new FAS8000 series and enhanced software offerings allow customers to respond quickly to changing business needs, move seamlessly to an era of unbound clouds, and eliminate the over provisioning of people, time, and money.” FAS8000: Single Hybrid Array Built as an enterprise storage system to unify SAN, NAS and storage virtualization, the new FAS8000 series is a single hybrid array designed specifically for scale-out storage environments. The new storage systems can improve performance (up to 2 times) and deliver better flash acceleration benefits (up to 3 times more flash) than previous FAS platforms. Additional improvements with the FAS8000 include a new, storage I/O–optimized architecture including the Intel microarchitecture (formerly code-named Sandy Bridge), expanded memory, and improved flash support to deliver superior, low-latency performance for enterprise-class workloads. FlexArray virtualization software enables existing storage to be managed by Data ONTAP for a greater return on investment and makes legacy storage cloud-ready. A new release of clustered Data ONTAP, version 8.2.1, extends nondisruptive operations (NDOs) and improves data security and management of CIFS environments. This is the foundation for software-defined storage, enabling organizations to provision and consume storage services based on policies and to deploy resources on a wide range of hardware. “CIOs and IT executives are constantly looking to simplify operations, make infrastructure decisions that can scale to demand, and deliver a solid return on investment for their organizations,” said Ashish Nadkarni, Research Director, Storage Systems and Big Data Research at IDC. ”Building or implementing cloud-supported infrastructures however requires storage and data management product and solutions that satisfy cloud requirements. With the introduction of its new enterprise storage systems and software, NetApp is innovating the underlying storage infrastructure in such a way that enables this type of flexible and efficient data storage infrastructure.” (Comment on this)
8:31p	Equinix to Host BATS Exchange in Secaucus Trading Hub The data halls inside the Equinix NY4 data center in Secaucus, New Jersey. BATS Global Markets will consolidate its primary data centers at the Equinix Secaucus campus in early 2015. (Photo: Equinix) Equinix continues to move from strength to strength in its financial services ecosystem. The colocation specialist will soon host a key trading exchange from BATS Global Markets in its NY5 data center in Secaucus, N.J., the companies said Wednesday. BATS, the second-largest U.S. stock exchange, currently hosts its infrastructure in the CenturyLink Technnology (Savvis) NJ2 data center in Weehawken, New Jersey. Early next year, BATS will move its infrastructure from Weehawken to NY5. “This is a critical addition to the over 150 exchange and execution platform deployments that currently reside within Equinix,” said Equinix CEO Steve Smith. “As the only data center provider with a presence across top global financial markets, we expect to realize outsize benefits as these markets return to growth.” This means Equinix will host all of the BATS exchange platforms, including the Direct Edge exchange, which was acquired by BATS last month and currently hosts its primary data center in the Equinix NY4 facility in Secaucus. The Direct Edge Exchanges will remain at NY4 until January 2015, when they will migrate to BATS’ technology in Equinix’s NY5 data center. Equinix’s New York-area data centers serve many of the world’s largest companies, including high concentrations of financial services companies such as BATS, and provide access to more than 700 businesses and 135 network service providers. “As we begin the integration of Direct Edge to the BATS technology, expanding our partnership with Equinix is a critical step for the expanded BATS Global Markets and, more importantly, our customers,” said Chris Isaacson, Executive Vice President & Global Chief Information Officer, BATS. “Choosing Equinix as our primary data center provider, and leveraging its tremendous trading ecosystem in Secaucus, provides the type of continuity and cost efficiency which is paramount to these customers.” “We’re pleased to announce this agreement with a market leader like BATS Global Markets, particularly as financial technologies are evolving and converging faster than ever. BATS understands that one of the keys to success lies not just in what you deploy, but where you deploy,” said Karl Strohmeyer, president, Americas, Equinix. “In today’s networked world, financial services companies need to position their systems for maximum connectivity, performance and agility in order to keep ahead of fast moving trends. With the global network of Equinix data centers, BATS can achieve proximity hosting requirements while tapping into a financial services ecosystem with all the major market players.” BATS will maintain a network Point-of-Presence (PoP) in Equinix NY4 and CenturyLink Techniology NJ2 indefinitely. This will allow current Direct Edge Member connections in NY4 and BATS Member connections in NJ2 to access all BATS/Direct Edge Exchanges without interruption once they are moved to NY5. In addition to Secaucus, BATS has space in Equinix’s London Slough data center campus LD4, which provides a high-performance trading environment for BATS Chi-X Europe’s integrated and dark electronic trading books. The BATS and Direct Edge Exchanges secondary data centers will remain in Chicago at the CH4 data center with a PoP at CH1. (Comment on this)
9:05p	Apple Expanding Its North Carolina iDataCenter An aerial view of the Apple data center campus in Maiden, North Carolina, showing the company’s first “tactical data center” visible at left. Apple has filed plans to build a second tactical facility at the campus. (Photo: Apple) Apple is preparing to expand its data center campus in Maiden, North Carolina, which supports the delivery of content for its iTunes and iCloud services. Apple has filed plans with Catawba County to add a “tactical data center” to its campus in Maiden, according to local media. This will be the second tactical facility at the Apple campus, which is anchored by a huge 500,000 square foot data center. In 2012, Apple added its first tactical data center, a 21,000 square foot facility on a concrete pad. An erosion permit for the new tactical data center was filed Wednesday with Catawba County, according to the Hickory Daily Record. The plans filed with the county indicate the data center will be 25 feet tall and made of precast concrete wall panels along steel columns, with banks of servers housed in the main portion and 11 air units to cool the building. Two more air units will supply the office and other occupied area of the data center. The iDataCenter in Maiden is providing support for Apple’s iCloud service, which stores and synchronizes music, photos and data across multiple devices. The main building features a one-story data center floor spanning about 180,000 feet of space, enclosed by more than 262,000 square feet of space supporting mechanical and electrical systems to support power and cooling, and about 60,000 square feet of office space. The Apple campus is supported by renewable energy from two separate 100-acre solar arrays in Maiden, which each produce 42 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy annually. Apple also uses biogas from nearby landfills to power Bloom Energy Server fuel cells at its Maiden site. (Comment on this)

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