Monday, March 31st, 2014

Time	Event
12:00p	Data Center Power Plant Prompts Protests As a growing number of data center projects contemplate on-site energy generation, a controversy in Delaware illustrates the potential risks of this strategy. The Data Centers LLC (TDC) has proposed a large data center in Newark, Delaware that would include up to 248 megawatts of on-site generation. The project has spurred intense local controversy, culminating in a public meeting this month in which 700 residents turned out to listen to an appeal of the project’s approval. Why the fuss? While data center developments haven’t traditionally been a magnet for NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) concerns, power plants are another matter. A community group calling itself Newark Residents Against the Power Plant (NRAPP) organized to oppose the project, and has used a web site, Facebook page and email lists to organize opposition. The campaign has included t-shirts, yard signs, benefit concerts and Internet “meme” graphics to build opposition to the project. CHP Plant Draws Fire The residents’ beef isn’t with the idea of servers living next door. It’s the power plant component of the project that has drawn criticism and sown trust issues in the community. The protesters argue that the power plant is too close to homes and schools, potentially decreases the value of nearby homes, might cause health problems due to emissions, and might generate excessive noise. The TDC project features combined heat and power (CHP), an approach that consists of natural gas turbines, steam turbines and gas engines, with two independent natural gas supply lines on site to provide the reliability to deliver uninterrupted, fault tolerant power to the data center. Most of the steam produced by the turbines will be reused to support the cooling systems in the data center. The deadlocked Newark board on March 19 upheld the city’s decision to permit the project. This followed a three hour hearing, as the Board of Adjustment deliberated for more than 70 minutes. Members voted 3-1 that the on-site generation would not impair the neighborhood, but the vote was split on two other issues: whether on-site generation is customary to the data center industry, and whether the project would contradict Newark’s future land-use plan. The fifth, tie-breaking member had to recuse himself due to a conflict of interest. Primary or Backup? While on-site generation has been included in a number of new data centers, the disagreements revolve around whether it’s common for data centers to forgo a utility connection for primary or backup power. The Data Centers argues that the difference is not significant. “Every data center has power generation equipment of onne form or another,” said Richard Forsten of Saul Ewing, the attorney representing TDC at the hearing. “Once you concede that it’s customary, it really doesn’t matter whether its for primary or backup power.” The lesson here might be to not build on-site generation near residential housing. Data centers have traditionally been seen as good for the local economy, but the on-site power is drawing all the criticism. The economic arguments for the data center are that it could employ upwards of 600 people and generate $10 million in property taxes. A portion of the power generated at the plant would be sold on the wholesale market as well. However, those employment numbers are being questioned by the community, as data center PR has inflated employment numbers in the past. Definitions in Focus The legal arguments raised revolve mainly around definitions (as legal arguments tend to do). This includes: a facility with a capacity of 279 megawatts does not meet the definition of “accessory use” under city code, in part because power plants operating independent of the electric grid are not typical in the data center industry, and because the plant would not be subordinate or incidental to the data center. The debate is getting heated. When Data Center Knowledge initially reported the story, a few residents sounded off in the comments. During an initial information session in September, over 200 questions (PDF Download) were submitted, and TDC posted answers to the company website. There are also supporters of the project, and there was some applause when the company pledged to hire veterans and use union workers during construction. However, the protestations of the local community are in the spotlight. The project continues to move forward, but has been slowed by the legal challenges. Videos of the entire three-hour hearing are available on YouTube. Here’s a look at an illustration of the planned complex: (Comment on this)
12:30p	Keep March Madness on the Courts, Not in Your Data Center Adam Wray is the CEO of Basho Technologies and has more than 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and executive. Previously, he was the CEO and president of Tier 3, where he led the company through nearly $20 million in funding from venture capitalists. As we head to the conclusion of March Madness, it’s also a good time to evaluate your data center playbook and make the right picks for your big data strategy. When thinking about your big data playbook, it’s easy to get blinded by unnecessary bells and whistles that offer trick plays and a complex offense. These can cause companies to forget the basics that keep them in the game, or better yet, winning the game. I’m talking about the three-point play of availability, scalability, and operational ease-of-use. NoSQL databases are often the best strategic play companies of any size can make. Diverse organizations like Amazon, Rovio, and the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) all understand the strengths of NoSQL databases and have integrated them into their data center strategies. Whether you’re an enterprise or a startup, relational databases are no match for NoSQL’s primary strengths. 35-Second Violation! Availability is Critical for Companies Large and Small In basketball, players have 35 seconds to make a shot or they turn over the ball. Businesses aren’t so blessed: They have mere seconds (or even milliseconds) to make a sale. If customers experience downtime, they will take their business over to your competitors. Latency metrics are changing, and becoming increasingly tougher on enterprises. It’s estimated that Amazon loses $1,100 in direct revenue from just one second of downtime, making milliseconds matter. For large companies, downtime can equate to millions of dollars (or worse, even lives) lost. Doctors, pharmacies, and patients of the NHS require real-time access to critical health information, and availability can be the difference between life and death. Downtime, of course, is detrimental to smaller companies too. Customers won’t wait for a website to reload; they will simply click to another site to make their purchases and take your potential revenue with them. Ads function the same way. Companies like OpenX and Tapjoy serve trillions of ads daily and their platforms include real-time bidding as well. Any ad that isn’t displayed equates to lost revenue and, if bidding is down, so are profits. NoSQL databases provide superiority over relational databases when it comes to this level of availability. Relational databases typically have a master/slave architecture, so if the master node fails, the entire system rejects all write requests until the problem is resolved, making the system unavailable. Conversely, some NoSQL databases like Riak rely on a distributed architecture, where all nodes are equal and data is replicated across multiple nodes: If one node fails, no problem—the system stays up and maintains its availability. Halftime? No Such Thing for Global Availability Every company is a global company, or will be. This means no more breaks during the game. You can no longer plan for maintenance or downtime during off-hours, because there are no off-hours. Other global challenges mean adhering to various regulations and ensuring that customers in Japan have the same, low-latency experience as those in New York. Relational databases are often not a realistic option for global companies. When shooting for scalability, relational databases typically rely on a process called sharding in order to manually distribute data across multiple databases (i.e., placing US data on one server, EU data on another). But when experiencing high growth or peaks, data requirements can outgrow the server and manual resharding must occur—a process that requires downtime and high costs. Distributed NoSQL databases automatically distribute data across multiple nodes so when the system is at capacity, a business simply needs to add more nodes without ever taking the system down. Queep, a global social networking company, experienced this phenomenon: With 19 million users sending five million messages daily, Queep’s servers kept hitting capacity and the company’s developers and systems integrators couldn’t keep pace with the sharding. As such, the company switched to Basho’s Riak and has since experienced optimal availability while efficiently managing its ongoing growth. Scalability: Change Up Your Team Just as coaches need to put in defensive players when the opponent has the ball, data center managers need to be able to easily scale up or down, depending on various circumstances. As big data continues to flourish, the challenges of scale will only increase. Big data is growing exponentially—soon we may have to rename it as “monolithic” data. Microsoft recently found that 62 percent of its customers store at least 100 terabytes of data. Data center managers not only have to deal with increasing volumes of data, but also increasing types of data. Digital interactions, user profiles, omni-channel experiences, and geo-data locality all require big data solutions with the ability to scale, store, and analyze the information. Distributed NoSQL systems scale horizontally, since all nodes are equal and work as a team. Systems like Riak can run on commodity hardware and nodes can quickly be added or removed to handle viral growth or peak traffic—regardless of data format. This can save companies from having to pay for data storage they aren’t using and eliminates the single point of failure risk that comes with systems utilizing a master/slave model. Once again, relational databases rely on sharding, which is simply not a cost- and time-effective way to scale for the vast majority of companies. Operational Ease: Leverage Varsity Players While rookies may offer excitement and speed, the varsity players know the fundamentals. They know how to make plays the instant they are on the court, how to pass when they are defended, and how to make quick efficient decisions that benefit the team. A NoSQL database functions in much the same way. NoSQL databases are operational out of the box and don’t require any thought on data schemas. Systems like Riak utilize a key/value data model that allows for simple data storage of all types. Additionally, since distributed systems pass workload to neighboring nodes during node failure, they eliminate pager duty for operators, as the system will remain in play. Conversely, if a node fails in a relational system, it can cause the entire system to go down, as it’s the single point of failure. By 2020, the typical business will manage 50x more data but only boost its IT staff by 1.5 percent. With a relational system, this would wreak havoc on data centers; however, with distributed NoSQL systems, data centers (and operators’ sanity) will be protected. This March, keep the “madness” out of your data center. Make sure you are putting a full-court press on the issues that matter most to a data architecture (and your business bottom line): availability, scalability, and operational ease-of-use. 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)
2:58p	Arista Networks Files for $200 Million IPO Network equipment maker Arista Networks has filed for an initial public offering, hoping to raise up to $200 million. The company has built a solid footprint among Wall Street traders and cloud computing providers seeking high-performance networking gear. Arista was founded by Sun Microsystems’ co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim and its CEO is Jayshree Ullal, who for many years headed the data center networking unit at Cisco Systems. Its Internet sector customers include Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Rackspace and Equinix, while its gear is also used by financial services giants like Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Barclays. The company’s SEC filing reports annual sales of $361 million and net income of $45 million. Arista says its revenue has been growing at a rate of 71 percent a year from 2010 through 2013. Arista predicts that its revenue will grow further as cloud providers buy more of the 10 gigabit switches that are its core focus. “We believe that cloud computing represents a fundamental shift from traditional legacy data centers and that cloud networking is the fastest growing segment within the data center switching market,” the company said in its filing. “As organizations of all sizes are adopting cloud architectures, spending on cloud and next-generation data centers has increased rapidly over the last several years, while traditional legacy IT spending has been growing more slowly.” (Comment on this)
6:42p	World Backup Day: A Yearly Reminder to be Prepared for Data Loss This article originally appeared at TheWHIR. World Backup Day is an annual reminder for businesses and individuals to make regular backups of their data and files. World Backup Day is compelling people to make a pledge: “I solemnly swear to backup my important documents and precious memories on March 31st,” and to tell friends and family about World Backup Day. At 11am ET (8am PT) more than 1,000 people have shared the pledge on Twitter or Facebook. As part of its World Backup Day campaign, “Data Loss Gremlins” took over the website of cloud backup and recovery provider Intronis. Six gremlins represent different threats: Klepto (theft), Scratch (equipment failure), Mayhem (natural disaster), Mal(viruses), Whoopsie Daisy (user error), and Scorch (fire). Intronis CMO Aaron Dun said in a statement that small and medium-sized businesses especially need to be reminded of the risk of data loss. “While the value of insuring their property and liability is well understood, protecting their data — which ultimately protects their business — is rarely considered a strategic imperative.” In a 2013 survey conducted by Harris Interactive, only 71 percent of respondents have ever backed up their computer, and only 10 percent make daily backups. Particular industries such as healthcare lose $5.6 billion annually due to data breaches, according to a recent report. Of the healthcare organizations polled, 90 percent reported at least one breach over the past two years, and 38 percent suffered more than five. World Backup Day has also been an opportunity for backup and recovery providers to offer deals. For March 31, Securo is offering a 3 month free trial of Securo Backup and Recovery. This offers not only agentless, off-site backup for Windows and Linux Servers, but also for Exchange, Groupwise, Lotus, Workstations, Laptops, smart phones and other IT systems. Cloud backup provider Carbonite is offering 31 percent off for all new customers. AndAcronis is providing 250GB of cloud backup space for free for those signing up for Acronis True Image 2014 or True Image Premium. World Backup Day has happened every March 31st since 2011. This article originally appeared at http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/world-backup-day-yearly-reminder-prepared-data-loss. (Comment on this)
7:19p	The Data Centers Powering the HFT Trend High frequency trading is in the news this week, as are the data centers in northern New Jersey that serve as the technology engines powering the practice. Here’s a look at the four data centers mentioned prominently in this week’s news, along with some useful links to our coverage of low-latency trading and colocation. CenturyLink/Savvis in Weehawken: Few people had heard of high-frequency trading back in 2007, when we visited Weehawken to profile the Savvis proximity trading operation in the Digital Realty building on the banks of the Hudson. In 2010 Savvis expanded into a second building next door, which allowed it to add hundreds of additional colocation cabinets. Equinix in Secaucus - In October we brought readers inside the NY4 data center, which houses the heaviest concentration of financial trading firms. The 340,000 square foot facility is large enough to house five football fields. More than 57 miles of cabling runs through NY4 to connect servers and power equipment. Billions of packets of data speed back and forth through fiber optic cables in yellow trays, which run overhead between customer cages to connect the 450 customers housed in the data center. Check out our photo feature offering a visual guide to NY4′s infrastructure. The NYSE Liquidity Hub in Mahwah: This 400,000 square foot data center has been engineered for security, speed and reliability to support its mission as the nerve center for the NYSE”s electronic trading operations. The huge building features extremely strong access control, a substantial security perimeter, and is built to survive … well, just about anything. “It is more robust than your typical structure,” said Steve Rubinow of NYSE Euronext, who said the data center “can withstand levels of punishment – both man-made and natural – that other facilities might not withstand.” In 2011 we had one of the first media tours of the data center, and shared some of the first photos of the secretive facility. NASDAQ in Carteret: NASDAQ operates its colocation operations out of a Verizon Business facility in Carteret. We looked at the firms’ relationship in a 2009 article In 2011 we spoke with the head of NASDAQ’s technology operations about efforts to step up its data center game, including a new high-density colcoation enclosure known as the SuperCab. Some other links of interest: BATS Moving From Weehawken to Secaucus: The CBS coverage asserted that the presence of the BATS exchange in Weehawken could be used to “front-run” orders at data centers further west in New Jersey. Given that, it’s interesting that BATS will migrate its primary exchange infrastructure to one of those other data centers, Equinix NY4 in Secaucus, as part of its consolidation with Direct Edge. Spread Connects Carteret, Secaucus Trading Hubs: Spread Networks’ investment in a fiber route connecting Chicago and the NJ data centers has been cited as an indicator of the value of competitive advantage in HFT. Here’s our coverage from 2011. Wall Street Going Wireless in Bid for Ultra-Low Latency: Last year we looked at the growing interest in wireless as a way to get faster connectivity for financial customers conducting low-latency trading. Wireless can offer speed advantages over cabling, as signals can travel faster through air than fiber, and wireless transmission can allow data to move in a straighter path than fiber cabling routes. Wall Street Turns to Cloud to Address Cost, Competition:  What about the cloud? High-speed trading isn’t well suited for cloud, but Several cloud offerings have lowered the barrier to entry, while providing compelling financial considerations to go with a financial cloud service. (Comment on this)

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