Friday, September 5th, 2014

Time	Event
12:30p	SecureData 365 Becomes ByteGrid’s Largest Tenant in Cleveland ByteGrid has landed a large tenant for its Cleveland data center. SecureData 365 is expanding operations into the market, within the reemerging Cleveland Technology Center, which ByteGrid acquired last June. SecureData 365 is based in Canton, Ohio, and provides colocation, managed hosting and disaster recovery services. It will be the largest tenant in ByteGrid’s facility. The data center provider acquired the 330,000-square-foot data center property for an undisclosed amount.  The CTC was 53 percent leased at the time of the acquisition, and the initial plan was to create 30,000 square feet of enterprise-class mission-critical data center space with more than 4 megawatts of power capacity. The property is supported by redundant 20 MVA power feeds from two separate utility substations with access to additional capacity. Cleveland is a strategic location serving the Ohio corridor, bisecting major business centers of Chicago and New York. There are over one hundred Fortune 500 companies with operations in Cleveland, and a limited amount of wholesale data center supply available. The CRC sits atop one of the largest fiber points of presence in Ohio. Cleveland is also an ideal disaster recovery location for Midwest and East Coast markets. The Cleveland site fell in line with ByteGrid’s strategy of acquiring purpose-built data centers with existing anchor tenants in underserved markets. Cleveland isn’t yet a large data center market, but there are other players in town, most notably colocation provider 365 Main, which is based at the Sterling Building on the Euclid corridor. BYTEGRID already has government customers in the building and the surrounding area is rich with technology companies giving the location some appeal going forward. “SecureData is a great example of many forward-thinking Cleveland businesses taking advantage of the technology and IT outsourcing transformation Cleveland is undergoing,” said Don Goodwin, executive vice president of sales and marketing at ByteGrid.  “A rich combination of high-speed connectivity and low power costs is being leveraged by data intensive enterprises fueling Cleveland’s emergence as a premiere business destination.”  (Comment on this)
1:00p	Cisco and Red Hat Unveil Integrated Infrastructure Solution for OpenStack Cisco and Red Hat announced a new integrated infrastructure solution for OpenStack-based cloud deployments. Integrated infrastructure combines server, networking, storage and management software. Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure for Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform (UCSO) will combine Cisco Unified Computing (UCS), Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform. The Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure portfolio represents key building blocks suited to support private, public and hybrid clouds. The architecture combines the UCS servers with Nexus switching, UCS Director management and storage access for streamlined deployment of applications and cloud services. The new family of Cisco UCS Integrated Infrastructure solutions will target enterprise and mid-market customers by streamlining deployment and operation of OpenStack-based private clouds. It will also provide an on-ramp to Cisco’s Intercloud, an interconnected, global “cloud of clouds” connecting private, public and hybrid clouds. Open source continues to drive the cloud industry. Many proprietary-heavy technology companies such as VMware and Cisco are embracing OpenStack and open source in general. “As the cloud industry pivots towards open source technology, Cisco and Red Hat are expanding our relationship and accelerating collaboration around OpenStack, Application Centric Infrastructure and Intercloud,” said Padmasree Warrior, CTO and strategy officer at Cisco. The UCSO solution is expected to feature three offerings: a Starter Edition that enables quick and easy installation for enterprise private clouds, an Advanced Edition that enables rapid deployment and operation of large scale private clouds and an Advanced ACI Edition delivering policy-driven infrastructure deployment and operation for large scale clouds by utilizing Cisco ACI. The Starter Edition is expected to become generally available by the end of this year. In addition to 24×7 product support on Cisco and Red Hat components, customers will also have an option to purchase Solution Support, which will provide global 24×7 access to a team of cross-trained experts. Cisco continues to boost its UCS product family. It introduced two entirely new types of servers aimed at entirely new types of workloads to its UCS product family Thursday, billing the announcement as its most significant one since the launch of the original Cisco UCS five years ago. (Comment on this)
1:30p	Study: Facebook Data Center in North Carolina Has Massive Economic Impact Data centers have a huge economic impact on the local community, but what about Facebook’s mega-data centers? Facebook has provided economic impact studies in Sweden and Oregon, and the figures are staggering. A new study by RTI and Facebook examines the economic effects of Facebook’s data center in Forest City, North Carolina. Facebook began construction of the Forest City facility in 2011 and it went live in April 2012.  Over three years, the data center has resulted in addition of 4,700 jobs across North Carolina, including direct creation of 2,600 jobs, according to the report. The company contributed $526 million in capital spending statewide, generating $680 million in economic output. Facebook’s 2013 operations in North Carolina and the economic activity it generated are associated with more than $1 million in state and local taxes. In total, between 2011 and 2013 the data center generated a total gross economic impact of $707 million and supported 5,000 jobs across the state. For every $1 million of output resulting from direct capital expenditures, another $700,000 in output is generated elsewhere in the state. For every $1 million in value added, $1.1 million is generated elsewhere in the state. And for every 10 jobs created from direct capital expenditures, eight jobs are created elsewhere in the state. Facebook directly supported approximately $337,000 in state personal income tax collection in 2013 through the incomes of its employees. It also added $198,000 to local property tax, paid $336,000 gross receipts tax on electricity usage and $194,000 in franchise taxes to the state. There are also several other impacts such as donations to local schools, and a partnership with Forrest to provide free local Wi-Fi. Facebook has distributed around $450,000 in community action grants and other community assistance in Rutherford country to support local non-profits and organizations. “As Facebook continues its mission of connecting the world, we are proud of our role as a community partner in strengthening the Forest City region and adding to its long-term success,” wrote Kevin McCammon, site data center manager in Forest City. The company previously released an economic impact study of its Luleå, Sweden data center. In Sweden, Facebook directly created nearly 1,000 new jobs and generated local economic impact that amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars. Facebook had a similar study done for its data center site in Prineville, Oregon, by economic consultants ECONorthwest. That study, announced in May, concluded the company’s data center construction over five years had created about 650 jobs in Central Oregon and about 3,600 jobs in the state overall. (Comment on this)
3:41p	QTS to Get Tax Break on Former Chicago Sun-Times Plant Redevelopment QTS Realty Trust will see an $11.4 million property tax break to help turn recently acquired Chicago Sun-Times printing plant into one of its mega data centers, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. The company will receive the incentives over the course of twelve years. The City Council’s Committee on Economic, Capital and Technology Development approved the Class B property tax break for what will be QTS’ first Chicago facility. The company paid about $18 million for the 317,000-square-foot building that sits on 30 acres of land and is set to spend up to $500 million on redevelopment. The Sun-Times plant has been closed since 2011. QTS’ planned redevelopment plans are seen very favorably by local officials as the site has been idle. The new data center is expected to create 300 construction jobs, 80 full-time positions and 30 contract employee positions. The company continues to expand beyond its Atlanta roots, also recently buying a McGraw Hill Financial data center in East Windsor, New Jersey, for $75 million. QTS said the Chicago building could accommodate about 130,000 square feet of raised floor and 24 megawatts of power. The company’s redevelopment plans include expanding its size to accommodate about 215,000 square feet of raised floor and 37 megawatts. Chief investment officer Jeff Berson told the Sun-Times how critical the tax break is in QTS plans, stating that without it, QTS would have been forced to move elsewhere. “For major banks, major Internet companies to trust us to house their servers and all of their data, you have to provide significant infrastructure, capacity, availability,  redundancy and reliability. There’s a lot of technical aspects that go into putting this building together,” said Berson. Chicago is a data center market where supply has struggled to keep up with demand, boosting nearby suburban markets as the city’s space is occupied. The new data center will add a healthy supply. There are others also planning on adding a healthy supply to both Chicago proper and surrounding suburban markets. Other recent developments in the market include CenterPoint’s plans for a 12-story data center next door to the city’s primary Internet data hub at 350 East Cermak. Carter Validus recently acquired Ascent’s 250,000 square foot multi-tenant facility next to Microsoft’s data center in the suburban Chicago market. ByteGrid recently acquired a suburban Chicago data center from insurance company CNA (Continental Casualty Company). Other companies with new projects or expansions in suburban Chicago include DuPont Fabros Technology, Forsythe Technology, Latisys, Server Farm Realty and Continuum. (Comment on this)
4:10p	Cologix Acquires Colo5, Gains Two Florida Data Centers Cologix has acquired Colo5, a colocation and disaster recovery provider with more than 225,000 gross square feet across two Florida data centers. The acquisition expands Cologix’s footprint in Jacksonville and adds Lakeland, Florida, as its eighth market overall.  This is the ninth acquisition for Cologix. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Jacksonville is a vibrant local economy, gaining importance globally with the multiple sub-sea cables landing there directly from Central and South America. Cologix recently entered the Jacksonville market through acquiring JAX Meet Me Room. JMMR is located in the carrier hotel at 421 West Church Street in Jacksonville, Florida. JMMR is rich in connectivity and Colo5 gives the company a sizable Class 5 hurricane rated data center of 125,000 square feet nearby to complement it. The Lakeland facility has a lot of disaster recovery appeal. Lakeland is located centrally between Tampa and Orlando at an elevation of 197 feet (nearly 20 stories) above sea level.  Its elevation and proximity to major market centers make it a natural location for primary or secondary IT sites for enterprises in Tampa, Orlando and Miami. Colo5’s success in Lakeland and available capacity accelerates Cologix’s plans to expand in Florida by 18 months. “Colo5 has built a highly robust and credible set of data center operations, validated by its impressive list of growing customers,” Grant van Rooyen, president and CEO of Cologix, said. “Part of what makes this combination so attractive is the fact that the Colo5 executive team is joining the Cologix team to help steward our continued growth and investment in Florida.” “Joining the Cologix platform provides our customers key benefits that we could not have delivered as a standalone company,” Colo5 CEO Doug Recker said. Benefits of the deal for Colo5 customers include access to the Cologix meet-me-room in the carrier hotel, accelerated capital investment and seamless access to a nationwide data center footprint, he said. With this acquisition, Cologix supports more than 850 customers across its North American data center footprint, which now consists of 20 data centers.  Cologix now operates network-neutral data centers in Columbus, Dallas, Jacksonville, Lakeland, Minneapolis, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. (Comment on this)
5:00p	Friday Funny Caption Contest: Data Center Cleaning It may be September but that’s not stopping Kip and Gary from attempting to spring-clean! Let’s wash down another great week with a brand new Friday Funny. Diane Alber, the Arizona artist who created Kip and Gary, has a new cartoon for Data Center Knowledge’s cartoon caption contest. We challenge you to submit a humorous and clever caption that fits the comedic situation. Please add your entry in the comments below. Then, next week, our readers will vote for the best submission. Here’s what Diane had to say about this week’s cartoon, “Every data center needs a good cleaning every once in a while and Kip thought he would try and save some money and do it himself . . . “ Congratulations to the last cartoon winner, Anthony, who won with, “I thought you said that our power utility was the “elephant” in the room . . .” For more cartoons on DCK, see our Humor Channel. For more of Diane’s work, visit Kip and Gary’s website. (Comment on this)
6:55p	Emerson, Dell, HP, Intel Unveil Server Management Standard A group of heavyweight IT and data center vendors has teamed up to create a new standard for out-of-band hardware management to replace the 16-year-old Intelligent Platform Management Interface, which they say is outdated and not good enough to manage modern IT hardware. Intel, Dell, HP and Emerson Network Power are the founding fathers of the new standard, which they named Redfish. The standard is currently under development, awaiting formal submission for review to an industry standards body, the vendors said in a news release. Out-of-band management means management of hardware independent of the operating system, regardless of whether a machine is turned on or off. It can be used to monitor or change BIOS settings or monitor things like temperature, voltage, fans, power supplies or intrusion into chassis. The management is done through a network connection, and the system being managed has to be plugged into a power outlet. Redfish creators are planning to add in-band access to the spec in the future. Currently, it only describes out-of-band management. IPMI came out in 1998 and has been supported by all major vendors. Today, however, it has become obsolete, since it cannot adequately describe environments of modern complexity and modern server architectures. It was introduced when servers were managed by 8-bit microcontrollers. Redfish, according to its creators, is an evolution of IPMI that aims at addressing its limitations. Its RESTful API and data model are decoupled, which means each can be updated independently. It handles scale much better than IPMI does, capable of managing racks of systems as well as a single node. Redfish was also created with modern security standards in mind. A development version of the spec is already available on the Redfish website. Users can check it out and provide feedback. The next step is to submit the specification to the Distributed Management Task Force, an industry body charged with development, validation and promotion of IT infrastructure management standards. (Comment on this)

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