Monday, June 8th, 2015

Time	Event
12:00p	Bitcoin Data Center Construction Marches On, Despite Low Value Following a quarter of relatively low but steady bitcoin value, companies that operate large-scale bitcoin mining data centers are expanding their infrastructure. BitFury, one of the world’s biggest bitcoin mining companies, has purchased land in the Republic of Georgia, where it plans to build a huge data center to host its mining hardware. KnCMiner, another heavyweight in the space, has bought land in its homeland Sweden for similar purposes. Both companies make bitcoin hardware and provide data center space for it. KnCMiner’s new properties are adjacent to its two data centers in the north of Sweden. The company plans to build several data centers on that real estate and expects to bring the first one online in September. The two-story facility will provide 18,000 square feet of space for mining gear. Fully Liquid-Cooled Bitcoin Data Center The future Tbilisi facility will be BitFury’s second data center in the former Soviet Republic. It will be its first, however, built after its acquisition of Allied Control, a Hong Kong maker of ultra-efficient cooling systems that submerge IT hardware into dielectric fluid. The data center in Georgia will take full advantage of Allied Control’s technology, which can potentially lower the cost of operating the massive data center and help grow BitFury’s business margins. Surviving Bitcoin Market’s Choppy Waters Margins across the bitcoin mining sector shrunk significantly last year when the digital currency’s value went from a high of about $1,100 to about $230. The cryptocurrency has not since regained its former exorbitant value; it has, however, remained fairly steady since early this year. Data centers that house bitcoin hardware are different from traditional mission-critical facilities. Mining cryptocurrency doesn’t require as much uptime as running corporate business applications or internet services, and companies that own mining hardware aren’t willing to pay for advanced high-availability data centers. Much of the build-out of data center capacity dedicated to bitcoin hardware has been done by the mining companies themselves. Some commercial data center providers have managed to craft offerings that were attractive to these customers, but with varying degrees of success. A mining company called CoinTerra took colocation space with C7 Data Centers and with CenturyLink. It appeared early this year that CoinTerra was unable to pay its bills to C7 – reportedly because of the drop in bitcoin value – and filed for bankruptcy following a legal fight with the data center provider. Building in the Republic of Georgia Power capacity of BitFury’s future Tbilisi data center will be about 100 megawatts, according to the company. It will house its 28-nanometer and the next-generation 16-nanometer bitcoin mining ASICs. Georgia is not known to be a prime data center location, so the company’s decision to build there is unusual. BitFury execs weren’t available for comment. One of its investors, however, is the Georgian Co-Investment Fund, a $6 billion private equity investor in companies interested in business opportunities in the country. BitFury’s vice chairman of the board, George Kikvadze, is the fund’s managing director. The company developed its first data center in Georgia, in the City of Gori, also in collaboration with the fund. BitFury’s head of data center construction, Akaki Paitchadze, owns ICES, a large Georgian construction company which reportedly built the US embassy in the country. In a statement, BitFury said Georgia offered low energy costs, a competitive labor market, an attractive investment climate, and was generally an easy place to conduct business. The company also has a data center in Iceland. (Comment on this)
3:30p	Transforming Enterprise IT: Enabling the Shift from Defense to Offense Ron Dupler is the CEO of GreenPages. There’s a saying in football: Defense wins championships, which implies that beyond the flash of the high-powered, record-setting, aerial attacks currently in vogue in the NFL, that the teams that possess the discipline to build solid defensive teams are the ones best positioned to capture the prize in the end. While I have traditionally agreed with a certain aspect of this mentality, there are a couple recent examples – from the NFL and from today’s business environment – that challenge the conventional wisdom supporting that statement. First off, as it relates to the NFL, Tom Brady now has four Super Bowl rings, and I don’t ever remember seeing him make a tackle (at least not a very good one). Second, when you look at today’s broader business climate and think about the disruption occurring across several industries, it’s pretty clear that the companies that are agile enough to strategically deploy advanced technologies as an offensive weapon are the ones taking their industries by storm. As a result, it relegates time-honored companies and brands to succumb to reactive, defensive strategies. Disrupt Or Be Disrupted With each day’s latest business headlines we learn of new “start-up” companies that are finding new ways to compete in what was once a mature market. You know the names: Uber and Airbnb. These companies have found a way to leverage advanced technologies as a strategic weapon and were able to completely turn existing industries on their heads without even owning cabs or hotels, respectively. How’d they do it? They were agile enough from a business standpoint to understand the disruptive force that technology can play, and they were fortunate enough not to be encumbered by existing infrastructure, policies and procedures. While these companies clearly were smart and innovative, they were also fortunate – they had a blank slate and could start from scratch with an offensive game plan capable of delivering value to customers in new ways. Examples like this are clear signs that the world around us is changing dramatically. In almost every sector, industries and value chains are being disrupted, forcing business leaders to consider their own playbooks. Do they play defense by responding to the disruption, or do they go on offense and seize the opportunity to become the disruptor by deploying potentially game-changing technologies. To me, it has become obvious that the need for business agility and organizational innovation has never been greater. How Did We Get Here? With all this disruption affecting respected companies full of smart people, it begs the question, how did this happen? From a technology perspective, the truth is that this shift is the result of an evolutionary approach to IT that just wasn’t fast enough. Business leaders and IT departments have known that they need to embrace “new world” models and advanced architectures. However, with increasingly silohed organizations and competing business priorities, many were happy to take the evolutionary path, when the path their companies really needed them to be on was the revolutionary one. It’s also the result of outdated legacy platforms that were just not designed to meet today’s needs and a lack of business innovation where people became comfortable with the present mode, without continually looking for a better way. So, its not just a technology problem, it’s also a people and process problem as well. Where Do We Go From Here? The solution lies in finding an accelerated approach to embracing new world, modern IT architectures and service delivery models that enable business agility and innovation. As a starting point to achieving this agility, organizations need to deploy the types of new IT platforms that are capable of truly transforming the business. Beyond that, they need to think about the strategic needs of the business, and to ensure there is consensus and alignment with all functional areas of the business – especially IT. Coming from someone who has seen their share of migrations, there are few companies capable of completing such a strategic undertaking alone. Having an outside perspective is useful in avoiding the pitfalls of politics, pride and process. It also helps if that outside perspective has a wealth of expertise deploying advanced virtualization and cloud solutions capable of getting the organization to the “new world.” When selecting a partner to assist with this type of strategic effort, enterprises should look for a company that has the type of expertise that will allow them to start from scratch and who will lead discussions around “what could be” in terms of supporting your strategic business objectives. I think you will find that true transformation truly is possible when you take the time to define the ideal environment that includes how the infrastructure, people and process will align as part of that. It may seem like a lot of work, but by going on the offensive with this type of approach your organization stands a much better chance of being the one hoisting the trophy at the end. 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)
5:13p	ByteGrid Expands Cleveland Data Center ByteGrid has commissioned 45,000 square feet of new data center space and 4 megawatts of power in a technology center in downtown Cleveland. ByteGrid acquired the Cleveland Technology Center in 2013, following news it had secured a $100 million credit facility. The CTC is a 330,000-square-foot data center property sitting atop one of the larger fiber points of presence sites in Ohio. Acting as a carrier hotel in the region, the CTC was half leased at the time of acquisition. In less than four months, ByteGrid renovated the Cleveland data center, which now encompasses 26,000 square feet of new high-density raised floor. The company also completed 19,000 square feet of conditioned space for mechanical, electrical, and power equipment, and new office space as well. ByteGrid is building out the facility incrementally and said it will soon build an additional 30,000 square feet to address demand. Tracey Nichols, director of Cleveland Economic Development, said ByteGrid investing in the center was big opportunity for the city. “We have a very large medical tech community here in Cleveland, and Big Data is a huge component of that,” said Nichols. Cleveland data center demand is on the rise, according to the economic development official. The city has a large number of businesses, including law firms, accounting firms and banks, and the needs continue to grow. “We have a couple of great data centers, but demand is greater than what we have,” she said. “Data centers will encourage more businesses to come to Cleveland as well.” Why Cleveland? The city has had its difficulties, as any reader of Harvey Pekar can tell you. It also has its charm, as those same readers will tell you, and is currently undergoing a re-birth of sorts. Regarding the city as a data center location, Cleveland is strategic to serving the Ohio corridor, bisecting major business centers of Chicago and New York. There are over 100 Fortune 500 companies with operations in Cleveland. The city is also a data center-friendly environment. There are very few “business interruption” days in the city, said Nichols, generous tax breaks, including a state tax abatement for equipment, which lowers both ByteGrid’s and its customers’ cost. There is also a 100 GB network coming in, which ByteGrid will tap. The announcement is an example of ongoing activity in Ohio’s data center markets, ranging from mega data center projects by Amazon to local managed services rollups, such as Involta’s recent acquisition of Data Recovery Services. In a venture called the Foundry Project, a group of entrepreneurs is pitching a unique combination of fish farm and data center in Ohio as well. (Comment on this)
5:34p	Canara Launches Data Center Facilities Management Business for SMBs Canara, provider of predictive monitoring and analytics for data center power backup systems has launched a critical facilities services business. The offering, called CFS, is a scalable framework of consulting and operations management services for owners of small to medium-size facilities. Several data center providers have started facilities management practices in the last year or so, including QTS Realty, Vantage Data Centers and T5, which was hired to manage Skybox’s data center in Texas. Those practices target the larger enterprise or web-scale player data center, whereas Canara’s offering is for small and mid-size regional players. CFS is a logical extension of what Canara already does, said Tom Mertz, the company’s CEO. “It’s always been part of our vision,” he said. “when you’re doing predictive analytics already, and when you’re already a service provider doing maintenance work in the data center today, it’s a natural progression.” Canara will tie its analytics with the new services piece, meaning it will not only provide day-to-day maintenance but also predictive intelligence. Canara knows batteries, which are often the fault in data center outages when they don’t kick in as expected. Leveraging over 20 years of battery data for its complex algorithms, the San Rafael, California-based company’s devices continuously analyze data center backup batteries to predict when they are going to die, helping avoid unexpected battery failure. The value proposition is risk mitigation, higher efficiency, and more reliable backup power systems. CFS extends Canara from prediction to wider facility management. Canara can maintain the UPS, mechanical and fire suppression systems and all the vendors underneath. It manages the process, scheduling, and documentation, and can physically staff a data center if needed. Canara CFS is offering both a la carte and turnkey services. Customers can choose from a menu of services to solve a particular vulnerability, or take a full service option called Canara Critical, to outsource the management of their entire facility. Customers can transition from a la carte to Canara Critical over time. Canara is targeting regional players, not large enterprises or social media companies often targeted by facilities management practices. It will act as an outsourced facilities director in the mid market, a market that often doesn’t have the resources around facilities management available. “The head of IT is often in charge of physical maintenance and might not have an engineering team,” said Mertz. “We become an extension, organizing the service levels in the facility.” The goal is offering flexible solutions for the mid-market instead of all-inclusive long-term engagements typically required for facilities management contracts, according to the company. Mertz said that CFS is seeing very promising early traction and to expect new customer engagement news in the next 90 days or so. Mertz was formerly with QTS and joined Canara as CEO in June 2014. The company raised over $4 million the following month. While it feels like a startup due to new management and new money, it has a rich history in terms of collecting data and predicting trends. Mertz said that predictive analytics is gaining a lot of traction in the data center market. (Comment on this)
7:25p	Alibaba’s Cloud Arm Aliyun Launches Partnership Program to Expand Global Reach This article originally appeared at The WHIR Alibaba Group’s cloud computing division Aliyun has launched a partnership program called the Marketplace Alliance Program (MAP) to expand its international reach and offer localized cloud services. Announced on Sunday, the program will see Aliyun partner with enterprises in different regions to provide localized hybrid cloud services. Hybrid cloud adoption is set to triple over the next three years, according to a recent report by Peer 1 Hosting, and programs like Aliyun’s MAP will help support this adoption. Initial program partners include Intel, Singtel in Singapore, Equinix and French hosting and cloud services companies PCCW and LINKBYNET. Dubai holding company Meraas is also part of the program. Aliyun announced its joint venture with Meraas last month. “The new Aliyun program is designed to bring our customers the best cloud computing solutions by partnering with some of the most respected technology brands in the world. We will continue to bring more partners online to grow our cloud computing ecosystem,” Sicheng (Ethan) YU, vice president, Aliyun said in a statement. As of last June, Aliyun said it served more than 1.4 million customers directly and indirectly through independent service providers. The MAP will certainly help it expand this footprint. “As one of the first global partners of Aliyun, Singtel will offer our customers even more choices in cloud infrastructure platforms in China and around the world,” Lim Seng Kong, Singtel’s managing director (Global Enterprise Business) stated. “With Singtel’s strong Managed Cloud services capabilities, extensive customer reach and strong suite of information and communications technology services, we can also provide the springboard for Aliyun to grow its footprint in the Asia-Pacific, which is one of the fastest growing markets for cloud services.” The new program comes as Alibaba CEO Jack Ma is traveling to lure US companies and convince them that it can take on Amazon, according to a report by WHIR sister site Talkin’ Cloud. This first ran at http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/alibabas-cloud-arm-aliyun-launches-partnership-program-to-expand-global-reach (Comment on this)
10:12p	Report: Apple Rethinking Data Center Strategy To improve performance of services like its music streaming offering announced this week, Apple is changing its approach to data center infrastructure. The company is building its own long-haul network to transport traffic between its US data centers and increasing its use of customized commodity hardware as opposed to off-the-shelf IT products, Bloomberg reported citing anonymous sources. Web-services giants like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft have been known to optimize data center infrastructure by designing their own hardware and having it produced by original design manufacturers, such as Taiwanese companies Quanta and Foxconn, as well as “incumbent” suppliers like Dell and HP. Apple has kept its approach to building out infrastructure to support its online services under wraps, but the report suggests it has been using more traditional off-the-shelf hardware. Earlier this year Apple officially joined the Open Compute Project, the open source hardware and data center design community spearheaded by Facebook. The company had reportedly been involved with OCP for a long time, but joined officially only in March. One of the pieces of hardware Apple is looking to use in its future data centers, according to Bloomberg’s sources, is a network switch by Quanta running a Linux-based operating system by Cumulus Networks, a startup founded to enable growth of the commodity network hardware ecosystem by providing stand-alone software that can run on any switch that’s not a proprietary box incumbents like Cisco, Juniper, and HP have traditionally sold. Owning the network that connects its data centers will give Apple more control over the quality of services it delivers to its customers than it has now, using network-carrier services. The company owns four data center campuses in the US (in California, Nevada, Oregon, and North Carolina) and leases multiple facilities. Earlier this year it announced plans to build data centers in Ireland and Denmark in a project expected to cost about $1.9 billion. (Comment on this)

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