Friday, August 19th, 2016

Time	Event
12:00p	Can Space Weather Kill the Cloud? Last year, when he learned about the potential of a strong electromagnetic pulse from the sky doing real damage to electrical infrastructure, Rich Banta stopped what was then an early-stage data center project his company was doing. The design was complete, and construction was about to commence. But Banta now wanted to redesign the facility to protect it from an EMP (in the jargon of the electromagnetic pulse community), caused by space weather or human wrongdoers. The new design added about 60 percent to the project’s cost and extended its timeline by about 12 months. “Not a game,” he says. Danger from Above The EMP community isn’t large, but it consists of scientists, government workers, elected officials, and private-sector people who are concerned that a geomagnetic storm like the one in 1921 could badly damage the nation’s infrastructure if it was to happen today. To put it in perspective, that storm was ten times stronger than the 1989 geomagnetic storm that left 6 million people in Quebec without power. We depend a lot more on electricity than we did in 1921 of course, and all the key layers of social infrastructure are more interconnected today than ever. In a NASA-funded study, a group of researchers predicted that currents from a storm of similar magnitude could take out power systems in their entirety throughout the Pacific Northwest, nearly all of East Coast, and much of the Midwest. The blackouts would quickly interrupt water distribution, destroy any supplies of perishable foods and medications, heating and air conditioning, sewage disposal, fuel re-supply, etc. “The concept of interdependency is evident in the unavailability of water due to long-term outage of electric power – and the inability to restart an electric generator without water on site,” they wrote. Another big thing we increasingly depend on would probably go down too: the Cloud. Some of the biggest clusters of Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google data centers are located within the two “areas of probable power system collapse” described by the researchers: You can spend a lot of time arguing whether those cloud data centers should be considered critical infrastructure, but even if you don’t think they should, data centers that support emergency services, hospitals, utilities, defense facilities, and big financial institutions are undeniably critical. Want to learn more about the potential EMP threat to the data center industry and the latest US legislative efforts to address it? Go deep into this issue with Banta and a panel of experts, including Texas Senator Bob Hall, at the Data Center World conference in September in New Orleans. Register for Data Center World today! Besides EMP caused by space weather, when solar wind or a coronal mass ejection from the Sun reaches and disturbs the Earth’s magnetosphere, it is now possible for an unfriendly nation state to implement a targeted EMP attack on one or more pieces of critical infrastructure. While there are no documented cases of such attacks, they are technologically possible. Some argue, however, that a cyberattack is a much easier way for a country to disrupt an enemy’s infrastructure, therefore an EMP attack is unlikely. Lifeline Not Taking Chances with EMP It is nearly impossible to retrofit an existing facility to protect it from EMP, Banta says, so Lifeline Data Centers, a company he co-founded, is building a data center in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that will be protected from the ground up. There are two main design features that provide the protection: the entire building, as well as its backup generators and HVAC systems, will be encased in metal, and incoming power lines will have specialized filters, designed specifically to withstand the kind of rapid power surge that an EMP may produce. Lifeline specializes in data center services for customers with high security and compliance requirements, such as federal agencies and medical institutions, which helps explain the willingness to spend extra on protecting the new facility from an EMP. “Our niche markets are people with extremely high cost of downtime,” Banta says. Will Government Take EMP Threat More Seriously? Banta collaborates regularly with a group of people who lobby the federal government to do more to protect the US national electrical grid from EMP. A Senate bill introduced last year, called the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, may be a beginning, since it addresses the EMP threat but in a way he feels is too vague. A bill to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002, it simply notes that EMP is something that needs to be researched further, Banta says. A Senate committee recommended that the bill (S. 1846) be considered further by the full chamber about one year ago, and there has been no legislative action on it since. Banta hopes some more specific EMP language gets included as it makes its way through the lawmaking process. He has met few moderates on the issue of whether EMP is a serious threat – people in government are either involved in pushing the issue forward or completely apathetic, he says. He’s not holding his breath for a lot of enthusiastic support in the government at this point, so his mission today is simply to inform. “They think we’re running around with foil wrapped around our heads,” he says about the apathetic types. “That’s not the case. We’re not tin-foil [hat] type of guys; we’re pretty pragmatic.” Want to learn more about the potential EMP threat to the data center industry and the latest US legislative efforts to address it? Go deep into this issue with Banta and a panel of experts, including Texas Senator Bob Hall, at the Data Center World conference in September in New Orleans. Register for Data Center World today! (Comment on this)
3:00p	Utah, New Mexico Vie for Facebook Data Center In recent weeks, state and local governments in Utah and New Mexico have been holding hearings on tax breaks, government bonds, and large-scale renewable energy projects as they compete with each other to attract a big Facebook data center construction project, according to local news reports. The social networking giant hasn’t committed to building in either state at this point. The company may still decide to build its next data center outside of either of the two states, or it may decide not to build the facility at this time at all. Facebook and other web-scale data center operators need to expand capacity constantly, so exploring various location options is a never-ending process for their infrastructure teams. The point of filing paperwork and negotiating with governments in multiple places well ahead of making a decision is to have as much groundwork done as possible when the decision is made, so construction crews can break ground as soon as possible. Several developments this week illustrate how strong the competition is between New Mexico and Utah for the potential project. On Wednesday, New Mexico’s energy regulators voted to approve a services contract for a massive solar energy development that would supply the potential data center. Utah energy officials approved a renewable energy plan Thursday. While Salt Lake County officials indicated on Tuesday they would unanimously vote against offering Facebook $260 million in tax breaks for the project, they only have two out of eight votes on the multi-agency taxing committee that will make the tax-break decision, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. In Utah, the company is reportedly exploring a potential build in West Jordan. The town is already home to an Oracle data center, and eBay has built a data center in nearby South Jordan. It’s unclear where the site or sites Facebook is evaluating in New Mexico are, but officials in the village of Los Lunas have approved industrial revenue bonds for a data center, according to Albuquerque Journal. (Comment on this)
6:16p	Don’t Let Brexit Choke Internet Traffic With EU, Operators Urge (Bloomberg) — When consumers across the European Union go shopping online, their credit-card details and other personal information often zip across borders to giant data centers in the UK. Telecommunications and technology companies, worried that the country’s vote to leave the EU could block digital traffic and stifle a fast-growing part of the British economy, are urging the UK government to negotiate a Brexit deal that keeps Internet borders open. “Tech companies and data center operators are looking for assurances from the government that legal certainties on data flows between the UK and the EU will be a priority in forthcoming negotiations,” said Charlotte Holloway, policy director for Brexit matters at TechUK, an industry group that represents about 900 companies, including BT Group, Vodafone Group and IBM. [DCK: TechUK’s membership also includes some of Europe’s biggest data center providers, such as Equinix, Interxion, and Digital Realty.] The outcome of the talks is crucial because the UK houses about 500 server farms, representing almost 43 percent of data center capacity in Europe’s four biggest digital hubs — Germany, France, the Netherlands and the UK — according to data supplied by TechUK. The centers support a service sector that makes up 80 percent of the British economy. See also: US Data Center Giants in Europe — the Brexit Effect Looking Abroad If data-protection rules diverge after Brexit, UK data center owners might have to move inside the bloc to be able to operate under its privacy laws. The EU and UK also might have to negotiate a separate data-protection agreement. Industry officials call this a worst-case scenario because it could prompt drawn-out legal challenges from EU privacy activists. Campaigners last year persuaded the EU Court of Justice that a US-EU data-transfer agreement called Safe Harbor didn’t protect EU citizens from US government spying. They’ve vowed to fight a new deal struck in July, called Privacy Shield, and are looking at Brexit as an opportunity to challenge the UK’s national-security data collection program, too. “Who knows what we’ll be dealing with in three to four years’ time,” said Alexander Whalen, senior policy manager at tech industry lobbying group DigitalEurope. “We could be facing disruptions to transfer mechanisms.” The UK could avoid ruptures in digital trade by remaining a member of the European Economic Area — like Iceland and Norway, which aren’t part of the EU but follow its privacy laws. That could upset anti-EU groups in the UK, which have called for a cleaner break. “If the UK decide not to remain within the EEA and if they lower their data-protection standards, then the situation would be different,” said Patrick Breyer, a lawmaker in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein who was involved in challenging U.S.-EU data agreements. Bargaining Chip The talks on data could influence the broader Brexit negotiations by giving the EU a bargaining chip. “The EU could use data flows, which are hugely important to the UK, as leverage in other parts of the talks, like trade or financial establishment,” said Quentin Archer, a technology consultant at law firm Hogan Lovells in London. Archer said UK telecommunications and cloud-storage providers are pressing Prime Minister Theresa May and her cabinet to keep the UK within the EU’s data-protection rules. May’s government hasn’t said yet whether it will apply a new package of EU privacy measures known as the General Data Protection Regulation. “The government will work hard to get the best deal for Britain following the referendum result and we will set out further detail in due course,” the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport said in a statement. This uncertainty could cause UK companies to move data processing or storage to other EU countries ahead of the Brexit talks to avoid disruptions, said Ross Anderson, chairman of the Foundation for Information Policy Research, which studies the interaction between technology and society. While larger companies should be able to shoulder the cost, the extra expense could put UK startups out of business, he said. “It already takes more capital to do a start-up in Cambridge, England, than in Cambridge, Massachusetts,” Anderson said. Instead of cutting ties, Brexit could increase the EU’s influence over UK companies on data-protection matters. That’s because the Information Commissioner’s Office, which currently enforces European data privacy rules in the UK, might lose its status as an EU regulator after the country leaves the bloc. As a result, British companies dealing with EU data might find themselves overseen directly by the European Commission in Brussels, said Douwe Korff, a professor of international law at London Metropolitan University. Single Market BT and Vodafone are also pressing the UK to enact the EU’s digital single market plan — a package of EU laws aimed at cutting mobile roaming rates, shipping costs and restrictions on cross-border e-commerce, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. EU officials said it was too early to comment on any negotiations. The UK has yet to trigger the official two-year notice period for leaving the bloc. “From our point of view, nothing has changed,” said Daniel Kitscha, assistant to the director of the EU’s telecommunications directorate. “The UK is still a member of the EU.” (Comment on this)
7:29p	Pentagon Has a New Data Center Consolidation Plan The US Department of Defense, possibly the world’s largest data center operator, has announced a new approach to data center consolidation, following a report by a government watchdog several months ago that pointed out the department’s failure to meet earlier consolidation goals and cut costs. Besides cost savings, having an optimized and up-to-date IT infrastructure means a more able military, as the DoD’s new IT strategy plan, published Thursday, points out. In addition to data center consolidation, it calls for building the department’s own cloud computing environment and lays out six other goals. In March, the Defense Department inspector general released a report that said the department had closed about 570 of its 3,000-plus data centers by the end of fiscal 2015. The DoD had closed 18 percent of its data centers, failing to meet the government-wide target of shutting down 40 percent of agencies’ data centers by that time. See also: White House Orders Federal Data Center Construction Freeze The report blamed DoD CIO Terry Halvorsen for the department’s failure to meet the government’s data center consolidation goals, according to The Wall Street Journal. Had the goal been reached, the department would have saved $680 million last year, the report said, recommending that the department’s consolidation strategy be revised. Halvorsen’s new plan calls for establishment of a data center closure team, which would identify the “costliest and least efficient facilities” and recommend them for closure. The plan’s two main data center objectives are to consolidate DoD data centers and local computing infrastructure and to rationalize applications and systems for migration into core data centers. The plan also calls for establishment of an on-premise hybrid cloud, so the DoD’s operations are supported with a less complex, less costly, more agile, and defensible IT environment. Halvortsen wants the cloud to provide shared enterprise IT services to the department’s agencies and accelerate new application and service delivery. See also: Defense Department Warming to Commercial Cloud Services The DoD’s total IT budget exceeded $36 billion in fiscal 2015. Its IT assets include data centers, tens of thousands of servers, about ten thousand operational systems, millions of computers and IT devices, and hundreds of thousands of commercial mobile devices, according to the document outlining the new IT strategy. The DoD’s IT and cyber team includes technology leaders from numerous military agencies, including Military Services, Strategic Command, Cyber Command, the National Security Agency, and the Defense Information Systems Agency. (Comment on this)

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