Superb Intnernet Hosting - New Virginia Data Center

Superb Internet announced the opening of a new data center today, located in Springfield, Virginia. DCA3 compliments its two existing data centers in McLean, VA and Seattle, WA. The new facility will facilitate a continued strong demand for data center space and they will offer dedicated servers as well as colocation services.

Check out the press release here.

SGI/Rackable ICECube Deployment Video

SGI/Rackable has some new media on their site for the ICE Cube Modular Data Center. I think this container has been one of my favorites ever since I saw it at a DataCenter World conference. It is really pretty unique in the container market -- if you get SGI servers inside. They take the fans out of the servers and are able to get amazing density: 1400U of available space and up to 22,400 processing cores. If you haven't seen inside of an ICE Cube - check out this video.

Check out this page on their site for a new product video, plus a nice white paper about their "Next Generation Data Center Infrastructure".

The Greenest Supercomputer

SGI performed quite well in the semi-annual ranking of the world's TOP500 Supercomputer sites this past June. They had the #4 supercomputer -- the Pleiades - Altix ICE 8200EX at the NASA/Ames Research Center. Although not an official award, they also were heralded as the industry's "greenest" supercomputer, as measured by performance efficiency.

Performance efficiency, or “LINPACK efficiency,” measures the ratio between maximum performance (RMax) and peak performance (RPeak). SGI dominated this new category with 12 of the 20 most performance-efficient supercomputers in the world."

Additionally the SGI Altix ICE cluster is the first time that an x86 scalar-based system outperformed vector-based systems.

Last week SGI/Rackable announced their x86 scale-out servers to support both on-board Quad Data Rate 40Gb InfiniBand and 10Gb Ethernet connections.

"The features of the expanded Rackable x86 server lines include dual QSFP InfiniBand/Ethernet ports at up to 40 Gb/s (gigabits-per-second), Intel Xeon 5500 series "Nehalem" processors, including the top-bin W5580 running at 3.2 GHz, and large memory capability with up to 96 GB (gigabytes) of ECC registered DDR3 DIMMs. It is also power optimized with over 90 percent voltage regulator module efficiency on the server board, which perfectly complements SGI’s up-to-96.5 percent-efficient power supplies."

96GB of memory! One of the things that made me such a fan of SGI was a computer I saw in 1994; a SGI with 4GB of memory (which was a TON back then). It ran a flight simulator that looked Amazing.....

Tech Industry M&A Activity

It's always fun to speculate about IPO's, mergers and acquisitions. In the tech industry it happens so often it's hard to keep track of who bought who and how long ago it was.

My current train of thought on the topic surrounded the recent news of CoreSite. CoreSite is a Carlyle Group company, which as I mentioned before is a HUGE global private equity company. I wondered if CoreSite would do an IPO in the near future. Carlyle invested in Equinix in 1999 -- their site says "acquired" in 1999. Equinix then raised $240 Million in their IPO a year later.

Some other interesting ones I have seen a few times:

• Savvis and Global Crossing

• Level 3 and Spint Nextel?

With all of the news Cisco has made lately, there could be some acquisitions by the other big players to get deeper into the networking market:

• Either IBM or HP to buy Juniper or Brocade ?

I refuse to believe that Cisco would buy EMC, but do think they could/should buy NetApp. Or maybe Isilon Systems?

Either HP or Cisco could by F5

All speculation -- but the tech industry M&A activity does seem to be picking up.

CoreSite Prepares 20,000 sq. ft In Their Chicago Data Center

I've always been pretty impressed with CoreSite (formerly CRG West). They've been a solid company, in the data center business for quite some time, and they stay innovative. A few months back they announced a partnership with Verari and the FOREST containers. Recently they re-branded to CoreSite, a Carlyle Company. I remember many years ago asking my boss who the Carlyle Group was, and he answered something like " a H U G E global private equity firm." Today Carlyle announced $1.04 Billion to support high growth in Asian businesses.

Once again proving Chicago to be a hot data center market, CoreSite announced today the completion of 20k square feet of new space at the downtown Chicago data center. The space provides 2MWs of power and immediate occupancy. The Lasalle site offers low latency and direct connectivity to major financial exchanges as well as multiple domestic and international carriers.

Equinix Wins Engergy Innovator Award

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group Energy Summit, held yesterday, gave Equinix the Power Energy Innovator Award. The ceremony held at Stanford recognized their nearly $1 million in rebates received from the city of Santa Clara for energy efficiency measures implemented. Equinix optimized efficiencies at its Silicon Valley 2 (SV2) data center.

"As a part of Equinix’s expansion at its SV2 center, the company implemented a variety of efficient procedures, such as installing air-side economizers that use the outside air to provide “free cooling” and drastically reduce the amount of mechanically produced cold air needed for the center. This system has resulted in energy savings of more than 4,000,000 kWh and $300,000 per year. Equinix also installed variable frequency drive (VFD) fans that allow for greater efficiency by operating at reduced fan speeds when there is a lower demand for air distribution."

Check out the press release here.

Equinix stock has done quite well the last 3 months, starting at $55.67 March 30th and then closing up 3.66 at $72.74 today. Analysts at Morgan Joseph initiated coverage of Equinix with a 'buy' rating, and set a target price of $100.

Wikinvest has some nice new features on their site -- worth a look!

Flash Player 9 or higher is required to view the chart
Click here to download Flash Player now

View the full EQIX chart at Wikinvest

Broadband Conduit Deployment Act of 2009

The Broadband Conduit Deployment Act of 2009, or H.R. 2428, would "require many of the so-called 'shovel-ready' projects funded by the stimulus bill earlier this year to also lay conduits capable of carrying fiber optic cables." Two Democratic Senators announced a measure today that would require states to build 'tubes' for internet fiber optic cables under every bit of highway they build or modify with with federal funds.

Check out the Wired.com article here

Data Centers In The Desert

Forbes has a very nice article on i/o Data Centers - the cool company in the hot Phoenix desert. They interview President Anthony Wanger and ask why the Phoenix area has been such a hot bed of activity for corporate data centers and i/o Data Centers growth.

Check out the article here

Phoenix NAP

A 160k square foot retrofit will be the home of the first data center for Global Datacenter Trust. The company announced ground breaking for the facility, dubbed Phoenix NAP on Thursday. The facility will have more than 20 megawatts of power, 2N redundancy all the way back to the substation, a 3000 sq. ft meet-me room, and modular chilled water plants.

Although this is the first data center for GDCT -- they are a private equity firm made up of operational, networking and management professionals that have worked in the industry since the 1990's. "the difference" as they claim, is ping, power, pipe and people.

Check out their web site here and a Phoenix Business Journal article here

The facility is located just south of the airport in Phoenix, Arizona.

View Larger Map

Testing Cisco's Media-Centric Data Center

Lightreading.com has an excellent article about the tests they ran against Cisco IP video infrastructure, applications, and data. The report is broken out into the various areas and equipment, and disects the claims that Cisco makes on their hardware and software.

Storage Area Networks

Unified Fabric

Virtual Machine Relocation

Data Center Convergence

In-Service Software Upgrade

Control Plane Failover

Check out the report here

Tech Innovations Cool Data Centers

The Environmental Leader site has a nice story on data center cooling methods. The main part of the article talks about the GlaxoSmithKline data center in Brentford, UK that installed a water chiller cooled by the Grand Union Canal that runs along side the building.

The article also discusses Sentialla's Energy Manager For Data Centers. Very interesting read -- check it out here.

Cisco and Duke Energy Partner for Smart Grid Development

Cisco and Duke Energy announced a partnership today to fast-track the development of Duke Energy's smart grid. Duke serves 11 million people over 5 states and later this year will launch a five year mass deployment of smart grid technology.

"Cisco, working closely with Duke Energy, will develop a highly refined, end-to-end, smart grid communications architecture – one that both companies believe will be among the most comprehensive and interoperable in the electric utility industry."

Check out the press release here.

New Cisco Data Center For Allen, Texas

Cisco announced today that they will build a 140,000 - 160,000 square foot data center in Allen, Texas. The facility is reported to cost $500 Million, employ 100 people and (wait for it....) Cisco will receive tax incentives. Cisco stock closed up 1.06% today at $20.08

The Allen Economic Development Corporation has a nice report on the the Data Center proposal for the Stacy Road location that Cisco is most likely building on. Good power, fiber connectivity and financial incentives = data center site selection. The local utility for this area, Oncor announced last week that the "World's largest concentration of smart grid voltage compensation equipment placed in service by Oncor".

Allen Texas is about 25 miles north of downtown Dallas. There is also a sizable Cingular data center just a little bit south of the Cisco site in Allen.

Check out the press release here

Here is a map of the Allen, Texas data center site

View Larger Map

Qwest Nixes Plans To Sell Long-Haul Network

At an estimated value of around $4 Billion Qwest announced today confirming that they will not be selling their long-haul network. I have to agree with the Telecom Ramblings blog in that this was just a trial and if they didn't like the bids today, it won't stop them from reconsidering an offer later in the year.

Check out the Qwest Press Release here

There is a nice history lesson of the 1984 AT&T break-up and the resulting baby bells on the Wikinvest site.

Flash Player 9 or higher is required to view the chart
Click here to download Flash Player now

View the full NYSE:Q chart at Wikinvest

Northern Indiana - Latest High-Tech Hub

Like I was saying in my last post -- the data center news is getting predictable:

____insert city name here____ is poised to become a high-tech hub, thanks to a change in state law that allows __________.

This time around: Northern Inidana, where they have passed a law that allows for personal property tax exemptions on data center equipment. The announcement is complete with benefits for Metronet, a quote from EYP Critical Facilities Servcies, and a the Senator who authored the bill.

Colocation and managed service provider Gramtel is located in South Bend, Indiana. Gramtel was acquired by Cincinnati Bell in January 2008.

It just shows how the data center industry continues to be a hot business and states are foaming at the mouth to get that business to locate in their state.

Check out the press release here.

I meant to mention this a few weeks back, but if you haven't checked out datacentermap.com lately ......CHECK it out! Sune has been busy on this site and the additions (since the last time I had seen it) are really cool. There are data center profiles, maps, tenants, connectivity and more!

North Carolina Passes Tax Code for Apple

Get ready for the shocking news... :) NC House passes tax code that could bring Apple data center. It seems like these mega data center announcements are pretty cookie-cutter as far as 'how' the deal goes down. Months and months of stealth mode, a "leak" of information, tax breaks written for data center "companies" and so on. The funny thing in this arstechnica article is that "the bill isn't tied to any particular company" and then a little later... "those conditions include investing $1 Billion dollars". :)

The Cliff Notes:

1. $1 Billion data center
2. 100 full time staff members initially
3. up to $46 Million in tax credits over the next 10 years
4. could save Apple $300 Million if the company operated the data center for 30 years

Check out the article here.

i/o Data Centers To Offer ICE Cube Modular Data Center

I have followed i/o Data Centers for a while now. Today I ran across a press release that furthers my theory about containers and the colocation market, as well as supporting the overall container momentum.

SGI / Rackable announced that it recently shipped its ICE Cube modular data center to i/o Data Centers to address clients' evolving data center needs. The press release is about 95% marketing and specs on the ICE Cube, so I have to wonder what exactly i/o is going to do with the containers other than 'offer' them to customers. Still -- I applaud them for embracing it and making it a product offering.

Last month CRG West announced it was offering Verari Systems FOREST containers to its customers.

Data Center Stock Market News

Just a couple of items I noticed today in regards to the data center stocks I monitor. First, is an update to the data center stock index I started last year. It has been a roller coaster -- here is the latest graph:

More details on what the index is comprised of can be found here.

The Dow Jones Internet Composite Index has also been graphing quite nicely the last 3 months.

The second story was one I some how missed last week -- Wachovia resumed coverage of the data center space. They immediately rated Equinix and Switch & Data with OUTPERFORM.

"Both companies have high visibility into its revenue base and low churn driven by 1 – 3+ year contracts with escalators. EQIX, SDXC, and other network neutral data centers benefit from a supply demand imbalance due to growth in IP and internet traffic and limited available space close to fiber hubs for telecom equipment and networking gear"

Also late last week submarine transport cable provider Hibernia announced they have expanded into Equinix's LD4 London Slough IBX data center.

Earlier today Datacenterknowledge reported on VMWare taking a 5% stake in Terremark. In terms of institutional ownership, that puts them in 2nd place, behind Ashford Capital Management, who has a 7.98% stake. I thought the comment on the BusinessWeek investing site was interesting:

"There is significant interest in TMRK by institutional investors. The 29.13% of the shares outstanding that they control represents a greater percentage of ownership than at almost any other company in the Specialty Telecommunications industry."

Data Center Degrees

Nope -- not a blog post about temperatures and cooling in the data center -- this time I'm talking about educational degrees. ITJungle.com reports on Metropolitan Community College (MCC), in Omaha reinventing its General IT curriculum. They are adding specialized course work realting to the IBM Power Systems i Platform - and launching a two-year educational track called Data Center Management. With Yahoo, Google and Microsoft all in their back yard - combined with online courses, MCC should have a lot of demand for these courses.

"MCC received a three-year $1.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor with the goal of increasing the number of students in IT education. Building and developing the data center and the management is part of the grant."

Check out the IT Jungle article here

Last week the Wall Street Journal had an article about "Google Searches for Staffing Answers". It discussed Google HR and their approach to solving the brain drain problem. What better or more appropriate way for them to solve it, than with an algorithm. Check out the interesting article here.

Fremont, NE Data Center Study

Apparently Freemont, Nebraska lost out on a bid for a Yahoo data center.  A study was then done to determine whether Fremont was a suitable location for a data center.  The study findings show a spot on the north edge of town that would be idea.  The main selling point for the city is power -- 30 megawatts.  While it may not have been enough for Yahoo, they point out it is perfect for the smaller, Enterprise data centers.

Fremont is about 35 miles north-west of Omaha.

Check out the Fremont Tribune article here

Yahoo Data Center Planned for New York

It looks like Yahoo is planning another mega data center, this time in Western New York.  The Wall Street Journal reports that state officials are working with Yahoo to establish the new data center and that the Governor asked the Power Authority to come up with low-cost power (which is why I was suprised to hear the news in the first place).

Late last month Yahoo reported a strong balance sheet with $3.7 Billion in cash and marketable debt.  

Check out the article here

Insert Catchy Cloud Computing Title Here

For the most part I stay away from articles or links about cloud computing -- it's just too crowded right now and I have too much to read, let alone write about.  I have, however run across several good links lately that I wanted to share:

Many sites and blogs have coverered the move from Microsoft to Digital Realty Trust for Michael Manos.  I thought the May 5th post on his blog - Forecast Cloudy with Continued Enterprise - was particularly good.  The beginning reminded me of reading Nicholas Carr's The Big Switch: an excellent book.  I think Digital Realty Trust will be an excellent fit for Michael and thank him for generously sharing his wisdom in his blog.

Also on Cinco de Mayo was a post from Sam Johnston on "Is OCCI the HTTP of Cloud Computing?"  OCCI is the OGF's Open Cloud Computing Interface - who provides the interface to Cloud Infrastructure as a Service.  Has anyone asked Tim Berners-Lee about this yet?

Apparently Akamai, formerly a Content Delivery Network company, is now a Cloud Provider.  Ummm... ok

Google had a couple of notes on cloud computing recently.  Co-founder Sergey Brin posted the 2008 Founders' Letter on the Google blog, and discussed cloud computing.  CEO Eric Schmidt, at a press event, dismissed Android questions in favor of talking about the cloud, models and strategies.

Forrester Research recognized 3Tera's Applogic as the leading "cloud infrastructure software offering available today".

Wind Energy

For anyone that has read my blog for a while, you will know that I have a side interest in Wind Energy. Power and renewable energy sources are obviously huge issues for the data center industry and since I live in one of the top wind energy producing states, it has always been of interest to me. Tonight I read two lines from an article about a Berkshire Hathaway meeting that piqued my interest.

"Berkshire is investing heavily on wind energy, especially in Iowa. "We'll continue to be a leader" in wind power, Buffett said. They'll also invest in additional utility businesses."

Berkshire lists MidAmerican Energy Holdings, based in Des Moines, IA as a subsidiary company. MidAmerican has some large wind projects in Iowa. As much as wind power is picking up in popularity around the world, I have to wonder what projects (specifically) Bershire is investing in.

After reading the above quote I turned on the TV (Science Channel of course) and watched one of those "future world" type programs. One of the segments was on a huge wind farm in Denmark that was producing double-digit megawatts of electricity. I 'think' they were referring to the Middelgrunden Wind Turbine Co-operative, off the coast of Amager, Denmark. I of course proceeded straight to online maps and Google Earth to check it out.

• You can see the line of wind turbines from Google Earth / Maps
• Google Earth also noted a few Panoramio photos (here and here, and here)
  
• Microsoft Live Maps has a nice bird's eye view of the turbines

An October 2008 article at Treehugger has an aritcle on the wind farm - stating that it will have 207 Megawatts by 2010.

Exiting times for Wind power as a renewable energy!

UPDATE: Thanks Sune Christesen for a link to Offshore Wind Farms - complete with a Google Earth Placemark collection!

Intel's Green Power

I have run across several news items about Intel Inc. lately and thought I would share.  

The first was a ComputerWorld article last week about the EPA Study on energy saving opportunities in servers and data centers.  Intel has been working closely with the EPA to develop the new data center energy performance rating.  About a month ago Intel launched their 5500 series processors and their Data Center Efficiency Challenge.  

The second and third items were Forbes.com articles.  The first one I actually read about in an archaic media form called a....... "magazine".  :)    Luckly, there was an online version of the same thing.  This article discusses how Intel is spending $7 Billion (with a B) to downsize its chips.  I guess there are buildings more expensive than data centers to build!  The second article was discussing how well situated Intel is in the current recession.  $3.5 Billion in cash, $4.2 Billion in short-term securities, and a gross margin of 46%!

The fourth item is actually how I started this blog post -- The EPA announced their list of the largest green power purchasers in the U.S. and Intel ranked #1!  You can find the National Top 50 list here.  I also then checked out a 'provider' company that seemed to be used a lot by the top 50 companies - 3Degrees.  

Since I am a maps fanatic and like to look at Fortune 500 corporate campuses (from Google Maps) I had an urge to map the top 10 in the EPA's Green Power Purchasers list.  

View EPA National Top 50 in a larger map