Data Center Links August 8th, 2016

Ever have a 4 year battle with writer's block?  Well, I'm back...I think. I started this blog 10 years ago as a way to keep track of the endless links I logged in browsing and reading about data centers. A lot has happened since I last blogged... but I don't see any benefit to attempting to catch up here.

I think my main goal going forward in this blog is just to keep a transcript of links, stories and happenings on the web that I find interesting -- about technology or data centers. There is a decent chance I'll tweet them as well at @johnrath

Here are some (mostly) recent things I found interesting:

• HP's The Machine:  I have followed this for a while -- but saw some fun commercials for it with the new Star Trek movie.   HP says "The Machine will reinvent the fundamental architecture of computers to enable a quantum leap in performance and efficiency." It will be interesting to watch the technology HP is developing here. 
• Dell Triton:  Dell's Triton technology looks cool...literally.   It is a different approach to liquid cooled solutions that has some definite potential.
• The Green Grid announced  a new metric to compliment PUE. Building on PUE, the new 'performance indicator' is a multi-metric view that enables operators to "predict the impact of proposed changes before implementation and choose configurations that deliver the best combination of efficiency, resilience and conformance for the organization."
• kWAC anyone? This is interesting - 6fusion's Kilowatt Hour for IT, called the Workload Allocation Cube (kWAC) is a measurement that the company says includes comparisons of real-time utilization (workload) against a fixed baseline (allocation) spanning six vectors (cube) - CPU, memory, storage, disk/IO, LAN I/O, and WAN I/O. 
• (one I'm watching) VPS (Virtual Power Systems). Their software-defined power ICE Platform applies machine learning to control data center power distribution and monitoring. 
• CenturyLink said  they still have a focus "on the sale of all or a portion of our data centers, but we also have alternatives should our process not result in a sale."  So... if the price is right, they will sell the data center, but otherwise keep it and see what we can do with it....?   I guess there is 'realizing value for share holders' and there is seeing what comes out of a For Sale sign.
• Here is a nice article (pictures, video) about the new Tesla Gigafactory.  I know this is for car batteries... but I think there is a long term interest for the data center, and it is just cool what has been done with this massive facility in the desert. 
• Quasi-real time view of the U.S. Electric System Operating data.  This is just kind of fun to peruse.