Data Center Links: December 29, 2016

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

• Inside Amazon Hyperscale.  I am a little behind - but catching up on watching AWS re:Invent talks from the event last month. I think the world of AWS VP James Hamilton, and his talk at the event about the inner workings of AWS data center operations is absolutely fascinating. Putting the hyper in hyperscale, James talks about all of the components of their data center architecture, innovation and the things one can do when your unit of measure is in a category of its own. Global network details, 100 waves @ 100G, 32MW data centers with 50-80k servers each, making their own network and compute hardware, machine learning, and just how their massive scale came into being for the cloud giant. Watch the video...  or catch up on a much better article on it at Data Center Frontier.

• Amazon picks Montreal for Canadian data center options. AWS has opened a cluster of data centers near Montreal - due to the availability and cost of hydro-electric power in Quebec.

• Number of hyperscale data centers reach 300. Citing research from Synergy Research Group CBR reports that the number of hyper scale data centers is expected to reach the 300 mark this month. The report analyzed the data center footprint of major cloud providers and internet service companies. With an average of 13 data center sites each the U.S. accounted for 45% of the number and China and Japan following at 8% and7% respectively. 

• OneWeb raises $1.2B for satellite-based internet. The race to deliver satellite-powered internet is moving fast. After Tesla asked for permission to launch satellites, OneWeb has raised $1.2 billion to fund a "high volume satellite production facility" that will hopefully produce 15 satellites each week. 

BastionHost Debuts Dataville

I ran across an interesting company tonight - and upon further reading on their site discovered that they offer what I have envisioned ever since I read about containers. I work in the colo industry and although the vision is a bit cloudy (pun intended), I think there is a colo play for containers.

Check out Bastionhost - a Canadian company that offers Dataville - a "secure closed system campus of data centers, ideally situated on the Great Circle route between New York City and London." They offer a number of services, have a pretty experienced management team and advisors, and claim to offer protection from "the prying eyes of big brother, while meeting the stringent standards of the European Union." On top of that - their web site has a cool spinning globe (lower right corner) -- yes I was into the animated GIFs in the late 90's. :)

The most interesting part (to me) was what they call Hot Parking. It looks as though they offer the Sun and Rackable container systems, and then give you the sheltered, conditioned environment in which to run it. These "mini modules" can be returned to BastionHost to be serviced, upgraded, or provisioned elsewhere in the world where it may be needed. I think this is an extremely cool idea --- it might take a bit to catch on, but knowing what I do of the containers, knowing the efficiencies and setup speed they offer, I think there is some huge potential for customers and colo's alike.

The company is based in Halifax, Canada; which I admit, I had to look up in Google Maps. If I had Google Maps and Google Earth when I took 8th grade geography I know I wouldn't have been as bad at it as I am now.