Cisco's Network on Wheels Container

The Philippine Daily Inquirer has a story about the Cisco Express Network on Wheels (NoW) truck visiting the National Computer Center in Quezon City. The article title had the word 'container' in it and naturally caught my eye.

The Cisco NoW truck had typically been used for Marketing and doing a road-show to showcase Cisco technologies. The use case for the Philippines was for a mobile command center and data center housed in a 40 foot container.

"NoW, currently stationed at the National Computer Center in Diliman Quezon City, is custom-made with Cisco’s latest technologies and solutions, including a generator—making the container into an instant mobile command center that can be deployed immediately to the affected area to do fast wireless coordination among the various the government disaster-response agencies."

Learning lessons from hurricane Katrina, the disaster management abilities of this truck would be greatly beneficial to the Philippines. However, they rank 69th in the world in network readiness, according to Cisco's data.

Check out the article here

Busy day for EMC

EMC had a busy day in press releases today. They announced the acquisition of Australia based ITSM software company Infra. Infra compliments EMC's data center operations family of software and gives them an ITIL solution that automates IT Service Management.

EMC also announced that 2007 was the 8th consecutive year that they were named the market share leader in storage software. This was according to the latest IDC worldwide quarterly storage software tracker.

Now -- if we only knew what to do with all of this data on EMC storage! :) Last week the press release was about the new AIIM survey revealing that organizations continue to struggle with unstructured information.

Finally -- Today Iomega "received an unsolicited and non-binding proposed offer" from EMC. EMC's $178.1 Million bid represents a 22% premium over the stock's closing price on Friday. Check out the Iomega press release here.

Iomega stock closed up 20.3% and EMC closed down 2.2%

Netex Drives Data Center Acceleration Market

High-end data replication over long distances at rates above OC-12, ensuring data reliability and integrity -- cool. DR over IP WAN Optimization company Netex has reaffirmed their commitment to the data center acceleration market. Netex and the need for optimizing connections between data centers was called out in Gartner's most recent Magic Quadrant report for low-end branch office WAN optimization technologies.

With special attention towards large enterprise customers, there are many easy justifications for products like HyperIP from Netex:

"Replicating enterprise data sets between data centers with NetEx ensures that compliance standards for records maintenance are achieved, eliminating exposure to regulatory sanctions and lawsuits. Additionally, by simplifying and accelerating data replication as part of a corporate business continuity and disaster recovery plan, HyperIP helps companies slash expenses for data management chores that account for 21 percent of overall IT costs, according to one study."

Transfer speed in HyperIP has been qualified by a regular who's who list in the enterprise data management applications market: EMC, Hitachi, IBM, Netapp, Oracle and Symantec.

Privately held Netex is a spin-off of StorageTek and is based in Maple Grove Minnesota. Last December they unveiled a version of HyperIP for VMWare ESX server. "With HyperIP for VMware, customers can scale performance up to 600x with no hardware upgrades, the company says."

Last September I looked at the WAN Optimization market and some highlighted products -- this will continue to be a hot market in 2008.

Data Center Links: The Green Issue

Data Center Links: The Green Issue

There - now I have it out of my system! :) The data center industry is absolutely inundated with stories on renewable energy and ways that companies are saving energy or building energy efficient facilities. If it weren't so important I would say enough already on the hype cycle -- but power is obvious paramount to a data center and saving money and being environmentally friendly at the same time is equally important.

Let's start with the Google search results -- perhaps meaningless, but interesting:

Wind Energy: 6,490,000 results
Solar Energy: 12,400,000 results
Hydroelectric: 3,060,000 results

Below is a collection of items that have come across my virtual desk in the past few weeks; but first I thought I would link to several 'green' blogs that I have added to my regular surfing schedule.

• Enterprise IT Planet / Green
• Green Data Center Blog: Monitoring, Metering, Managing the Green Data Center
• Green Techies.com
• TreeHugger (this one is a little bit information overload, but good to scan through)
• Energy Matters

Other miscellaneous links to interesting stories:

• Solar
• An email from my dad led me to the company WorldWater & Solar Technologies Corp. Just this last week they announced a ground breaking of a 2 Megawatt solar system at the Denver International Airport. "The solar installation will supply 3.5 million kilowatt-hours of clean energy annually for the airport and is valued at over $13 million." Check out complete details here.
  
• Courtesy of the TreeHugger blog, there is a story on the Solar Market Outlook - unveiled in New York City.
• Here is a story in Business Week about Florida power companies buying back solar energy from their customers. I imagine you will see this story in a lot of other cities throughout 2008.
• This one was just too funny -- The Seattle Times reports that a man filed charges against his neighbor because their redwoods blocked sunlight to his backyard solar panels. A judge recently ordered the neighbor to cut down 2 of its 8 redwood trees, citing an obscure state law that protects a homeowner's right to sunlight. This is so silly that I'm speechless...
  

• Managed hosting provider EasyStreet is building a new 10,000 square foot data center. They put a lot of green design into it, partnering with Intel, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and others. Check out the Portland Business Journal article here.
  

• An article on the IT@Intel blog mentions a twist on energy conservation - energy reuse. Anyone that has worked or been in a data center has felt how hot the hot aisle is. This article discusses using that heat waste for good in areas outside of the data center. Intel is putting this to use in Israel - one of its 8 global hub data centers. An estimated $235,000 will be saved annually with heat recycling and this facility will hopefully become Intel's first LEED certified green building. After the 2007/2008 winter I have endured, I could benefit from this technology! Their white paper on the technology can be found here.

• Both Intel and Google have nice R&D web sites about their renewable energy initiatives.
  

The End (for now)

WorldWide Telescope

(off-topic)
Being a multi-billion dollar Global Tech giant has its advantages. One good thing Microsoft has done is pour a ton of money and resources into Research. A recently announced research project will be released this spring and looks VERY cool!

Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope uses their "visual experience engine" to seamlessly pan and zoom across the night sky. My explanation probably won't do it justice, and it isn't out yet -- but there is a nice video demonstration on a TED Talks video.

Here is a MSNBC article on it and here is the Microsoft site for WorldWide Telescope.

Now...I'm still a Google fanatic, and love Google Earth and the 'sky' function inside of Google Earth--but this new Microsoft app looks to be a strong contender. With the Google/NASA partnership I'm sure we haven't seen the last of the cool apps/features from Google Earth.

Terremark: $135 Million Multi-year Contract

A few weeks back we saw a video update of the $270 Million NAP of the Americas from Terremark. Even though it is a little under half of the price of a Google data center, it is a very impressive facility for a colo.

Yesterday Terremark subsidiary, Terremark Federal Group, announced it was awarded a multi-year, competitively bid $135 Million contract (unnamed customer). Now that is what I call an anchor tenant!

"Our ability to provide the federal sector with top-quality services and excellent customer care was a major factor in the awarding of this contract," said Jamie Dos Santos, President and Chief Executive Officer of Terremark Federal Group, Inc.

I would have loved to see who else was bidding on this contract. Check out the press release here.

Techie Drought

A Miami Herald article explores the issue with recruiting and retaining IT employees in Florida. The article might as well be in most any newspaper across the country -- this is a huge problem that many tech companies are facing.

The article mentions Terremark and the fact that having internship programs has helped them out -- to train, mentor and then hire interns into the company.

Check out the article here.

Links for 05 March 2008

Not much time for comments tonight and there were quite a few stories that piled up this week, so here we go:

• Verari Systems introduced their container data center yesterday. The "Forest" container solution will have a forest scene painted on the outside -- hmmm, maybe they could paint a blue ocean on it and put it on a ship!
  
• InformationWeek has a photo slide show of the Google data center being constructed in Council Bluffs, Iowa. It's been a loooong winter here -- the last picture is of some locals ice fishing.
  
• Xcel Energy has selected Stratavia's data center automation platform to streamline its IT operations. Standardization, centralizing critical processes, and scalability were listed as primary factors in the evaluation and selection of Stratavia. Stratavia was recently named a 2008 rising star from the Enterprise Management Associates.
  
• Xcel Eneregy also announced a groundbreaking wind-to-battery project. The project will take place in Minnesota and received a $1 Million grant from Minnesota's Renewable Development fund.
• A short while back when Rich Miller wrote about the BayCare Health System data center redesign, it made me think of the 'other' hospital case study I had recently seen. As I've mentioned in the past, I am intrigued by Second Life and applaud all that Cisco, IBM and other companies have done in the virtual world. Check out this blog post and this video of the Palomar Pomerado Health Cisco case study of the "Hospital of the future".
• Speaking of Second life -- when is Google going to come out with their own virtual world? Well, until then, they have Google Earth and the new Google Cities in 3D program. Pretty cool stuff.....
• BT Quraterly has a nice Cisco case study of their SONA (Service-Oriented Network Architecture) titled "A Network Architecture for Business Value Acceleration"
• Issue 7 of the EDS magazine Synnovation is "the green issue". The article I liked the most was "Making a List - Environmental Sustainability 101". We are obviously flooded with Green articles lately, and this one does a nice job of covering a high level view, what we 'should' do, what is 'right' to do, and what is 'smart' to do.
• I really enjoyed the SearchDataCenter.com article (and linked presentation)on the cost of different data center architectures.
• Finally -- since the Platespin acquisition actually happened, I thought I would take another shot in the dark prediction and say that Cassatt will be purchased by either IBM or Cisco in the near future.
  
  

CyteWorks takes data center underground

The Kansas City Star has an article on CyteWorks moving their equipment to an underground data center, provided by Cavern Technologies. I mention it for two reasons -- it's nice to see the quote from the business owners that setting up their own data center was "a distraction" and that it made more sense to outsource it to a data center provider (amen). Secondly, I keep running across these bunkers or underground facilities that are up and coming data centers! The underground concept is definitely unique and worth a look.

Check out the article here.

Iowa Technology and Ken Patchett

I attended an awards show tonight that honored technology companies in Iowa and the progress we have made as a state. Produced by the Technology Association of Iowa, the event was very nice and it was inspirational to see all of the things going on in the state and the innovation that continues to make us a technology power-house.

A highlight of the evening was the keynote from Google's Ken Patchett. Ken has been quoted and photographed for countless news articles about Google data centers. Ken was incredibly supportive of the Iowa companies taking part in the event. He delivered a wonderful keynote, complete with a modified Google logo for Iowa (apologies--the picture was taken with my phone)
It contains the Iowa state flower and bird and (of course) a corn stalk. OK -- the real highlight was actually getting to meet and talk with Ken. As you can imagine he was incredibly popular, so I didn't get time to ask him the question I had ready. I was going to ask him his thoughts on the viability of wind energy generation for use in powering/augmenting a data center. An InformationWeek article last November posed the thought as well.

Congratulations to all of the award winners at the show tonight!

P.S.: I also wanted to congratulate Principal, HNI and Meredith for getting listed on Fortune's 'most admired' list!

Data Center Best Practices

Just a quick link to a good article that InformationWeek has on tips shared by operators and consultants in the industry.

These "badass" data centers--energy efficient, automated, hypersecure--are held up as models of innovation today, but their technologies and methodologies could become standard fare tomorrow.

Check out the article here

Also, check out a side story on Ebay data centers here

Iowa Governor Signs Microsoft Incentives

Ok Microsoft -- Come on in!! After easily passing the Iowa legislature, Iowa Governor Chet Culver has signed the business incentives package designed to persuade Microsoft to locate their data center in Iowa.

Many local newspapers and TV stations have speculated which Iowa city Microsoft is looking at. I have heard Marshalltown, Cedar Falls and Sioux City as top candidates. For a number of reasons I would recommend Cedar Falls as the top choice!

Here is the link to the Associated Press article.

Old School Optics

Lightwave magazine has an interesting article that covers an Ovum analyst's thoughts on a generational shift in views on fiber optics and networking technologies.

"The analyst says active optical cables, more holistic approaches to 10/40/100G data rates, and a new focus on size and power exemplify the new outlook. Even consumer markets appear within grasp."

Check out the article here

LinkedIn: Bill Gates Asks A Question

I don't remember where I read it - but I heard about an event on LinkedIn where Bill Gates was going to ask a question for the LinkedIn community to respond to. Out of curiosity I checked it out tonight. A mere 16 hours after he wrote the question there were 1,509 answers!

His question is: "How can we do more to encourage young people pursue careers in science and technology?" I thought it could be a pretty interesting question to pen an answer to, and I figured this would probably be as close of a conversation with Bill Gates as I'll ever get. :)

Check out the question and answers (including mine -- #1,510 on page 51) here

Arizona Solar Power Plant

A while back we learned of web hosting company Aiso being the first 100% solar powered hosting company. They have pretty low power needs - but imagine what you could do with 280 megawatts for your data center!

A huge solar plant, named Solana is a joint venture/contract between Abengoa Solar and Arizona Public Service Company and has a build cost of $1 Billion. The 1900 acre will be 70 miles south west of Phoenix and has an projected capacity of 280 megawatts. What's a story like this without mention of tax breaks...? :) The project will be completed by 2011 - but only if Congress renews the clean energy tax credit set to expire at the end of 2008. This bill allows ~$18 Billion in tax breaks for renewable energies.

The article doesn't mention data centers - but I just wanted to post about it ; I have a larger post brewing about renewable energy technologies available to data centers and thought I would mention this enormous solar plant. Plus -- Iowa Governor Chet Culver recently set out plans for renewable energy goals in Iowa. More on that later...

Here is the link about the Solana solar plant.

Novell Acquires PlateSpin

I knew it! Ok, well, I knew part of it. I had always figured that Platespin was ripe for acquisition. Very cool products in a hot market....it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Today Novell announced that is was acquiring Platespin for $205 million in cash. Platespin specializes in software that allows workloads to be spread across physcial and virtual servers. The acquisition strengthens Novell's virtualization stack and gives it an affordable disaster recovery solution.

"Over the next three years, heterogeneous virtualization architectures will be the norm for most IT organizations; as such they must purchase data center management solutions that offer an ongoing opportunity for lowering operational costs as well as integrating and managing VMs across both server and storage infrastructures for greater control and visibility between hardware and the virtual software tiers."

Check out the eWeek article here
and
Novell Chief Marketing Officer John Dragoon's blog post here

Terremark NAP of the Capital Region

The Terremark $270 Million NAP of the Capital Region is one impressive facility! Virginia site StarExponent.com has a write-up of the new Terremark facility being built in Culpeper, Virginia.

Set to open in June 2008, this data center has some impressive features:

• Two power systems. The first: an array of 55 diesel generators. The second, 440 large flywheels.
• 160 watts per square foot (funny--I keep hearing that this is a bad metric to use).
• It is expected to consume 100 megawatts of electricity.
• 2500 tons of a/c
• Bus-sized chillers fed by 18 inch wide pipes.
  
• They have poured enough concrete to build a 21.5 mile road.
• Campus will consist of up to five 50,000 sq.ft. independent data centers.
• My favorite: DoD-trained anti-terrorism personnel on staff.

The video of construction progress:

The Terremark information page, complete with webcam and video (including an overly dramatic soundtrack) can be found here.

The StarExponent.com article can be found here

A related story about how most of Terremark's workforce could be local ; can be found here

Berkely RAD Lab

The Wall Street Journal has a pretty interesting artcile on Google data center software and architecture. The Berkely RAD (Reliable, Adaptable, Distributed Systems) lab is charged with taking the mystery out of the Google datacenter and really understand the software and infrastructure needed to run a scalable, reliable data center.

Check out the WSJ article here

XSF Selects USSHC for Colocation

Another high availability site/organization has selected USSHC (US Secure Hosting Center) for colocation services. A month ago we learned of Wikia locating their infrastructure at USSHC and now the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) has selected USSHC. Core Jabber/XMPP services as well as the Jabber.org IM service will run from their infrastructure there.

"Given the secure, always-on nature of Jabber/XMPP technologies, the choice of USSHC is only natural," said Peter Saint-Andre, Executive Director of the XSF. "USSHC's commitment to secure hosting, highly reliable systems, and fast, friendly service is unsurpassed in the industry."

USSHC is a military built, hardened, underground facility located in Monticello, Iowa.

Check out the press release here

Cooler Planet - Solar Map

Cooler Planet has a really cool interactive map of California Solar Power. It interactively narrates total installs, total Megawatts, average system size and total Kiloton pounds of carbon emissions saved. It covers 1999 through 2007. The stats demonstrate a 17x increase in solar installations over the last 6 years. It is a very nicely done map and (for me anyway) speaks volumes over a spreadsheet or other presentation methods.

Check it out here.

BizJournals - America's Most Stressful Places

BizJournals.com created a 10 part formula to rank the stress levels in 50 metro areas. I thought it was an interesting study and perhaps equivalent to other "quality of life" studies done, that I mentioned in my data center site selection white paper.

The IT industry has enough stress as is, without living in a city with all of these stressful factors that BizJournals looked at. It would be interesting to study the major industries in the most and least stressful cities to see what the are comprised of.

I am a visual person, and a Google fanatic, so I started a Google map of these cities. I have the most stressful cities mapped, and will go back to enter the least stressful.


View Larger Map


Check out the BizJournals study information here.

Google Data Center Blueprint

I think Harper's Magazine could have picked a different title for the article -- "Keyword: Evil" ; but maybe that's just me. The March 2008 issue has a short story on the Google data center in The Dalles, Oregon. The interesting part is they have a blueprint of the Google complex with information on utility connections and every detail for fiber, sewer, water, power and others. The most interesting annotation I saw was the one that read "confidential / proprietary". :)

Check out the Harpers article and blueprint here

Sun Preps for Infiniband

I (admittedly) don't know much about Infiniband. I know what it is, but I just don't hear that much about it and have not used it in my experience. Well, it looks like Sun is taking a gamble on it.

Sun touts many advantages of Infiniband vs. Ethernet in the race for the unified network. Infiniband is poised to beat Ethernet to the 40Gbit/sec mark and products are expected to have latency as low as 60-70 nanoseconds.

I'm going to have to agree with quotes made in the EETimes article and say that Ethernet advances may be slow going due to IEEE red tape, but Infiniband just doesn't have the market share that Ethernet does and data center managers are looking to reduce the types of fabrics, not increase.

Check out the EETimes.com article here

Iowa Tax Break Offering To Lure Microsoft Data Center

As we did with the Google deal, Iowa has sweetened the deal for Microsoft to build a data center here. The Iowa House voted 99-1 (HF 2233) in favor of giving tax breaks to Microsoft in order to lure them to the state. You can read the rest of the details in the Des Moines Register article, but I wanted to say a big thank you to Republican Christopher Rants for the for this:

House Minority Leader Christopher Rants, a Sioux City Republican, voted for the bill but also requested that lawmakers look at what can be done to help smaller companies, many that already exist in Iowa.

It's nice to see someone looking out for ALL business in the state and not just the mega million deals and companies like Google and Microsoft.

Check out the Des Moines Register article here
and a Forbes article here

Data Center Directions Virtual Conference

I just happened to check my e-mail at the right time today. I received a reminder of the CIO/CSO/Computerworld virtual conference that would be going on throughout the day today. I was pretty skeptical, but it was lunch time so I figured I would give it a shot. The virtual tradeshow software they are using has come a LONG way -- this was very cool.

They had a networking hub with people from all over the world talking, an expo floor with give-aways, brochures and the ability to see what other people/avatars were at the particular booth. I ventured over to the auditorium and browsed through the presentations that were scheduled. I attended one called Dream Big: Your next data center. It was interesting and I jotted down a few notes of interest:

• Barbara Bartell - VP of Information Services, Maximus;
• She pointed out the 8 critical skills for the data center:
• Risk Management
• Environmental Engineering
• Capacity Planning
• Systems Administration
• System Engineering
• Networking
• Backup Strategies
• Awareness of business needs.
• A poll during her part:
• Is a new data center or major revamp planned for this year?
• 56.8% Yes
• 43.1% No
• Aaron Wangenheim - President, Base Partners
• Discussed the power plants that had coal contracts - when those expire and aren't renewed -- what are their plans for renewable energy?
• He mentioned that he had heard of a large black box project in Chicago.
• He discussed raised floor pros/cons. He suggests NOT using raised floor when designing the data center. Hey Goolsbee -- preaching to the choir, huh?!
• Robert Mcfarlane - Interport division president, Shen,Milson & Wilke, Inc.
• bad metric -- watts/sq.ft. ; this results in grossly over-designing
  
• use watts/cabinet footprint instead for a metric.
  

Terremark - Fox Business Interview

Fox Business has their CSuite Sitdown interview with Manny Median, Terremark Worldwide (TMRK) CEO. He discusses their service offerings, the carrier neutral advantage, the competition and Terremark's stock performance.

Check it out here

Possible Iowa Data Center for Microsoft!

Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok, so much for being calm and collected. :)

According to a Des Moines Register article, Mircosoft is "considering Iowa for a data center"!! The usual sworn secrecy and mystery surrounds this one, just as we were used to when Google moved in.

“I’ve been given quite a bit of confidential information by Microsoft,” Rep. Phil Wise, a Keokuk Democrat, said today. “I can’t tell you the size of the investment, but it is indeed hundreds of millions of dollars. I can’t tell you the number of jobs, but it is in the hundreds of jobs. I can’t tell you the nature of the wages for the jobs, but it would be one of the best sets of jobs ever created in the history of Iowa.”

Also as usual, Iowa lawmakers are pushing a set a tax breaks through as fasts as possible. More may be known after Feb. 21, the next Iowa Department of Economic Development meeting. The article doesn't say where in Iowa the data center site selection is, but it is speculated to be in the immediate Des Moines area.

Check out the Des Moines Register article here

Data Center University

About a year ago I started studying to get certified at Data Center University. It is a good program, even though it was sponsored soley by APC. The online tutorial sessions I have done are not APC commercials and have actually been very informative. Teaming with training partner Global Knowledge , they have done a nice job of delivering presentations on a wide variety of data center related topics.

The streetinsider.com has a nice article about a company that used the DCU sessions and trained their staff to come up to speed on data center technologies.

A recent survey conducted by AFCOM's Data Center Institute indicates that by the year 2015, the number of qualified senior-level data center professionals will have diminished by 45 percent. As the talent pool decreases and the demand for these professionals grows, certification offers the assurance that individuals have the knowledge, skills, and ability to successfully implement data center solutions.

As of April 2007, 400 people have achieved the Data Center University Associate Certification.

Check out the article here

Citrix Workflow Studio

I don't get too much into the IT automation work flow software -- it's a crowded market and just something I haven't been able to play with much. Since reading about the Citrix Workflow Studio, it seems to be a pretty cool product. Gus Pinto covers the product on his MVP blog and thinks it is revolutionary.

This may be a stretch -- but I wonder if Citrix could/would buy Platespin?

Also.....Citrix is keeping it's promise on its Xen acquisition as well --- a new commercial version of the Xen Server is set to roll out and Citrix Presentation Server has been renamed to XenApp.

World Wide Packets Acquired by Ciena Corp.

Proving that the Ethernet services market is hot, equipment supplier World Wide Packets was acquired by Ciena Corp. for $305 million.

Ciena announced the intent to acquire WWP back on Jan. 22nd. Carrier Ethernet has been a side interest of mine (one of several....) for a while now -- I have just have not had time to read up on it. Ciena has a pretty cool poster that covers OTU (Optical Transmission Unit) Network technology.

Ciena delivers flexible network platforms, software and professional services to telecoms, cable operators and enterprises migrating to an IP platform. Ciena stock was up 16% today.

Check out the Dark Fiber Resource information on the acquisition here

Google/IBM Cloud Computing

Not to over-hype the term cloud computing -- but it really has me intrigued. I think the potential is absolutely huge and with companies like IBM and Google researching it, they are sure to make some significant progress to understanding it and making it better.

I came across an InfoWorld article this weekend that I felt was very good in covering the IBM/Google partnership/initiative for cloud computing. IBM and Google make money in very different ways and I think that cloud computing could (potentially) be the new platform that both IBM (the enterprise side of things) and Google (the Internet, massively scaled applications side of things) run on. In the article, IBM exec Steve Mills is interviewed about the goals of the partnership and research.

Check out the article here

Green Collar Jobs

I was at a meeting tonight where a lot of discussion focused on workforce development and attempting to bolster tech recruitment in the area. It seems like the changing workforce landscape is a problem that has plagued many generations. Training and re-training people to keep pace with technologies and changing industries is an industry in to itself. From the Agricultural revolution to the industrial revolution to the Internet Revolution (where I learned my history) companies and individuals are tasked to educate themselves, adapt to a changing world, and solve the economic development puzzle.

Ok -- perhaps this is a bit dramatic for the forthcoming link, but the MSNBC article does make you think. The title/subject is the future trend of "green collar jobs". I'm not sure why, but that just makes me think of Mr. Green Jeans from the Captain Kangaroo show. :) Anyway....the article presents some pretty interesting statistics; including that "wind energy industry currently employs about 45,000 people in the U.S. and had $9 billion worth of investment last year, a 45 percent increase from 2006". Randall Swisher is quoted as saying that by 2030 there will be nearly half a million new jobs created in green industries.

Check out the MSNBC article here

Hosting Industry Consolidation

I think 2008 will have a lot of consolidation and mergers in the hosting industry. The dedicated and shared hosting business is tough.......and crowded. As companies try to focus and compete for customers and the coveted SaaS (yes, I said it) market they will see the benefits of joining forces and/or acquiring smaller/similar companies.

Alentus Corp. recently acquired the Ohio data center from AO Technologies. AO will continue to focus on the streaming media and become a colo customer of Alentus. I imagine that this data center for California based Alentus will provide a midwest facility for them without the hassle of building their own. AO was founded in 1996, so I certainly hope they have upgraded the data center since then! :) I'll admit that I had not heard of Alentus -- but they certainly have an impressive customer list!

Check out the article here

Cloud Computing

John M Willis has a very nice summary of cloud computing -- hype and all. John covers all aspects of it from myths to facts and the various levels of clouds. I will also admit that clouds are currently pretty high on the hype cycle, but like John -- I'm hooked!

Check out his post here

New Blog!

Ever since I have been following the Data Center industry I have had a side interest in Business Continuity Planning and Disaster Recovery. I have decided to dig into the topics much deeper, and as a means for me to learn the industry and concepts I have started a separate blog for it.

If these topics interest you, please check out my new blog -- BCP Links (bcplinks.blogspot.com)

Due Diligence

Scott Whitney (on the TechNewsWorld site) has an excellent article on his trials and tribulations for selecting a data center. Having worked in a colo facility for some time I can appreciate his problems and desire to get a root canal instead of evaluating data centers.

While the points he brings up are kind of 'the usual' list for me; it is a very complete list and good for anyone else looking to run down the list of what they should be thinking of when shopping around for colo space.

Check out the article here

“Think containers. They’re for real.”

This headline was a quote from Debra Chrapaty, Corporate VP of Global Foundation Services at the Cisco Nexus 7000 announcement.

As I may have mentioned a few hundred times, I simply don't get the container model. I have seen it, studied it and read most everything about it....but where can it (practically) be used?!?!

Well....I'm starting to turn the corner. Forrester research has a nice article on the topic and potential uses for it; and like Douglas Gourlay over on the Cisco Data Center Networks blog, I think I'll utilize the white board and run some numbers. There may be some possibilities for this model after all..... :)

New Data Center in Guam

GTA Teleguaum is a communications company in Guam, a small Pacific Ocean island. They recently opened a $60 million, 60,000 sq.ft datacenter for businesses on the island to have a safe and secure to operate their equipment.

I may not have even posted about this data center, but one fact about the facility is pretty interesting:

Ninety percent of the undersea cable system for voice and Internet traffic between the U.S. mainland and Asia comes to Guam, said Singapore-based Eric Handa, vice president of sales with global telecom giant Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd., or VSNL.

Check out the rest of the details in the article here

Another Google Data Center?

It seems like all of the news surrounding where the next mega Google data center would be located had died down. They made a number of announcements and after they slowed down, the buzz slowed down. Until now....

Is Colorado the next spot? Chris Sherman at SearchEngineLand has an article about a "mystery buyer" of a 432 acre plot. Chris makes some good points for why it could be a good location...guess we'll have to wait and see.

Check out the article here

Tuesday Links

• Now I have to change my Google Alerts from Sun Blackbox to Sun Modular DatCenter S20
• Cisco has a cool 3D view of the new Nexus 7000 series switch
• Here is a nice introductory write up on the anatomy of a DNS DDoS amplification attack
• Peter Christy has a nice article explaining the Cisco TrustSec architecture
• Google's $10 million investment in eSolar
• Continuing yesterday's post on wind energy - check out Marquiss Wind Power - ducted wind turbine

Winds of Opportunity

One thing I meant to get to in my site selection white paper that I just didn't find time for was maps of renewable energy sources across the U.S. While surfing tonight I ran across some information on Wind energy - something that has interested me for a while now. Google and others have been big on Hydro energy and I would by no means discount that as a valuable and beneficial energy source.

The U.S. Department of Energy has a nice web site for their Wind and Hydropower program. I found a subsection of the site called "Wind Powering America" that contained a lot of valuable information on wind power. I clicked through to an update presentation they had available and wow - this report is amazingly thorough and has some really nice maps, research, correlative data and is a really nice place for anyone looking to learn about wind power and all of the environmental and economic benefits to start.

The 20% Wind-Electricity vision states:

Wind energy will provide 20% of U.S. electricity needs by 2030, securing America’s leadership in reliable, clean energy technology. As an inexhaustible and affordable domestic resource, wind strengthens our energy security, improves the quality of the air we breathe, slows climate change, and revitalizes rural communities.

Check out the Wind Powering America Update presentation here

Cisco - Data Center Infrastructure Transformation

If you work in a data center or follow the industry, you certainly can not avoid Cisco. Even if you somehow managed to avoid Cisco gear in your network there is a good chance you use something that they have since acquired. In 2007 they had 11 acquisitions, including the big one -- Webex . Cisco has engineered some amazing products, bought the rest and orchestrated a $146 Billion company. The San Jose Mercury News has a nice article on how the company has reinvented itself and other information on the collaboration strategies they are rolling out.

Fundamental to the data center space was the July 2007 announcement about "Data Center 3.0" (I then declared Data Center 3.5 ) Cisco's Data Center 3.0 strategy is a collection of products to manage network and other data center assets. There was the Vframe , the DC Assurance Program , and numerous acquisitions, including Securent . In this month alone they have demonstrated Visual Networking at CES , extended their Application Network Services portfolio , and made an investment in ipaccess.com (market leader in femtocell technologies) . On top of all this, CEO John Chambers was on the panel for the World Economic Forum a little while back titled Corporate Global Citizenship in the 21st Century (YouTube link ). Hey John -- I can't even fathom your schedule, but how about a blog like Jonathan Schwartz does from you?

DC 3.0 is about enhancing business resiliency and agility(remember--the keyword/buzword from the Garnter conference? ) Now there is the Infrastructure Transformation stage of their Data Center 3.0 strategy. The DC Networks blog (Douglas Gourlay) hinted at this several weeks back . Today Cisco releases the details on the infrastructure transformation stage, and exeution of the DC 3.0 strategy. The 4 cornerstones of this announcement are:

1. Unified Fabric - convergence to a single network (Storage,Ethernet,IP and HPC traffic)
2. A new switching platform, Cisco Nexus - Multi-terabit platform for the most stringent availability needs.
3. NX-OS - multi-protocol, Data Center-class operating system.
4. DC Network Manager - end-to-end systems visibility.

The new Data Center-class switch - the Cisco Nexus 7000 series is a powerhouse that delivers a number of things: first, it is a zero service disruption design; second, it is capable of handling 40GbE/100GbE; and third, it has a 15 Terabit switching capacity. Cisco usually touts 'investment protection' in their switch line and I have to imagine that the 6500 series switches will have 40GbE and 100GbE cards in the future. The Nexus 7000 delivers investment protection through fabric modules (46Gps per slot) that support GbE, 10GbE, 40GbE and 100GbE modules. Another impressive feature is "integrated lights-out management". This means there is a separate network in place for applying changes, so as you remotely connect and make changes to a switch you don't have to worry about applying changes and being in the dark because you have restarted the network you were connected on. In a nutshell - it's their latest revision in the switch line that delivers support for the future, transport flexibility and efficient physical and power design.

The new Nexus 7000 series I/O modules are either a 32 port 10GbE card or a 48 port 10/100/1000 card. One of the cool new features of these cards is Cisco TrustSec. TrustSec was announced on December 5, 2007 and was promised to be available across the switching platform. It will be interesting to see the first labs run the 7000 series through testing to see what, if any overhead there is on the TrustSec product. The claim is that it is "wire-rate encryption" on a hop by hop basis.

Nexus (NX-OS) represents a new operating system to converge ethernet and SAN network protocols. This convergence and a zero service disruption design are its most impressive features. With NX-OS planned outages cause pre-emptive reconvergence around the device in a maintenance window. Think of it at as proactive, real-time ITIL Change Management. Pardon the marketing terms, but.... it provides a "virtualized control plane and scalable design", and it "sets a new standard for usability".

Other details being released today include:

• Data Center Network Manager - Complete infrastructure visibility and ease of configuration, troubleshooting and management.
• Catalyst 4900M Switch - high density uplinks, GbE and 10GbE Host and NAS
• Catalyst Blade Switch 3100 - coming in May 2008

Cisco will hold a Webcast today to discuss the changes and continued execution of the DC 3.0 strategy.

As a side note I started poking around in Second Life again recently....Cisco has a pretty cool plot inside of Second Life. They have a wealth of information about the company and products, as well as hold events regularly about various things . Their efforts here, the Telepresence offering and John Chambers saying "collaboration" every tenth word means that there are exciting times for this branch of Cisco coming. IDC thinks pretty highly of the collaboration group at Cisco as well:

"IDC predicts that Cisco (CSCO) will take the platform that they acquired with Webex, beyond just Web conferencing and other "collaboration" applications, to become an online platform for a wide range of business applications and services. "

Cisco holds their Q2 Financial results conference call in a little over a week.

Google's Iowa Data Center: Smart Move

Well Duh!! oh...sorry, was that out loud?

For anyone new to this blog, I was simply ecstatic that Google selected Iowa for one of their mega data centers. Bridget Botelho at Searchdatacenter.com has a nice article that explains why the experts agree that Iowa is a great place to build a data center. At the last Linux Users Group meeting we had two Google employees present and a member of the group inquired about the Google data center expected to be built just south of Ames.....pure speculation/guestimate by the way. The Google employees of course declined to answer. I would doubt that they would even know such a thing anyway.

Check out the Search Data Center article here

Charter Deletes 14,000 E-Mail Accounts

Charter Communications claims a "software glitch" was the cause of an accidental deletion of 14,000 active e-mail accounts. I post this, partially to poke a little fun at the 'accidental' part of it and partially just to further show that human error is the most likely cause in so many large goofs like this.

They claim it was a software error - that they regularly delete inactive accounts and this time 'some' active accounts slipped in. I bet if you were to ask the software company they would most likely say that their software was configured wrong -- by a human. Even routine procedures need to have a RFC (Request for Change) filled out, the process thought through, and a review board look over the change.

Check out the Cnet article here

Secret History of Silicon Valley

One of my favorite bloggers (and only the inventor of the frigg'n web browser) Marc Andreesen has a post about a video on the secret history of the Silicon Valley. It is a long video, but well worth it.

It was a Google Tech Talk video from Steve Blank late last year. I'm currently consulting on a project for a war museum and so the content of this video, how the CIA/NSA and Fred Terman 'really' built the silicon valley, is really fascinating.

Link: Marc Andreesen's post

Cisco CCDE

Just a quick post to say congrats to Michael Morris for passing the Cisco Certified Design Expert certification. I've often thought of going after this path of certifications -- starting with the CCDA. The tests look pretty hard, but I really like the design and architecture side of Cisco networks.

Link: Michael's blog

Link: Cisco news release on the CCDE

$1B Savings for Federal Data Centers by Going Green

Two new studies released today are getting some press. They cover how the U.S. Government could save $1B over five years, or $1.9B over 10 years in energy costs by applying the recommendations given in the reports. Many of the projections are based on the August report from the EPA outlining the energy-efficiency improvements possible for government and private sector data centers.

"Deploying green technologies in data centers can help the government save nearly 9.6 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in five years at a cost savings of $959 million, according to the HP and Intel study."

Check out articles on the studies here:

Tim Kauffman at the Federal Times

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee at Information Week magazine

1-Gig Cable Modem

Perhaps my prediction for 2007 wasn't too far off -- at the SCTE's Emerging Technologies conference Cisco talked up a cable modem cable of delivering upstream throughput of 974,723,228 bits per second.

But while the industry is using the DOCSIS 3.0 spec to target downloads of between 100 and 160 Mbps, Cisco envisions much higher speeds -- as much as 10 Gbps in the future, according to Bernstein -- using a passive optical network (or "PON") as the underlying transport mechanism.

Can someone get this to my house some time this year!?!!!

Check out the rest of the article here

Hacking the Power Grid

Here is one to keep any data center manager up at night. Speaking at a security conference, CIA analyst Tom Donahue gave information about attacks (regions outside the U.S.) where criminals hacked into systems and cut power to several cities. All attacks were intrusions via the Internet, and the goal was extortion.

On Thursday The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved approved new standards to protect the nation's bulk power systems against cyber attacks. The eight new standards are:

• Critical Cyber Asset Identification
• Security Management Controls
• Personnel and Training
• Electronic Security Perimeters
• Physical Security of Critical Cyber Assets
• Systems Security Management
• Incident Reporting and Response Planning
  
• Recovery Plans for Critical Cyber Assets

In November 2007 President Bush asked congress to move $152 million into cybersecurity programs for 2008. Given what the CIA has known (presumably for some time), it's no surprise that investigation, new technologies and protection methods are crucial.

The PC World article quotes a conference attendee as saying that this "came as news" to many professionals in attendance. I'm no security expert, but come on.... this is nothing new. The U.S. has had any number of reports on potential infrastructure attacks and we have been pouring money into cybersecurity for many years -- the Clinton administration announced a $1.46 Billion initiative for cybersecurity in 1999, there was project Eligible Reciver in 1997, and countless others since then. Just last September there was a demonstration at the Idaho National Laboratory of the effects of a software vulnerability attack on infrastructure systems.

The power grid hacking is still pretty scary to think about though....and good reason for all of these alternative power sources to gain popularity.

Check out the PC World article here

Data Center Tours

As I have mentioned before, it is always fun to see tours/videos of other data centers. TechTarget's IT Knowledge Exchange has a collection of DC tours here

I like the Huawei Network Operations Center!!!

Google Visit

I just wanted to say a quick thank you to Peter and Noah from Google for stopping by our Linux User Group last night. We had an awesome turn-out -- go figure, mention Google and free pizza!

They mentioned that the next 3 Google data centers will be located in...... just kidding - they did an excellent job of not disclosing anything they shouldn't. They did describe the systems administrator job and the tools they use to support the hardware techs that are deploying and fixing the thousands of servers in the data center. They confirmed that Google is indeed a seriously cool place to work and that most all of the software used is home-grown.

Google is getting serious about hiring for the Council Bluffs data center and I think a lot of applications will be filled out from the group attending last night.

Uptime Institute - Data Center Greeness

As soon as I finish posting about the Emerson white paper and how there is so much press on the topic, the very next thing I read is about a new paper from the Uptime Charrette titled Four Metrics Define Data Center Greenness

It looks to be very good (as most all of their content is), but I'll have to find another time to dig into it.

Check it out here

Emerson Network Power - Energy Logic

Emerson published a press release regarding their Energy Logic road map - a new approach to data center energy optimization. Energy Logic centers on the "cascade effect" (throughout data center infrastructure) and is based on Emerson's research and modeling.


A lot has been written lately about energy savings, and the whole green movement, but this approach helps to quantify energy savings and sheds light on potential ROI.

“When we released our report earlier this year, we stressed that energy reductions could be achieved with the proper planning and implementation of efficient technologies that exist today,” said Andrew Fanara of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “We encourage companies like Emerson Network Power to share any and all expertise that helps the data center community reduce their energy usage.”

Their white paper titled Energy Logic: Reducing Data Center Energy Consumption by Creating Savings that Cascade Across Systems divulges the Energy Logic approach. Among the sea of energy efficiency / green literature, news and white papers, this one has some meat to it. It covers:

• Energy Consumption (where it goes)
• The approach - including the cascading/sequential approach of how certain best practices have the greatest impact
• Some nice tables and diagrams of Energy Logic applied (I'm a visual person) :)
• The ten Energy Logic Actions (more pretty graphs and pictures)
• Assumptions and timing benefits

Overall this is a very good white paper and one I'll keep in my reference pile

The white paper can be viewed here

US Signal Elk Grove Village Data Center

US Signal, a Midwest bandwidth provider, with a large DWDM backbone, announced the addition of a new data center in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. They have an impressive DWDM network in the Midwest (hey-what about Iowa!?). US Signal has been busy in the Chicago burbs lately, to complement their downtown loop.

I embeded the map below just to show how close it is to the new Microsoft Northlake data center. :) Check out the press release here



View Larger Map

Internap Acquisition Rumor

Back in the dot-com bubble I used to track stock message boards pretty religiously. It was entertaining at times, a little bit informative and it was fun to watch some people write under multiple handles. I had the pleasure for working for a company with a very eccentric CEO who loved to post on the message boards for our stock -- so much so he made posters out of a particular conversation with a share holder.

I've setup this post like that for a reason -- I read the message board for Internap tonight and found a discussion on Internap being acquired by AT&T. Just thought I would post a link to it and let you take it for what it is worth. There have been so many acquisitions in past years that it is hard to keep track of who owns who any more.

Anyway.... here you go

Computing in the Cloud

I ran across a blog post from Chris Tengi that reviewed a workshop titled "Computing in the Cloud", presented at Princeton. The post covers cloud computing and the historical computing models that brought us to it.

The review itself is interesting, but a particular blurb made about 'data' ownership made me automatically relate to what I've preached about the reason corporations build data centers near their headquarters.

It's all about location, but why does it matter where the data and software actually is? Possession of data implies control, and control implies power. Whomever owns the systems on which data resides has the ultimate control of how that data is retained and who has access.

Anyway....I wanted to post the quote, but also link to the blog post. I wish I could attend these workshops -- they sound very interesting.

INX to build $2.3 Million Data Center

INX, an infrastructure and professional services company, announced they have been selected to design and build a data center for a "major web-based company".

The press release reports that their client is moving their data center from a remote location, to a site closer to their headquarters. This kind of goes back to my tangent on disaster recover and site selection -- people want their infrastructure close to their primary offices; presumably so they can put their hands on it and see it in person.

INX is based in Houston, TX, but recently acquired Select, Inc., a similar company based in Canton, MA

Check out the press release here

Links Round-up

Well, it's been a busy week, so here are some miscellaneous things I feel are post-worthy:

• The floating data center container story is getting some pretty heavy traction. I guess it's just odd enough to make people take notice -- check it out (again) here at Network World and here at Storage. IT World.
• The Data Center container concept continues to get interesting....
  
• Network world has an article on how Microsoft is Going Green. The interesting part (to me) was this:

  "The company, which will say only that it has between 10 and 100 data centers, has used software to create a map of the world that aggregates 35 factors, such as power costs and climate, to determine the best places to build."

• Equinix stock was upgraded to 'outperform', based on industry demand and their sales pipeline.
• This was the last year for Bill Gates to keynote at CES. Here is the pretty funny video that they made for his last day at work -- and here is a full interview with him right after he finished the CES speech.
• If you haven't heard of the TV-B-Gone clickers, check out these CES pranks
• CNET has an interview with Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, a book I read this summer and really enjoyed.
• The appropriately titled "In Your Dreams" article at Geekologie, describes the Panasonic unveiling of their 150 inch plasma!!
  
• Finally -- I know it's not much, but there is a cool Weather Channel integration with Google Maps and Google Earth - check it out here
  

Intel -Transforming a Global Data Center Environment

Hats off to Intel! I am a big fan of lessons learned.....why not share the knowledge gained and let others benefit from it?!

Intel published a white paper titled Transforming a Global Data Center Environment and it is an excellent read. I of course could comment on placing three of their strategic data center hubs ALL on the west coast....but I won't. :)

It is interesting to read the story of their transformation, what it took to accomplish it and the data behind it. Well worth a read -- check it out here

Cabling Mess

I've seen some pretty bad cabling jobs before and many picture galleries.... but I think this one wins first place. :)

http://royal.pingdom.com/?p=234

Gram Tel Data Centers Acquired

Cincinnati Bell Inc. has paid $20 million for the privately-held assets of Gram Tel. Gramtel had been expanding its footprint of data centers throughout the Midwest and offers a variety of managed services additionally.

Check out the Houston Chronicle article here and the press release here

Floating Data Centers

I really don't know what to think about this whole container model data center thing. It is really intriguing and there have been some creative uses for them. After posting about nuclear-proof bunkers I now read, on the Silverback blog, that a company is planning to put data center containers on ships!

I'm much too confused to write the details here -- and you can check the story out for yourself. I just don't know if I can figure this one out. They list some of the reasons 'why' someone would want to use a container on the ship, but it simply doesn't counter the hundreds of reasons why you wouldn't want to.

The company is IDS (International Data Security), and Ken from the Silverback blog has a couple of posts on the company as well as a brochure for it. It sounds like it is pretty early stage development, yet they have pretty ambitious plans (22 ships in North America, 50 worldwide). No mention of whether it is a generic container or Sun BlackBox, Rackable IceCube, etc.

Check out the two posts here and here

Wikia Colo in an Iowa Bunker

In a January 7th press release, United States Secure Hosting Center (USSHC) is set to announce that Wikia has selected them for colo and DR services. Wikia is Jimmy Wales (of Wikipedia fame) latest venture - a new way of community search, that challenges the typical model (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft).

Wikia Search looks to give users an alternative to today's search engines by using individual feedback rather than secret algorithms. This approach is designed to lead to more effective results where the users determine how accurate a page or wiki is based on its relevancy. With the community providing the fine tuning of the searches, there will be fewer results with “parked pages” and ad content, and more relevant data.

Wikia is cited as selecting USSHC because their "level of service and security is as unprecedented as the disaster tolerance of their facility itself". USSHC is an underground bunker in Monticello, Iowa. Their facility is another U.S. Government project from the cold war that is 2N for power and 3N for cooling and fuel stores.

“We are very excited to host Wikia at our facility for their various projects,” stated Jerry Pasker, CEO of USSHC. “Our facility allows us to offer the best physical security available without breaking your budget. Companies that are looking for more than just commodity data center space expect a higher standard. We're able to offer that peace of mind through our attention to detail and dedication to having the best systems and practices in place.”

Maybe a 2008 project for me will be to research how many data centers would be able to survive a nuclear bomb. :) List any of the disasters in my site selection paper and these guys have you covered!

Congrats on landing Wikia as a customer!

2007 Review

I was reading a Star-Telegram article tonight that came across in my Google Alerts. It was about the problems with population growing so fast that communities and states can't keep up. No surprise, after reading about all of the Texas data center deals in 2007, this article was about the population boom in Texas. Check it out here

For whatever reason, this article made me think of something else.....

A while back I gave a lunch-and-learn at my company on Google searches and related applications. I am a bit of a Google fanatic and really dive into most every product and service they offer. I thought of an idea for reviewing the data center industry (via a specific Google search) -- and after reading about the most popular stories of 2007 on Data Center Knowledge.

Since a lot of my white paper on Data Center Site Selection was at the state level as far as what states were good or bad for building, I thought I would do a Google search for how many times a states name came up in 2007 articles at Data Center Knowledge. As many would agree, Rich is the source for all Data Center related articles, news and information. I didn't do a comprehensive search, but here is what I found:

Google Search results count within datacenterknowledge 2007 archives:

Washington: 78
California: 53
Virginia: 55
New York: 51
North Carolina: 42
Texas: 41
New Jersey: 40
Oklahoma: 37
Iowa: 36
South Carolina: 26
Washington D.C.: 23
Boston: 23
Kansas: 16
Illinois: 16
Oregon: 15
Michigan: 11
Colorado: 11
Indiana: 10
Wisconsin: 10
Minnesota: 7
Arizona: 6

While I was at it, I decided to run some other terms through the same search:
Google: 119
Microsoft: 118
Yahoo: 34
Equinix: 64
Digital Realty Trust: 80
Savvis:70
Terremark: 35
Akamai: 54
Sun: 48
Virtualization: 547
Utility computing: 35
Green: 88

No, John doesn't need a hobby or more to do with his time....I just thought it might be interesting as a snapshot of 2007 stories.

2008 Predictions

As promised, here are my 2008 Predictions. I don't think my predictions from last year (fiber to the home) came true at all -- as I visit my in-laws who can't even get a cable-modem or DSL in their new neighborhood (yet).

Ok...here goes:

1. As I have eluded to in the past, I am a big fan of utility computing. It does receive a fair amount of hype, but I can see the true potential in it and why people will start to see the light in coming years. Events that 365 Main and Rackspace encountered in 2007 helped paint the picture for web sites that only had a single hosting presence to wake up and take a more serious look at utility computing. Amazon EC2, S3, 3Tera and Joyent are pretty cool and worth a look for most anyone. I think the tools to measure, monitor and deploy utility computing will definitely grow in the enterprise realm, now that the internet sites/companies have pioneered so much. The growth of utility computing and enterprise interest should also help along the WAN accelerations and optimization industries as well. BTW--there was an interesting response to Intel's question about what emerging trends are in compute models - check it out here.

2. 2008 will see the hype phrase "Software as a Service" finally fizzle. There's no rocket science here people - get over the warm-fuzzy terminology.

3. Green/New Energy sources will continue to be big news in 2008 (big stretch here, huh?). Only two things I'll offer here.... the first, is to take a look at the Kleiner Perkins (Venture Capital firm) list of greentech companies they are funding --- here. I listend to Tom Perkins on the Venture Voice podcast recently -- what an interesting and amazing person! The second item is wind; Kansas took recent headlines , but it will continue to grow as a new energy source in 2008. There was an interesting story in Sunday's Des Moines Register about the wind industry in Iowa....some interesting stats and stories to see how the industry is growing here.

4. With the data center industry booming, I think 2008 will see more data center related services come out. I.E.- this article

5. Companies to watch / will be acquired? Akamai (an established company, but they will be doing exciting things), Riverbed , Savvis , Platespin , 3tera , and Joyent

6. Political ads will continue to be skipped on my Tivo . Living in Iowa means the privilege of having the first caucus, but the trade is enduring 24x7 ads on TV from the candidates. Maybe after the caucuses are over the ads will take a break until next fall.

7. Death to the RIAA in 2008 -- Alleluia!!

8. Here is my shot in the dark prediction -- at least 1 large acquisition will take place in 2008 in the Colocation or CDN industry. There has been a lot of activity here and some quality players; I think the market has hit a spot that something big will happen next year.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Dear Lord, I've been asked to thank Thee for the Christmas turkey before us, a turkey which was no doubt a lively, intelligent bird, a social being capable of actual affection. Anyway, it's dead and we're gonna eat it.

-- Berke Breathed
(as seen in Forbes Magazine)

I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and prosperous 2008!!

I will be attempting some technology and data center predicitions, just as soon as I am done reading what everyone else has predicted, so I can pick the good ones and make them my prediction as well. :)

Sun BlackBox in Australia

It seems like the Sun BlackBox has arrived in Australia.

Check out Tom Worthington's post/review of it here

Chicago Data Center Market

As a follow-up to a comment I made in my last post -- Chicago is a RED hot market for data centers. ZDNet has an article "Bragging Rights: Chicago as green data center powerhouse".

It mostly talks about the new Microsoft data center, but lists the reasons why they chose Chicago. It seems like the hot area has shifted -- it was Texas, is now Chicago, and who knows where is next! Hopefully Chicago will not become as over-crowded as Texas is now.

MLB and Orbitz Case Studies

Network World is probably in the top 3 for my favorite magazines and web sites to visit. They really do a good job of capturing the news, but also delivering some good interviews that demonstrate real world use of the technologies they cover. Two particular stories caught my attention recently that I enjoyed:

The first was a story of Major League Baseball Advanced Media -- I visit mlb.com and stlcardinals.com frequently. The article interviews Ryan Nelson, director of operations for MLB Advanced Media. MLB uses Joyent services to 'dial-up' and 'dial-down' their use of servers and compute power based on the seasonal load and needs. I had heard of Joyent before, but never really looked into them. It's a pretty cool service, and seeing how MLB.com uses their service helps solidify the concept. Yes, it's another company jumping on the "cloud computing" bandwagon, but they offer some pretty innovative solutions, coupled with some cool Sun hardware and technologies. I had a brief introduction to Sun virtualization technology at the Blackbox event earlier this year, but if you haven't checked Solaris Zones it is worth a look. MLB has data centers in New York and Chicago, and thanks to the infrastructure they have setup they can move utilization between centers (for upgrades and such) on the fly. It sounds like Ryan Nelson has a pretty cool job playing around with this infrastructure and new technology. Check out this interview/article here

The second article (thanks for the link Ben) from Network World is about travel web site Orbitz. Like everyone else in the industry, Orbitz is trying to go green -- or as CIO Bahman Koohestani put it, "taking his IT operations carbon neutral". One thing that I liked about Orbitz (in this article) is that they know how much energy they use, monitor their use on a daily basis, and they know how much cooling they use for various parts of their operations. Going green is great, but keeping very close tabs on energy use and mining the data is even better (in my opinion). Orbitz has two large data centers in the Chicago area and Koohestani touts it as an excellent place to locate data centers. Chicago is RED hot now days for data centers. Like other stories we have seen about company strategies -- Orbitz is slashing the number of servers used, and consolidating data center operations world wide. The article has all of the details about how they are greening its IT operations.

Renewable Energy Capital of America

Continuing the push for Iowa as an ideal place to locate business, Governor Chet Culver announced that Iowa was the "renewable energy capital of America". Playing off the attention Iowa gets for political caucusing Culver encouraged campaign staff and media to rethink what they knew about Iowa.

Culver went on to list some of the statistics to back up the renewable energy claim:

• Iowa ranks #1 in ethanol production, #2 in biodiesel production and #3 in wind energy production
• In 2006, Iowa alone accounted for over 30 percent of U.S. ethanol production and 25 percent of U.S. biodiesel production.
• Iowa is over 1,000 wind turbines which create almost 1,000 megawatts of energy, generating enough power to service 250,000 homes.
• The $500 million Iowa Values Fund and the new $100 million renewable energy research and development initiative called the Iowa Power Fund offer businesses the tools and financial resources they need to be successful. Administered through our state Department of Economic Development, these funds provide tax credits, incentives, loans and regulatory assistance to foster business development and job creation.

Check out the complete press release here

Mission Critical Magazine

As an information junkie I tend to visit a lot of web sites and read a lot of blogs. I also frequent a lot of tech industry magazines. A new magazine has come out that I will be adding to my list - Mission Critical Magazine. I have only had a short time to check out the site, but what I have seen so far is really good.

On their home page is a link to Chris Crosby's presentation on 5 Data Center myths. I attended this session at Gartner's Data Center Conference and really enjoyed it. At the conference there was a nice follow-up presentation of a case study that Digital Realty Trust implemented. Chris described their POD Architecture and Gating Process and how it was applied to the customer requirements.

Check out Mission Critical Magazine!

International Site Selection

When I did my site selection white paper back in October, I limited it to the United States. Adam Trujilo over at searchdatacenter.com has a nice write-up on some of the international studies done on site selection as well as references to recent data center activities abroad.

Check it out here

Security in Ten Years

Just a quick link to an interesting post where security guru Bruce Schneier has a conversation with Marcus Ranum.

The conversation with appear in Information Security Magazine this month. While there is nothing earth-shattering in the conversation, it is a good read.

Check it out here
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Also check out the SANS Top 20 2007 Security Risks