Misc. Tech News - March 1, 2009

34 days and 20 hours left until the opening night of Major League Baseball!

Outside of the fun little newspaper generator mentioned above, I ran across a number of interesting stories this weekend....

• The Data Center Pulse Summit presentations and videos have been graciously posted on their site. There are a number of interesting things mentioned here. NetworkWorld also has a nice write-up of the Top 10 Industry Requests generated at the summit.

• Intel and Microsoft are flexing their muscle when it comes to innovation in the current recession. Microsoft recently had their annual TechFest event to showcase what Microsoft Research had been up to. Slide 13 shows the low powered processors we all heard about recently. Intel Research Laboratories have also been up to quite a bit lately. Wireless Power technology, numerous uses for RFID and robotics were displayed -- check out the full story here.

Intel and Samsung are going at it in the Solid-state Disk market. Check out this ComputerWorld article : Samsung's 256GB SSD Offers Capacity, Speed

Several weeks back the TED 2009 Conference was held -- if you haven't checked out the videos from that yet, I Highly recommend it. Also interesting at this conference was the launch of Singularity University - "Preparing Humanity for Accelerating Technological Change". With backers like Google, NASA and Ray Kurzweil, how can this NOT be cool!!

At the VMWorld Europe conference VMWare showed off its MVP (Mobile Virtualization Platform). Basically -- it would give you the ability to run multiple operating systems on your portable device. Sounds like some pretty cool stuff here.

Finally -- it is always fun to see creative help wanted ads : check this one out.

Security In the Cloud

Yesterday I watched a little bit of the Ustream of "Whose Cloud Is It Anyway" - a round table and meetup in Mountain View. The discussion, while interesting, was a little dry. I actually enjoyed tweets from Christofer Hoff and James Urquhart much more.

Today I ran across a presentation by Dan Kaminsky - a name I hear a lot (mainly on TWiT I believe). His presentation, below - is titled When Irresistible Forces Attack Security In The Cloud. The presentation covers security in cloud computing and has a number of interesting points:

• "Uncomfortable Fact #6: Virtualization Not Actually Required For Cloud Compromise" -- slide 26

• Slide 30 -- three classes of private clouds: Fully private, outsourced private and non-secure (i.e.: Amazon's S3)

The enterprise cloud play is the more interesting one to me. I have gotten over my disgust for the marketing hype frenzy by calling it the "cloud" (it also gives many magazines and blogs an avenue for pretend-creative article titles). I'm still looking for a good definition that is 'not' the same as the Internet, or an overall shift in computing architecture. Anyway....time to move on.

Now.... take the Kaminsky presentation and throw on a slew of acronyms provided by the government. Corporations have a number of laws, policies, audits, acts, trade secrets, terms of service, privacy and other things to worry about. The World Privacy Forum held this last week presents a very interesting report: "Privacy in the Clouds: Risks to Privacy and Confidentiality from Cloud Computing". I think the report drives home the point that there are many issues and things in cloud computing are still being hashed out. Some interesting findings include:

• Finding: Cloud computing has significant implications for the privacy of personal information as well as for the confidentiality of business and governmental information.

• Finding: A user’s privacy and confidentiality risks vary significantly with the terms of service and privacy policy established by the cloud provider.

• Finding: For some types of information and some categories of cloud computing users, privacy and confidentiality rights, obligations, and status may change when a user discloses information to a cloud provider.

• Finding: Disclosure and remote storage may have adverse consequences for the legal status of or protections for personal or business information.

• Finding: The location of information in the cloud may have significant effects on the privacy and confidentiality protections of information and on the privacy obligations of those who process or store the information.

A Network World article discusses the IDC Cloud Computing Forum. Joseph Tobolski, director for cloud computing at Accenture states "Some people create a list of requirements for security in the cloud that they don't even have for their own data center". Well....maybe they need BETTER requirements for their own data center!! I personally don't think people worry "too much" about security in the cloud ; it is a legitimate concern that any responsible business should question. The good news is that Cloud providers have the chance to do security right, and provide a more secure environment than the small/medium business could have done for itself. The bad news: it's early yet, and that completely secure (if there is such a thing) environment is not built yet.


When Irresistable Forces Attack

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Presentations & Slid cloud computing secu

GreenTech and DataCenters - Part 4

I wasn't planning a part 4 to my GreenTech week, but as I mentioned, there is a LOT of Green news out recently. Here are just a few more goodies I ran across today:

The Uptime Institute released its Global Green 100 List today. Many familiar names in tech are on the list including all of the companies I mentioned in GreenTech Part 2.

GreenBiz.com notes that Green, Tech and GreenTech are on the rise in the FastCompany 50 List. Cisco managed the #5 spot on the 2009 list. Cisco has a number of videos I found interesting lately:

• A new TechWise TV podcast is out and discusses Cisco EnergyWise

• John Chambers is 'the man'. This video at OpenZine is a talk he gave on the MIT campus and is long, but worth watching. If you don't watch the whole thing, do forward to about 44 minutes in where he answers a question -- I really like what he says here. He is an awesome speaker and as commented on the page with the video -- "John Chambers gets it" ; except for the comment John makes in the video about being a Red Sox fan. :)
  

• Another video: Rethinking Education for the 21st Century was posted on a Cisco blog.

Rackspace announced today some new tools available to help customers assess and reduce their environmental impact. Their carbon footprint calculator was developed by NativeEnergy.

Check out this video from Google and GE : Plug Into the Smart Grid

An article from the Wall Street Journal Environmental Capitalism section was pretty interesting: Purdue Researchers Put Emissions On Google Earth. Of course any excuse for me to use Google Earth is a good one.

GreenTech and DataCenters - Part 3

For part 3 of my GreenTech week, I have a number of miscellaneous links. I'll keep posting Green links as I run across them, but the following items were pretty interesting.

EWeek's 10 Things You Need to Know NOW About Green IT

Comprehensive (as in 45 page) report from Rackable and the BPM (Business Performance Management) Forum: IT Sustainability Imperatives in Internet and Ecommerce Business. I haven't had a chance to read 'all' of this yet, but it looks very good. They surveyed 275 professionals in December 2008 and January 2009 and also have perspectives from dialogs with prominent executives, thought leaders and industry influencers.

GigaOM's earth2tech reports that San Diego will Roll Out Smart Meters Mid-March

Article at CleanTechies: Distributed Energy Generation - the New Internet

Very interesting article at MIT Technology Review: Graphene for the Green Grid - Ultracapcitors that store more could help the grid run smoothly.

Canada's Advanced Network organization announces an initiative to lay foundation for a zero carbon economy.

I was looking for something to tie GRI standards to GreenTech, but instead found this piece on an ISO Standard for Assessing Energy Efficiency of New Buildings.

My list wouldn't be complete without mentioning the Green Grid. A new site design, white papers, tools and many other things make this site a must-read. The Data Center Facilities Pro blog has a nice write-up of the Green Grid Technical Forum held a few weeks back. Presentations from that forum are also posted on their site.

GreenTech and DataCenters - Part 2

Continuing where I left off yesterday with GreenTech..... today I'll cover what the big companies are up to with environmental sustainability, greentech, etc....

Cisco:

• Just a few short weeks back Cisco announced EnergyWise. I haven't had a chance to get 'really' familiar with the technology yet, but it seems pretty cool on the surface. A TMCnet blogger has his thoughts on the Cisco "energy tax" here. It's a Nortel favored argument, but I'll refer back to the video I blogged about here to tell you what I think about the energy tax criticism. I'm not saying EnergyWise is perfect or that you 'should' put your eggs in one basket, but come on..... SmartGrids have HUGE potential in 2009 and I think EnergyWise is in on the beginning of something great.
  

• Last Friday CNet had an article about "Cisco unveils Global blueprint for cities". Pretty cool stuff -- and it builds on Cisco's mission to become a more Global company.

IBM

• InformationWeek reports "IBM to Help Orange Data Center go Green". Partnership with IBM and Syracuse University.

• IBM Launches "Ready for IBM Energy & Environment" Validation for Business Partners.

• IBM Expands Efficiency Offerings. Announcement of a Strategic Carbon Management consulting service.

• IBM Brings Smart Meters to Malta. 5 year project to "design and deliver a nationwide smart utility implementation" to the nation of Malta.

Google

• Google: A Utility Company. Interesting blog post about Google purchasing an abandoned paper mill in rural Finland.

• On Feb. 9th the Official google.org blog wrote about home electricity use and combining smart meters with easy access to energy information. This (to me) was Extremely interesting. More information on the Google PowerMeter and other items can be found here.
  

Microsoft

• The Microsoft "Innovating to Improve the Planet" site is a pretty good source to find out what they are up to in the green department.

• The Microsoft Dynamics team has been up some interesting things. Check out this video about the Dynamics Sustainability Dashboard on Channel 9.

More still to come.... I am almost through my list of links. Success stories, green technologies and more on smart grids the rest of this week.

GreenTech and DataCenters - Part 1

I have been absolutely inundated recently with stories about Green technology, environmental sustainability and the like. I don't want to turn this into a GreenTech blog, but obviously power, renewable energy and environmental sustainability are huge topics for the data center industry.

There are several items in the $787 Billion Economic Recovery Bill that would benefit renewable energy and GreenTech companies, including: $11 Billion for Smart Grids and $15 Billion in renewable energy tax incentives. Cnet's Green Tech also has a nice write-up on the Bill.

I have so many links piled up that I am going to spread them out over this week. Today I'll start with the site that got me thinking about all of this .... The Green and Virtual Data Center. It is an excellent site, and they also have a new book out. The list below is a mix of sites from their 'links' section, and links from my bookmarks that I found interesting

Greenly -- Exploring Greenovation 24/7/365

CarbonFootprint.com

Carbon dioxide emissions calculator

Cassatt Power Savings Calculator

This one is a bit much (IMO), but.... Making Web Sites Green

EPA Tools and calculators

How much does Carbon Offsetting cost?

Planning for Energy Requirements: Dell's Data Center Capacity Planner


The Uptime Institute will host a 2009 IT Symposium: Lean, Clean and Green, April 13 - 16 in New York. Should be interesting.....


Up Next: What the big guys are up to: Cisco, Microsoft, Google, HP, IBM and others

Cisco News and Tweets

I need to work on my tweets. I read so many tweets that I forget to write some myself! Cisco is a company that really gets the power of Twitter. Many moons ago I thought Twitter was pretty silly. I imagine others did as well. It has evolved though, and is now thought by many to be a truly valuable tool in the social web arsenal.

Although Cisco's CTO Padmasree has more followers - my favorite is still Douglas Gourlay. With only 4,493 followers to catch her, I'm sure he'll have no problem. :)

Cicso news abounds recently ; here are the items I found interesting:

• Alan Cohen at Cisco discusses the Twiterati

• Data Center CEO Kevin Smith discusses pioneering data center energy management with Cisco EngergyWise. I think it will be really interesting to get some case studies of data centers using EnergyWise and see how it has helped them.
  

• Cisco powers the first 4G network in Moscow. I don't follow WiMAX as much as I would like to, but it is pretty interesting technology. "Cisco is providing Scartel with optical transport based on DWDM, a high-speed IP MPLS data network and data centre technologies designed to support high-quality video distribution. The network was designed to support the heavy traffic loads required of Scartel's network while offering an economical solution."

• Seeking Alpha has an interesting article about potential acquisitions for Cisco. I've always wondered about Riverbed. I really like what I have seen and read about their products, but I think they enjoy going up against Cisco and have huge potential on their own.
  

• Last but certainly not least: Cisco will hold a webcast this Thursday to "unveil a new Global Initiative". Should be interesting.....

P.S.: MY Twitter is http://twitter.com/johnrath

Processor Article: Colo or Managed Services?

I was interviewed a few weeks back for Processor magazine and the article came out last Friday. It discusses decision points and thoughts when deciding on whether colocation or managed hosting is right for your data center.

Check out the article here.

Intel's Avalanche Photodetector

I don't know if I would have guess this one, but Intel, as apparent to this site / press release I found is set to be a force in the optical switching market. Last December they announced their advancements in Silicon Photonics with the Avalanche Photodetector (APD).

"Intel Labs researchers have made another advance in the field of Silicon Photonics by achieving world-record performance using a silicon-based Avalanche Photodetector (APD) that could lower costs and improve performance as compared to commercially available optical devices. "

I ran across this story here, but then read more at the official Intel page for Silicon Photonics. Another nice blog post on a 200 Gbps silicon photonic integrated chip can be found here.

HP POD Container Video

I ran across this HP video for a second time, and so I thought that surely meant I should put it on the blog. It is Wade Vinson, HP's Power and Cooling Strategist and HP POD Architect.

It's a nice look at the POD (Performance-Optimized Data center) from an engineering stand point.



Also -- Don't forget the video Data Center Knowledge took late last year at the Gartner conference.

IBM Smart Grid

Just a quick link to a really nice article over at Cleantech. It's about the $819 Billion Stimulus plan that was passed and how there is a lot of money included for smart grid technology. Cleantech interviewed Drew Clark, Director of Strategy for IBM's Venture Capital Group.

One of the companies mentioned, SynapSense makes some pretty cool products for the data center. They were honored by the DOE last fall for their innovative approach to saving energy in the data center. They have a LiveImaging product that provides thermal, pressure and humidity mapping using 3D, real-time data at multiple levels of your data center. SyanpSense will be at the Green Grid Technical Forum in San Jose Feb. 3 - 4.

Check out the Cleantech article here.

Wednesday Links

Lots of little things that I thought I would quickly blog about..... data center news has been pretty heavy lately and I'm just catching up.

• My data center stock index was up today almost a whole dollar from the previous day. I started it back in October, so I thought I would finally make a graph just to show the ride it has taken since then. It closed today at $19.48.

• This is a month old now, but I still found it pretty interesting -- "Why IT Colocation Centers will see a boom in 2009 despite the Macroeconomy".

• Anyone looking for a project plan for building a data center -- here is a good read, plus a benchmark against one of the best: Digital Realty Trust.

• I was pretty bummed about the news that Microsoft is postponing the West Des Moines data center. However.... it is just 'postponing' it, not scrapping it. I guess we'll just have to be patient.

• I've been reading and watching the news about Cisco EnergyWise .... more on that in a separate post. Meanwhile, check out this good article from IBM's Forward View: "ROI: Extending the Benefits of Energy Efficiency"

• Finally -- I thought I would share a bit of humor -- as a fan of The Matrix trilogy, I thought this video was pretty funny: The Matrix Runs on Windows
  

Colocation Crisis?

CIO Magazine blogger Michael Bullock proclaims "Data Center Colocation Crisis: Act Now or Pay Later". While I liked his article, I'm not sure I totally agree. Now....I don't have access to all of the analyst opinions and statistics that might sway me to think differently, but....

The one thing that I do certainly agree with is that if a company is looking for colo space, NOW is the time to get it. He mentions rapidly rising prices in England and New York and that the 3 things driving the coming storm are shrinking supply, increased demand, and infrastructure limitations. He continues with some nice pointers if a company wants to build their own facility and hits a little bit on my favorite topic: Data Center site selection.

Check out the article here

Omaha Wind Power

Just a quick link to a story about the Omaha Public Power District announcing a new initiative aimed at increasing renewable energy. The goal is to have 10% of its electricity produced by renewable energy sources by the year 2020 - mostly wind power. The green initiatives by OPPD and Nebraska will help to lure in companies, such as Yahoo, who is building a data center in La Vista, NE.



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Cisco Cisco Cisco!

Cisco Cisco Cisco!!! ....said in the tone of a Brady Bunch "Marsha Marsha Marsha!"

Cisco certainly has had the spot light for some time now and certainly shows no sign of slowing down. Many have stated that economic recessions will foster tremendous innovation, and I think John Chambers got a head start on that in 2008. 2009 is full-steam ahead. They recently announced that they were venturing outside of their core market, by entering the server market (NY Times | SF Gate).

I honestly don't know what to think of the announcement just yet. I don't think IBM, HP and Dell will be as upset as some are making it out to be, but it will be interesting to watch. Chambers mentioned at C-Scape that their 2009 acquisitions will be scrutinized a little more and there may not be as many executed as in years past. With $26 Billion to spend, there are plenty of options:

1. EMC - I just don't think so. It's been analyzed and blogged to death, but I just don't see it.
2. Sun Microsystems? -- Maybe; but if I had to guess, I don't think that would happen.
3. Netapp? possibly. MarketCap is $4.49B and if Cisco makes 4 or 5 acquisitions this year that could be a good fit. Very solid company, large customer base (many Internet companies as well), and Cisco has pushed storage networking technologies for some time.
4. Rackable? With a MarketCap of $116.57 Million it is pocket change for Cisco, but could work. In the Unified Computing blog post Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrier talks about eliminating "manual integration" and I wonder containers are in the picture somewhere. Purchasing Rackable would give Cisco the commodity hardware for their servers and the ICECube to package their servers, storage and network gear into.

Padmasree mentions "open standards" a few times. I wonder if we'll see some announcement with Cisco and Eucalyptus - the open source cloud computing solution. I would hypothesize about a cloud computing company acquisition, but there are too many think of at this late hour. To me, the smart move would be to buy a company that specializes in cloud computing / virtualization security.

Padmasree Warrior may have a new job soon though -- as she is one of two candidates for the first U.S. CTO position.

GreenTech 2009

I didn't make any predictions for 2009, but a some what obvious one is that renewable energy sources and Green technology for the data center should certainly have a good year. I have a number of items I have been saving up for GreenTech and the data center that I found to be pretty interesting:

• This quick announcement should impact data centers in 2009: ASHRAE and an alphabet soup of other groups are forming a consortium to advise the DOE on high-performance building issues.

• Treehugger.com always has good articles -- just too much for me to keep up with. They reported last week on a Yale Environment 360 opinion piece about the US as a renewable energy world leader.

• Treehugger.com : 76% of Federal renewable energy support went to Ethanol in 2007.

• 500 MW Wind Farm in Iowa Announced

• There was an interesting article about pressure in gas pipe lines to power London. A UK startup works with National Grid to generate 20 MW using 'geo-pressure' by 2010.

• Last Wednesday it was announced that the DOE invested $6 Million to address the technical challenges of wind development and market acceptance barriers.

• This weekend Intel unveiled its first solar electric installation in New Mexico. They hope the "array will demonstrate the potential to power such things as data centers." There was also a mention of containerized data centers:

  "He also said experiments will be done under the solar array with containerized data centers, in which computers are racked inside a tractor-trailer rig-size container. For example, a filmmaker might want to have a computer graphics system on site during a shoot, Miner said."

Containers, The Economy and Telecom

OK-- bad title maybe, but I wanted to avoid the "Tuesday Links" vagueness.

Containers -- for anyone that has followed this blog for a while knows, I am fascinated by containers. Initially I just couldn't figure it out, but through Sun, Rackable and Michael Manos I am fully on board now. Although..... now I am racking my brain for the non Microsoft / Fortune 200 idea that makes the container solution applicable to the rest of us. More on that later.

The video that Data Center Knowledge posted last week was really excellent. I watched the full hour and appreciated the knowledge and insight provided. My highlights/comments:

• It was interesting to see some new things come into the site selection and data center equation: jurisdiction for placing containers and the classification of the space. Daniel Costello from Microsoft noted that they were able to classify theirs as "unoccupied spaces".
• Focus can shift quickly to container solutions for the rest of the infrastructure as well -- what about the emergency need to ship a container somewhere and have an equally quickly deployed power solution available? (i.e.: Active Power)
• The one thing that would have been hilarious (to me) for an audience member to ask is what the panel thought about putting containers on cargo ships. :)
  

The Economy -- All eyes are on the economy now days and President-elect Obama's plans in the making. I personally think the data center industry is going to pull through the recession just fine and GreenTech within data centers should really blossom in 2009. I ran across a video from Financial Times that I thought was interesting; it compares the worst bear markets in history and how they were punctuated by rallies that made a lot of money for those lucky enough to time them correctly. Global Crossing also had an interesting blog post recently about Stimulating Ideas - commentary about telecom investment ideas from Paul Kouroupas. There was also a nice story early last week in the New York Times about Venture Capitalists and how innovation will continue to drive the technology industry out of the recession. The last paragraph is especially interesting:

“Cisco was founded two weeks before a stock market crash. Oracle was founded during the Reagan recession,” Mr. Holland said. “In bad times, that’s when the best opportunities come up."

Telecom -- Level3 is off to a good start in 2009. Rob Powell at the Telecom Ramblings blog speculates why they have been doing so well. Fourth quarter and full year 2008 results are set to be released on February 11th. If my math is correct 4 VPs and the CEO of Level3 sold 23,265 shares January 5th.

View the full LVLT chart at Wikinvest

January Cloud Report

I promised myself I wasn't going to make any more blog posts about cloud computing. Hopefully my New Years resolutions will last longer.

I really don't want to get into the topic too deeply, but it is the cause for me not making any blog posts most of this past week! I have been too busy reading other blogs and thoughts & videos on clouds!

Here is what I do believe on the topic:

1. Cloud Computing is still around 60+ percent marketing hype.
2. I believe about 60+ percent of the article Chuck Goolsbee wrote on clouds.
3. I think 2008 over-hyped the cloud, but 2009 and the economy have a chance to filter out the fluff and leave the companies and technologies that truly have a chance to make a difference.
4. I believe the post from Irving Wladawsky-Berger is (still) a very good definition/discussion of cloud computing.
   
5. I think the security aspect of virtualization and cloud computing needs some serious attention (i.e.: well.... i.e. most everything Christofer Hoff points out)

I never wanted to do the typical 'definition' of cloud computing, because it seemed so much beyond a simplistic definition. However.... I ran across a video that I have to admit does a pretty decent job. The convergence of 3 things: virtualization, utility computing, and Software as a Service.

Anyway .... I really don't want to offer anymore commentary; because what I have been so busy reading the past few days is pretty interesting to follow. Here is the path I took:

1. GoGrid Blog -- CloudCenters
2. Michael Sheehan's response to the Chuck Goolsbee article on SearchDataCenter.com
3. Silicon Alley Insider: once again proving that 'Cloud' and 'Internet' are synonymous.
4. The Wikipedia page for Cloud Computing: proving that it is an amazingly broad concept.
5. Thinking out Cloud: commentary from Geva Perry on appropriate use and analysis of CapEx and OpEx in infrastructure comparisons. I really liked this one.
6. James Urqhart -- further commentary on Amazon AWS, GoGrid and IaaS.

"IF" I post any more on Cloud Computing I am going to limit it to the data center aspect only.

2008 Data Center Statistics

A lot of people reference statistics this time of year. Many will cite Tier1, Forrester, or Gartner...... me; I'll cite the only thing I have access to: Google. Google Zeitgeist is always interesting to look at and is usually a pretty good indication of what happened throughout the year. Here are some other random statistics that pretty much speak for themselves. Meaningful? Maybe. Maybe not.
Enjoy.

First - the "data center" vs. "data centre" in Google Trends (shows a trend of how often the term is searched in Google).
Next - Google and Microsoft data center projects were both big 2008 stories; here is how they compared in Google Trends:
Proof that Google has ALL of our personal search data, they have at least let us look into the aggregated data with Google Insight for Search. For instance, here is the chart and data for the category of "networking equipment" -- showing that 'cisco', 'router', and 'wireless' were the top 3 search terms in that category.

An Insight search for the term "data center" shows that Pakistan, India and Singapore are searching for that term the most. Equally interesting is the data for just the U.S. that shows top regional interest for "data center" coming from South Dakota!

Finally - here is a look at Equinix, Savvis and Terremark in 2008 U.S. Web search Volume.

One To Watch: Digital Realty Trust

Raymond James' financial advisors has released their 2009 "Analysts' Best Picks". These 15 stocks are expected to produce superior overall results during the upcoming year. Digital Realty Trust made the list for 2009 and I personally agree that they should have a pretty good year. I think it might be a slow start however with the current economy and then really shine later in 2009.

Check out the press release here, and an article with the stocks listed here.

A look at 2008 for Digital Realty Trust (DLR) is below.

View the full dlr chart at Wikinvest

2008 Review

I feel somewhat obligated to do an end of the year post. It's in fashion, it's that reflective time of year, and well....why not. I've been saving up a bunch of items, so here we go.....

First - there have been any number of '2008 review' articles and blog posts, but here are some of my favorite year-end stories:

• MIT Technology Review: The year in Computing
• CIO Magazine: The Top 10 Cisco Stories of 2008
• Seeking Alpha: What's Next for the Colocation Sector?
• Data Center Knowledge - Top 10 Stories of 2008

The big story of the year (for me anyway) was the Iowa floods in June. I witnessed a lot during those few weeks/months and was very fortunate to not be directly affected. I saw both good and bad business continuity plans being executed and came out with a number of very valuable lessons learned.

I am a big picture person. I like to see the 10,000 foot view and then analyze the heck out of it to the associated impacts, outcomes and possibilities. A short while back I ran across a report from the National Intelligence Council titled Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. Although I didn't read the entire 120 pages, here are some things that stood out to me:

• Page 33: ".... nine factors can contribute to a modern National Innovation System: fluidity of capital, flexibility of the labor pool, government receptivity to business, information communication technologies, private sector development infrastructure, legal systems to protect intellectual property rights, available scientific and human captial, marketing skills, and cultural propensity to encourage creativity."

• Page 40 has a an interesting map showing world population by age range, in 2005 and 2025.

• Page 63 has a chart breaking down likely energy sources (coal, gas, hydro, oil, nuclear, biomass, others) from 1980 to 2025.

In October I started tracking data center stocks a little closer. I created a Google spreadsheet and used the capitalization-weighted method to make an index of the stocks I chose to track. The stocks are all data center industry companies and I post regular updates for what the price is as often as I can. It started in October at $23.13 and closed today at $19.63

I have a few million feeds in my Bloglines account. I removed a couple dozen the other day and need to work on prioritizing what I read in there. My favorite new blogs that I am reading are:

• Stevey Clayton : Geek in Disguise
  
• John Gannon - Yet Another VC Blog
  
• Errata Security
  
• Microsoft Data Centers
  
• Gianpaolo's blog
  

This blog had a pretty good year overall....the biggest problem is just finding the time to sit down and write. Coverage of the Michael Manos speech at the Spring Data Center World conference was by far the most read post of the year. Much of this was due to a link from the popular blog by James Hamilton. I was happy to see that my Data Center Site Selection white paper from 2007 had the second highest number of visits. The top states that visited my blog (in order) were California, Iowa, New York, Texas, Washington, Illinois, Virginia, Massachusetts, Florida, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.

As many of you know, I live in Iowa and am a big advocate of the upper Midwest. Iowa had a lot of activity in 2008 with the Google data center in Council Bluffs, the Microsoft West Des Moines announcement and TEAM Companies making several announcements (opening Madison data center and breaking ground in Des Moines).

On to 2009!!

Data Center Containers were a huge story in 2008 and I think that will continue in 2009. I saw the Sun Blackbox again this year, and the Rackable Icecube at Data Center World. I have a number of posts in mind to review and analyze containers, but more on that later...

A few blog posts back I mentioned that video was going to be the killer app. While this is not any big revelation I realize, I think it has been a gradual thing that has many side affects and will continue to grow rapidly in 2009. I've read things about Cisco really attacking the home entertainment market, YouTube , Hulu , Joost , Vimeo and others had great years, and the infrastructure market to support video distribution is growing. The CDN market (I believe) is set to have a great 2009 and we may see some M&A action here. Video podcasts (or what ever you want to call them) are growing in number as well. Some of my regulars include:

• Cisco TechwiseTV
  
• TED Talks
  
• Google Tech Talks
  
• Hak5
  

Kevin Rose from digg.com cut the cord and ditched cable in favor of the Internet, TiVO and Netflix. TiVO recently announced that they will offer the ability to watch YouTube videos on TiVO. I got an iPhone about a month ago and have to say....it is the best cell phone I have ever had. I mention this because I discovered I could use qik.com on it and find the application and streaming video ability pretty amazing. The end result though....bandwidth is going to HAVE to get better in 2009!! More on this at the New York Times article about Internet usage growth.

Happy New Year!!!

Inspiration is for amateurs ; the rest of us just show up and get to work.
-Chuck Close

HP POD Presentation

Just a quick link to a presentation I ran across on the HP POD (Performance-Optimized Data Center). For some reason I always forget that they entered the container market and that it is a decent solution. As it seems to be a blogger reqirement, I am working on an end of the year blog post and you can bet containers are a big part of it.

The PDF is from Eva Beck from EMEA Hewlett Packard. Check it out here.

Merry Christmas!

M e r r y C h r i s t m a s !

Monday Links

My data center stock index was fairly steady last week, but closed down today, at $19.20. The Dow Jones Internet Composite Index tracked similarly and closed today at $58.83.

Here are some other items of interest I have run across recently:

• Wachovia initiates coverage on Data Center Space. "We believe the network neutral data center space represents a relatively safe derivative way to play on the continued growth of IP and internet traffic."

• Reuven Cohen has a very interesting blog post: "Cloud Interoperability and The Neutrality Paradox.

• Matt Stansberry has the Biggest Stories of 2008 article.

• The Seeking Alpha blog has a very nice write-up on the Equinix presentation, given with Dan Golding from Tier 1 Research: Operating Today's Data Centers & Key Industry Trends That Will Affect Your Business. This is a very nice presentation with some really good insights to supply and demand for the industry.
  

• As some of you know.... I have a pretty strong side interest in data center site selection. So much so I published a white paper on the topic last year. I am a visual learner, so I love having all of the maps of the U.S. for natural disasters and other things. I have started to work on a second version of the paper and recently found another map that is interesting. The International Journal of Health Geographics recently published some new research: Spatial patterns of natural hazards mortality in the United States. The paper "examines the spatial patterns of natural hazard mortality at the county-level for the U.S. from 1970-2004 using a combination of geographical and epidemiological methods". Click through to the PDF to see the various maps.

• DataCenterKnowledge has a nice video of the uber-awesome SuperNAP in Vegas.

• Even Bigger Nightmare on Tech Street

Data Center Videos

Backing up my statement from the Cisco C-Scape post that Video is indeed THE killer app, here are a few data center favorites:

• Episode #40 of Cisco's Techwise TV is out today. Switching Secrets for Multimedia

• Cisco: Understanding the Latest Secuirty Trends in an Evolving Landscape

• DataCenterKnowledge: Inside the HP POD container
  

• Intro to FCoE by EMC

• Layered Tech TV - Episode #1. AP - you'll have to tell me about the bet you lost. :)

• FORTRUST on a local news segment in Colorado. I love it when news anchors have absolutely ZERO idea what a data center is.

• Here is one for the what "not to do" file in employee training.

Dell's Containerized Data Center

Just a quick link to an article at The Register about Dell's recent entry to the container market. I think Dell has really thought this through and not just delivered a basic container, but a solution to the needs expressed by their clients.

The Register has some nice facts about the product, and an additional picture I had not seen before of a cutaway view of the container.
Check out the article here

Cisco C-Scape 2008

As I mentioned last Sunday, the Cisco C-Scape was held (virtually) last week. Due to a few too many things going on at work I couldn't attend in real-time, but I did go back and view a couple of the archived videos. Here are just a few of my thoughts/notes on C-Scape and a press-filled week for Cisco:

• My favorite C-Scape session was what CEO John Chambers said was his favorite as well -- Closing Q&A. I think John handled the questions quite well, and I can only imagine the pressure of being CEO of such an enormous company and getting bombarded day in and out with share holders, press and analysts. He mentioned that a week or so back he met with approximately 80% of Cisco share holders and said that their expectations for Cisco in the coming year was to be 'dramatically more aggressive (but don't mess it up)', even though the financial markets and overall outlook is set to be somewhat gloomy. He mentioned that their most aggressive investments will be in China and India, while still looking into Mexico and Brazil. John was asked what 'type' of company Cisco will be in 2012. He gave an answer that any good CEO would, but basically said that they have the "architectural play" and that their strength is in "the network is the platform".

• Bloomberg had an article last Tuesday about how Cisco may be a winner in the Obama plans for Infrastructure plays. Economist James Galbraith, a Democratic adviser, recommends spending more than $900 billion. "Just as the highway program moved the U.S. into a new era in the 1950's, technology companies such as Cisco expect the federal government will now lead the way to an information-based economy." Check out the Bloomberg article here

• Dec. 10th: Yahoo's Tech Ticker interview of John Chambers.
  

• Douglas Gourlay had a nice video about Data Center 3.0.
  

• Video IS the killer application. I can attest that watching videos on the computer has increased dramatically for me in the past year. The number of video's linked inside this post alone are a testament to the statement. Cisco is also increasing the use of videos as a basic communications form via informal (in their cubical) short videos, and the TechWiseTV podcast.
  

• One of my favorite bloggers and now Cisco employee with a really long title, James Urquhart has an article on Cnet about a Maturity Model for Cloud Computing . His title is "Marketing Manager/Technology Evangelist for Data Center Virtualization at Cisco Systems, Inc." :) I'm starting to agree with Larry Ellison and Christofer Hoff -- just what exactly is "the cloud" again? I think we should just go back to calling it "the Internet". James does have a very good article however and true to my ITIL roots he references a maturity model that actually does do a good job of explaining how a company might mature towards this mythical "cloud" of computing power.

• Finally; The Annual Cisco Security Report is set to be released today..... should be interesting

The Lego Cloud

Christian Belady and David Gauthier from Microsoft have started a blog on Microsoft data centers. They start off with a bang by building on the Michael Manos blog post about Generation 4 data centers. Christian and David sit down with Adam Bomb from the Edge Technet site and answer a fair amount of questions that came as a result of people reading the Gen4 ideas.

They talk about the fact that it is truely a modular solution for the entire data center, and not just the server containers. David mentioned legos as building blocks, so I couldn't resist the title to my blog post. :)

The only question un-answered that I can think of is about natural disasters. I would have to think that the containers are some how anchored down in order to protect against tornadoes.

The only other comment I'll make on this follow-up information is that David mentioned how much shorter the build time is for Gen4. Instead of 12-18 months for construction, they expect the Gen4 sites to be ready in 3-6 months! Christian then mentioned that they are 'piloting' the modular concepts, and pulling together specs, etc. Then...... earlier today I read a brief article from the Des Moines Register stating that the plans for Des Moines data center were still on track. The article says that construction is due to begin this Spring or Summer. I think that is enough time to really nail down the supply chain process and get those containers rolling into Des Moines! At the August press conference Michael Manos said “We are implementing a very new design that’s just coming out of our research and development department, so we need to get that finalized”. The other clue is that the Register article describes it as a "150,000 sq. ft. facility". I imagine this goes back to changing the entire model for a data center.... if they would have told the press they were building a 42-acre "yard" for containers they probably would have had some puzzled looks.

But.....if San Antonio is 470,000 sq.ft. and Chicago is 441,000 sq.ft - why is the Des Moines site only 150,000?

I'll be in Des Moines in a couple of weeks and see what other clues I can find on-site.

Level3 Cuts 8% of Workforce

As many have said now.... the economy will get worse before it gets better. Level3 announced that they are cutting 450 jobs in North America, about 8% of their work force. Maybe they should apply for a bailout. :)

Tech stocks in general were up today, as my data center stock index showed -- it was up $1.67 from just last Friday, closing at $19.87. The Dow Jones Internet Composite Index was up $2.76 from Friday, closing at $60.35.

As another indicator of tough times -- The Tribune Company, publisher of The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, filed for bankruptcy. I have to wonder if other major newspaper companies won't be far behind. The sale of the Chicago Tribune could mean the sale of the Cubs would be opened up to new prospective buyers.

In other tech news.... at least now we have a double-wide analogy to apply to containers. :)

The Week Ahead

It should be another interesting week for stocks and the market in general as the financial roller coaster continues. My data center stock index was up and closed the week at $18.18. The Dow Jones Internet Composite Index was up $5.22 for the week and closed at $57.59

I think traders should sell any telecom company stock associated with research firm Precursor. They released a report calling Google a bandwidth hog. It was just plain silly and I was glad to see that Google responded appropriately.

There are a few events happening this week, virtually, that I am planning on attending. The first is Cisco's C-Scape 2008. This looks to be pretty interesting and has a lot of the Cisco Senior and Executive VP's speaking. John Chambers will also participate! I saw the funny Nortel commercial today that talks about the Cisco "energy tax". I had not seen this commercial before, except in the parody done (moderately funny) below. Note there are 4 episodes all together on YouTube.




The other event I am looking at if I have time is "bMighty bOptimized: A deep dive on IT Infrastructure for SMBs." More information on it here.

It's also rumored that Microsoft will make some big announcement this week -- perhaps a Zune Phone. This Tuesday is also the last Patch Tuesday of the year and is supposed to be a pretty big one.


With any luck I will also get to the book review of Nicholas Carr's Big Switch. During the Thanksgiving break I was finally able to finish it. I really liked it and will do a quick review for anyone that has not read it.

Microsoft Generation 4 Modular Data Centers

Many people have commented and blogged on the recent post from Michael Manos about the Microsoft Generation 4 Modular Data Center strategy. I have watched the video about 5 times now and really like it. I especially like the fact that Microsoft is sharing this and giving so much information to the public about their strategies and countless hours of research.

If you haven't checked it out (are you living under a rock!), then it is VERY much worth the read. The post references a very nice video they produced to demonstrate some of the research and Gen 4 model for their data centers. It is complete with a piano soundtrack titled "Daybreak" (can't have a dramatic video like this without an appropriately named theme song. :) )

I do have just a few observations and questions that I thought I would log about the strategy, video and otherwise.....

• One of the most intriguing parts of the video, to me, was not mentioned in very much detail in the blog post. I liked the depiction of their distribution system for data centers: Mega data center, Anchor and Edge. I assume that the Mega data center feeds the anchors, and the Anchors then feed the Edge, which was comprised of the 4 basic containers. The Anchors could simply be a communication hub, since a lot of international fiber lines were drawn off of them.
  

• I am VERY excited that the Des Moines data center could potentially be the first Gen 4 data center. San Antonio was Gen 2, Chicago was Gen3 , so......

• I imagine this is just the details, but.... asset management could be simplified and streamlined for them as well. It looked to me like (in the video) that as the trucks were leaving the warehouse, they were scanned. It would be logical then also that they are scanned upon entering the edge or mega data center and the contents are automatically updated to note that the particular compute unit is now at that location.

• The biggest concern or question may just be a thing that I have to get past as the model for data centers evolves and advances. It may also just be applicable to this particular Microsoft strategy and not for others. Security! Natural Disasters! We see data centers built miles underground, have DoD-trained anti-terrorism staff, and have 3 foot thick re-inforced concrete. Yet, the video showed their mega data center with containers Outside!! I suppose security is established at the perimeter, and since the equipment is all inside the container there is no worry about privacy. As far as natural disaster prevention.....I'm stumped. Maybe they anchor the containers once in place. Maybe there are other measures in place that just weren't discussed.
  

• I also noticed that they discussed reducing the dependency on water cooling and overall use of water in the data center. I think this is a trend you will see more of in the coming years. Maybe they could put 3 or 4 windmills on top of each branch spine in the mega data centers.

• A question I had, and have had ever since containers have really taken off, is about the rest of world (not Google or Microsoft). How can radical design and engineering changes like the Gen 4 strategy apply to other business or the colo industry? The idea I have in my head for applying this to the colo industry, is something like what BastionHost is doing with their DataVille system. It's called HotParking, and is a BYOC (Bring Your Own Container) model. They provide the security and facility hook-ups, you park your container.

A year or two ago I was pretty skeptical about the whole container model and what, if anything, it could offer. Today, I'm fully on board....with questions....but on board.

THANK YOU Michael for publishing the information and to all the Microsoft Research staff for the excellent work.