More Data Center Space Being Rented, Not Built

Posted on February 27, 2012 by gregl

According to a Frost & Sullivan survey conducted last year, enterprises will increase data center floor space 15 percent a year through 2013, but the percentage of that space they actually own will decrease six percent.

How can this be? It means simply that a large number of companies are utilizing colocation platforms.

“Even through challenging economic times, the need for physical data center capacity continues to grow,” according to IT Business Edge. “For some businesses, the driver is expansion into new markets or geographies. For others, it’s the need to deal with growing amounts of data generated by applications with high-capacity demands, evolving end-user abilities, or regulatory bodies that demand ever-increasing quantities of meticulous documentation.

“If your data center is running out of space – or power, which is increasingly an important constraint – you have two options. You can build and operate a new facility, or you can lease the capacity you need from one of a growing number of colocation providers who can solve your problem immediately.”

Repairing Personal Cybercrime Averages 28 Days

Posted on February 24, 2012 by gregl

A 14-country survey Symantec conducted for market-researchers StrategyOne reveals that 65 percent of 77,000 survey participants have been victims of cybercrime.

Further, the victims said they spent an average of 28 days and an average out-of-pocket cost of $334 to repair the damage, excluding the cost of any personal time, which could put the real cost at over $1,000 per incident.

“Something the survey doesn’t mention (and wouldn’t be expected to, since it’s sponsored by an anti-virus company) is the extra price for anti-virus, anti-malware, firewall and other security software and hardware as a result of cybercrime and our fear that we’ll become victims if we don’t implement those extra security measures,” notes the TechRepublic.com blog in reporting on the survey.

“The Symantec survey deals primarily with personal consequences of cybercrime,” the article continues. “Although many individuals have valuable information on their computers, as well as personal data and financial data that can be exploited for identity theft, the exact value of that data is often difficult to quantify.”

Green IT Has a Huge Blind Spot

Posted on February 15, 2012 by gregl

Effectiveness of the Green IT movement suffers from a massive oversight by failing to address the massive amounts of electronic waste.

“The IT industry is already energy-neutral in terms of its consumption and savings, but there is still no credible scenario for safely managing the global production and disposal of literally billions of personal computers, mobile phones and other electronic devices,” writes David Moschella, research director for CSC’s Leading Edge Forum.

Writing in Computerworld, he says the reasons for focusing on IT energy conservation are obvious, ranging from global warming and the popularity of new gear that saves energy, to the difficulty of extracting toxic substances from retired electronic products and the public’s ignorance of the problem. “Many people simply don’t realize there is anything wrong with throwing out old IT products in their everyday bagged trash,” he writes.

“For these reasons, much of the IT community has turned a blind eye toward some truly appalling global practices and conditions, with the developing world too often used as an e-waste dumping ground, often harming the poorest of nations and people,” he contends. “This problem is only getting worse, as the number of devices built, sold and thrown away rapidly increases.”

“This should be the number one green IT priority for the next few years,” Moschella continues. “Too much time has been wasted already.”

Will Facebook Change the Face of Servers?

Posted on February 10, 2012 by gregl

No screws or “vanity plastic” on Facebook servers.

Facebook’s big data center in Prineville is pretty much an open book. The company is literally open-sourcing its data center and server designs, showing how the social-networking giant is stripping IT gear to bare essentials, with the goal of having a PUE – the industry-standard measure of energy efficiency in data centers – as low as possible.

At this point, the ratings for Facebook’s Prineville is well under the industry average of 1.5 PUE.

It’ll be interesting to see how the major vendors of IT gear react to the Facebook approach. Take servers, as an example. Facebook – in keeping with its barebones approach – strips its servers of any plastic casing and even unnecessary screws. The result is a server chassis with 22 percent fewer materials, no expansion slots, and weighing six pounds less than the comparable mass-market server.

Facebook also arranges racks as triplets for easier deployment and swapping, and has simplified its servers’ power supplies to achieve efficiency of greater than 94 percent.

Of course this approach to server architecture eliminates the manufacturer’s plastic skin along with any trace of product branding. “The upshot here is that many IT buyers will look at Facebook designs and incorporate them into what they do,” observes Larry Dignan at ZDNet. “It’s highly likely that technology vendors will have to respond.”

Data Center Outsourcing Globally to Reach $8 Billion

Posted on February 7, 2012 by gregl

Outsourcing data center services will hit $8 billion globally in 2012, according to new findings in the Data Center Industry Census of 2011. The United States is the largest market, with 210,000 racks outsourced either to third-party suppliers ~ such as EasyStreet ~ or to other offices.

The census, conducted by DatacenterDynamics, is the largest comparative study of data center operators and users, with 5,400 interviews conducted in 70 countries in June and July of this year. The census focused on 22 key markets worldwide, and found outsourcing to be prevalent across all markets.

Variation was wide, however, according to geographic region. India, for example, outsources 30 percent of its racks, and China 28 percent, while the Middle East is lowest at only 3 percent.

“It is evident that outsourcing fulfills different roles in the evolution of markets; as an entry point for organizations which have not yet evolved the capacity requirement to operate their own environments, or as an exit point in developed markets where the pace of increased IT requirements has exceeded in-house capacity,” explains Nick Parfitt, a DatacenterDynamics researcher.

Click here to read the entire report.

Data Center on the Street of Dreams?

Posted on February 3, 2012 by gregl

Architectural rendering of proposed data center in Minnetonka.

Are data centers going to be popping up in disguise in upscale residential neighborhoods? That’s a possibility raised by a proposed facility in Minnetonka, Minnesota, according to Data Center Knowledge.

FiberPop, a startup intent on building a chain of “community-based data centers,” is planning a $30 million, 36,000-square-foot facility in an area zoned for luxury homes in the Minnesota city. The facility is designed to have mansion-style sloped rooflines, dormers, stone-facade walls and high-end landscaping. The actual data hall is on the lower level, along with 60 underground parking spaces while FiberPop offices are on the mansion’s main level.

“We wanted it to fit into the neighborhood,” says FiberPop president Jim Louks of his plan to integrate the data center into the residential area. “I don’t know if it’s a mansion. It’s a commercial building with an upscale look to it.”

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Monthly Archives: February 2012