Sears Holdings has formed a new unit to market space from former Sears and Kmart retail stores as a home for data centers, disaster recovery space and wireless towers. With the creation of Ubiquity Critical Environments, Sears hopes to convert the retail icons of the 20th century into the Internet...
One of my good friends introduced me to a SW company that was going to build its first data center. I told them why build, it is your first one. Just lease three 2MW wholesale data center spaces. You'll get a great price given your brand name recognition and you'll have three places to start your consolidation for the dozens of co-lo facilities around the world.
The European Commission-funded project wants data center designers and operators to test prototypes of tools that should, from 2014, make it easier to build data centers that are as energy-efficient as possible.
An article from Data Center Knowledge points to things robots can do to increase efficiency in data centers. But hurdles lie ahead, and data centers will still need administrators, the article suggests.
Cloudscaling has raised a new $10 million, Series B round of funding. The company provides an OpenStack-powered cloud infrastructure system. The funding comes from Trinity Ventures and two new big name investors: Juniper Networks and Seagate.
Samsung’s technology for ultrafast data speeds currently requires a truckload of equipment. The world’s biggest cell-phone maker, Samsung, caused a stir last week by announcing an ultrafast wireless technology that it unofficially dubbed “5G.” And the technology has, in fact, been tested on the streets of New York.
Las Vegas, Nevada -- The flexibility of software and the desire for simplicity continues to drive changes throughout the IT world. Managers want fewer servers and boxes from fewer (but not a single, sole-source) vendor and the ability to add, subtract, and move around functions between servers without having to lock those functions onto one platform. At CTIA this week, Ciena is preaching “consolidation” for network operators with a data center twist. Service provider are currently operating parallel optical and packet (IP) networks, said Ciena’s Industry Marketing Director Barry Zipp. If you’re into the 7 layer model, one layer is optical transport with IP stacked on top of it.
VMware (VMW) has unveiled vCloud Hybrid Service, an infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud built and operated by VMware. Here's a look at notable analysis and commentary from around the web.
A cloud-enabled world uses more networking. So, since we’re all moving to the cloud, now would be a very good time to look closely at communications. But the greening of networks is generating a lot of confusion right now. How much energy do cloud access networks need? If you listen to some people (Australia’s CEET institute, say) it’s about ten times as much as the data centres that power them. If you listen to others (green experts connected to Britain’s Intellect group), it’s only about ten percent.Some say networks dominate IT energy, while others have different ideas, says Peter Judge
Chris Crosby has a post on Detroit as a data center location and brings up the folks in Iowa with Facebook. Detroit. The Data Center Capital of America Life is good in Altoona, Iowa. With the coming of Facebook, servers will quickly outnumber the community’s 15,000 residents and the city is poised to become one of the country’s leading data center destinations. The citizenry of Altoona are, of course, ecstatic at their good fortune. The economic benefits alone are too numerous to consider. The police department is contemplating adding a second car, the country club might add nine more holes so members can play a full 18, and there’s a rumor going around that Krispy Kreme might be coming to town.
The European Commission undertaking officially known as the CoolEmAll project, which is designed to tackle energy efficiency in data centres, has released its first set of prototype tools. The CoolEmAll project involves universities and vendors as well as specialists such as analyst firm the 451 Group. It aims to develop and deliver monitoring software as part of a wider goal to reduce data centre energy consumption.
Robotics are beginning to be integrated into data center management, creating the potential for a robot-driven, fully automated "lights out" data center environment. Bill Kleyman explores the possibilities.
May 22, 2013 -- In the last few years, Asia has become a hotbed for many tech startups. With a population of 4.1 billion, it is clearly a lucrative market for companies. Keep on reading: Is Singapore Asia’s Hosting Hub?
Is the data center industry a candidate for regulation as a utility, as suggested last week by the New York Times? We reached out to experts who were familiar with both data centers and utilities to get their take.
Hitachi offers business-grade Dropbox features, but doesn't yet have local data centres
Chris Curtis of Compass Datacenters writes about the need to blast through some rock in site preparations for a new data center. Like most things in the development world, the need to conduct controlled explosions has some plusses and some minuses, he concludes. This is the first in a three-part...
The trend toward the mobile user continues at an accelerating pace and trends indicate that the mobile applications and hardware (smartphones and tablets and even vehicle based systems) will exceed the PC based information client. While on the surface this would not appear to impact the design of...
Part of what a big data center company like Google and Microsoft have learned to expect is that neighbors show up after they are the first to build. Facebook going to Lulea was one of the first data center operators in the area. And now that there are others looking at Lulea and Facebook is going through commissioning, there are concerns there is enough infrastructure.
The Windows Azure Cloud is expanding its footprint in the Asia-Pacific Region. Microsoft is building a new data center in Singapore, with a facility expected online in 2014, the company has confirmed. Microsoft also announced two new data center sites in Australia.
European data center firm Interexion decided to try its hand at a unique cooling scheme for its data center in Stockholm, Sweden -- seawater cooling. The idea has been a resounding success; except for the occasional jellyfish induced difficulty.
In a cost-averse world in which Internet growth is creating an explosion of demand for data center space, CEO Hossein Fateh of DuPont Fabros believes the economics favor huge facilities operated by small teams of specialists.
Microsoft has announced universities on the Janet network will be able to connect directly into its Azure cloud data centre in Dublin, thanks to a peering project. Janet is a private network used by UK universities. At its heart it provides its own network connections, rather than relying on the public Internet, so Janet users can enjoy better speed and security.
Power companies in areas with a growing amount of clean power are looking at new ways to store compressed air underground. The Pacific Northwest could get some of these new air technologies in the coming years.
