Category: Monitoring

Web hosting provider NaviSite announced on Monday that it has completed its annual SSAE 16 SOC 1 compliance for its data centers in Andover, MA and San Jose, CA. NaviSite says its SSAE 16 compliance also applies to managed services and managed cloud services in these two flagship data centers, as well as managed services in its Syracuse, NY and London, UK data centers.

This announcement comes less than a week after managed service provider Richardson Eyres added NaviCloud to its portfolio of services.

Data center provider RagingWire has announced four certifications awarded to its California data centers: compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, completion of its latest Statement on Standards and Attestation Engagements No. 16 (SSAE 16) audit with zero exceptions for the period between September 1, 2010 and August 31, 2011, Awarded LEED Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), and earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR certification, becoming the only 2011 ENERGY STAR certified data center focused on multi-tenant collocation services.

For the past few years, cloud-based storage has oscillated somewhere between a replacement strategy for existing back-up storage solutions (i.e. tape) and a typically inexpensive but complex real-time storage solution for online web properties and enterprises. Much like the first waves of virtualization, many organizations are struggling to figure out where cloud storage fits within their existing IT infrastructure. Unlike basic server virtualization, and possibly more critical however, is the determination of if and when cloud storage is even legal. Cloud storage carries with it an extra layer of complexity: compliance.

With the growing costs of power and an increased uncertainty in power availability, energy conservation has become a major concern in the data center. Increases in the demand of computing power to satisfy mission critical applications along with the emergence of virtualization have had major effects on server density, making the need for an efficient energy management plan even more important. With the detailed knowledge of energy consumption gained from real-time monitoring within the data center, administrators can feel secure that they are making better, more energy conscious decisions.

James Sivis is VP, Sales & Marketing, Circonus, and has served as a senior executive in high-tech sales, marketing and business development. James has 25 years of experience with firms including Alcatel and Bellcore/Telcordia/SAIC. JAMES SIVIS Circonus Last month, I attended the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas and I wanted to share with you some of my impressions and insights from the event. First, I have to say that I have seldom seen a group of more conscientious conference attendees. Networking breakfasts were busy, sessions were well attended, and both lunch and topic-specific networking gatherings had lively discussions. Each of the Solution Center hours, going well into the evening, were full of people voraciously soaking up information from the various exhibitors. Even in hallways during the day, there was a steady exchange of opinions and information. Attendees at the conference were very serious about learning from the ...

2011 saw some major technology trends – particularly the advent of VoIP, SIP communications and the cloud, among other things. But 2011 was also a big year for the data center space as managers everywhere began to recognize the importance of monitoring critical infrastructure from not only a temperature perspective but a humidity, dew point, water and airflow one as well. Not only can data center, and in particular environmental monitoring solutions, save data center managers hundreds of thousands of dollars but they can also save them from major headaches, finger pointing and exasperation.

Global energy management company Schneider Electric has acquired the Viridity EnergyCenter 2.0 platform, a data center infrastructure management (DCIM) management software that helps customers manage power availability, cooling and space capacity, and meet sustainability goals. Schneider’s announcement says that it will acquire the intellectual property and software behind the Viridity EnergyCenter 2.0 platform, which will enhance Schneider’s StruxureWare for Data Center Operations DCIM suite. Schneider is just acquiring the DCIM software and not the company, which also makes products for the smart grid and wholesale electricity management markets.

Web hosting provider Rackspace announced on Friday via its blog that it is starting to accept applicants for the Rackspace Cloud Monitoring Private Beta. The private beta program only applies to the API, while Rackspace will introduce control panel integration in 2012. Rackspace acquired the cloud monitoring technology from Cloudkick last December. The API driven cloud service is designed for infrastructure monitoring. The private beta will be offering five data centers from which polling services will be available.

RightScale and Logicworks partner. RightScale and Logicworks announced they have joined forces to deliver a powerful solution to help enterprises simplify and manage both their public and private cloud resources. By integrating the RightScale Cloud Management Platform with Logicworks’ InfiniCloud and PowerCluster private cloud infrastructures, the companies are meeting the needs of enterprises that require high availability and compliance standards when moving mission-critical applications to the cloud. “When an enterprise requiring true high-availability or compliance moves to the cloud, one of their key challenges is finding a platform that meets the specific needs of their organization,” said Kenneth Ziegler, president and COO of Logicworks. “By pairing RightScale’s innovative management platform with Logicworks’ technical solutions and consultative, white glove customer service, clients benefit from an easy-to-manage combination of public cloud resources plugged directly into their own dedicated, private availability-zone, helping them strike the right balance between dynamic, pay-as-you go resources ...

It’s a question that has been dominating the news for months now and has become a hot-button topic for data center managers – how can you successfully monitor your data center and increase efficiencies? According to many industry experts, one of the chief places to start is by taking a look at your data center power – and they don’t just mean looking at you total room power consumption. “What we see in the industry is that a lot of people measure ambient temperature, humidity and high levels of power and while that’s a good thing it leaves out a lot of questions,” Marc Eisenberg, senior sales engineer at Server Technology (News - Alert), a company that produces data center monitoring technologies, told TMCnet. “Let’s say that the total room power consumption is 10kva. It’s important to look at how each cabinet makes up that bigger number. What ...

December 14, 2011 -- Cloud management firm RightScale and web hosting provider Logicworks announced on Wednesday that they have partnered to launch a joint offering for managing public and private cloud resources. The solution integrates RightScale Cloud Management Platform with LogicWorks infiniCloud and PowerCluster private cloud infrastructures.

Power redundancy is critical to data center operation and typically it is well planned but there are flaws. In “Power System Event Reconstruction Technologies for Modern Data Centers” the thought leaders at Schneider Electric make the case that an electrical incident may not lead to an outage but possibly to an operating condition that is less than optimal with serious economic and performance issues. Critical to analyzing a power issue is finding out what happened and how to avoid the occurrence again. Finding out what happened is the challenge. The speed at which data needs to be reviewed is so fast that System Event Reconstruction (SER) technology is the best way to capture it. SER can be built into the facility’s power monitoring system optimizing the value of that system.

IO is getting into the software business. Today the Phoenix-based colocation provider said that it is offering IO OS, its “data center operating system,” as a stand-alone software product. IO OS was initially developed to manage the IO Anywhere modular data center technology platform, and has since been adapted to manage raised-floor environments as well. “By extending IO OS to traditional data centers, IO empowers our customers to understand and optimize their legacy data centers and enables their enterprises to seamlessly transition to Data Center 2.0 technology and cloud computing,” said George Slessman, CEO of IO.

The subject matter experts at Dell present “The cloud awaits: Storage for the growing virtualized infrastructure.” This technical whitepaper explains the benefits behind the integration of Dell™ EqualLogic™ PS Series iSCSI SANs and VMware® vSphere™ virtualization software. Virtualization has been the trend in data center evolution and the benefits are well documented from both a cost and infrastructure perspective. The Cloud is next showing an even greater promise in terms of ROI. In between these data center strategies lies the need for a proven storage solution. The authors passionately advocate and clearly explain how Dell and VMware provide the optimal combination for the data center. This marriage is successful because the collaboration, between the two industry leaders, makes for an effective integration allowing for a less challenging expansion of the virtualized footprint.

A major concern for the IT professional administering the cost and efficiency of the data center is energy consumption. This information rich whitepaper, Tackling Today’s Data Center Energy Efficiency Challenges – A Software-Oriented Approach, is a detailed explanation of dealing with the energy questions by the subject matter experts at Schneider Electric and in particular their Square D Engineering Services team. The premise behind this expert opinion and footnoted research is to outline a software-based approach to the data gathering, trending, and analysis that are necessary to apply successful energy efficiency measures in data center environments. The rational flow outlined is • Planning strategic energy management • Creating an energy model • Implementing hardware measurement • Utilizing software monitoring