Blogs

IT is the real James Bond

First of all, let me express my absolute astonishment on the match of today. Holland played so-so in the first half, but what a second half. I am not a chauvinist, but it was a thrilling match and a great result. So good actually, that the Dutch actually proved again that the Twitter data centers are far from reliable enough. I haven't seen so many fail whales in quite some time. What will happen if China starts to play football well???

But I digress. All I wanted to do was point to… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on July 2, 2010 at 23:32 — No Comments

The Q2 Winners AND The Losers are Content Delivery Shops

Akamai has been an exciting force within the data center world for a good year now. At NetEvents 2009, they were awarded Most Innovative Company. Before that, they were steadily building a reputation.

This also shows in their results. As Data Center Knowledge points out, the application delivery company has shot up another 60 percent for the last uarter. That while the Dow… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on July 1, 2010 at 22:43 — No Comments

The Anniversary of an Odd, Enduring Marriage

Quick post today. The Register, while it sometimes overdoes it in half funny coverage of nonsensical news, has an interesting comment running this week.

It is a celebration of ten years of Linux on IBM Mainframes. While it may sound logical now that it is Linux that has saved Big Iron from catastrophe, it is actually kind of weird that two so different tech business philosophies are so well matched together.… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 29, 2010 at 20:39 — No Comments

Storage is Boring, and here is the Evidence

To paraphrase a former chief editor of mine: storage is boring. You have a disk, and you put stuff on it. Finito, there is no more to it than that. Nothing to see here, move along. Unfortunately, he does have a point. Not much is happening in terms of technological or even functional breakthroughs.

When I was an editor at IDG, there was very little news in terms of storage. Data warehousing maybe, SANs or NAS's. Too bad it was seldomly

ripe for a good article. Disks get bigger… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 28, 2010 at 22:51 — No Comments

About Dodgy Construction Firms

We all know that contracters and constructors can be slippery. Heck, I once had my roof fixed, and the invoice was about twice as high as was agreed beforehand! However, the rule is that the bigger the client, the dodgier the dealing can be.

That's exactly what happened in Chicago with the US's largest data center operator being the fat singing lady. Apparently, Digital Realty Trust play a key part in the downfall… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 25, 2010 at 23:41 — No Comments

Data Center Monitoring - MUST be Enterprise in Scale!

Over the course of meeting with perhaps 100 customers over the last 6 months, it has become painfully clear to me that there is widescale and growing confusion about Real-Time Data Center…

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Added by Robert Schmidt on June 25, 2010 at 16:08 — No Comments

Diagnosing Big Data

Structure 2010, a conference concerning internet infrastructure and cloud computing (and, consequently, data centers) is underway in San Francisco. Blogger Katie Fehrenbacher does some nice, regular blogposts from there.

One of them is a list of signs that you are really dealing with big data. What is big data? Well, that is exactly the problem. you really don't know that you have, say, malaria if you don't recognise the symptoms. You might misdiagnose it yourself as a simple… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 24, 2010 at 23:10 — No Comments

Comparing PUE is Great Fun, if not very Accurate

PUE may not be the best of instruments for handing out, let's say, world wide energy labels. But what PUE can offer is a view at how well you're operation is going, and it gives a quick answer to the question wheter there is any space for improvement.

Consequently, the data center space is locked in a friendly competition of 'who has the smallest', or more accurately: who comes closest to… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 23, 2010 at 22:58 — No Comments

This Post Will Solve All Your Problems

Forget the post I wrote yesterday, and the Network World article it pointed to. If you want to solve all your problems with your facility and don't mind for the rewards to come in a couple of months rather than a couple of weeks, Peter Judge of Green Data Center News has a very simple solution:

STOP BUYING NEW HARDWARE!

The funny thing is, this is not as preposterous as it first appears. If… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 22, 2010 at 22:29 — No Comments

No Vacation for you Data Center Managers!

If you're planning to do a data center project next year, than I have some very bad news for you: if you have not started it, than you're summer vacation is going to be a short one indeed. You need to have your budget ready by autumn to be able to do some serious shopping during the holiday period. That is hardly a relaxing thing to do, especially if it is actually the first large project in ages.…

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Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 21, 2010 at 22:30 — No Comments

Member Interview: From Data Center Mover to Command Center Consolidator

As promised, at the Data Center Professional Network we want to feature you, the community members from time to time. Our very first interview for the Data Center Professional Network takes us to the United States. Austin, Texas, to be more exact. Harold Gilchrist has been a member since last March.…

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Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 19, 2010 at 9:30 — No Comments

IT managers wary of B2B integration vendor market

Global research by Sterling Commerce reveals that IT managers are wary about the IT vendor landscape and are re-thinking their B2B integration strategies to make the most of opportunities as we come out of the recession. While the majority of the 600 senior IT decision makers questioned (78%) believe the recession is at least half over, 41% are re-thinking their B2B integration strategy due to uncertainty in the B2B integration vendor landscape.

Just over…

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Added by Michael A. Schmidt on June 16, 2010 at 17:44 — No Comments

MTV: About Cabinet Cooling and Cubed Floors

Our Dutch partners have published a new issue of DatacenterWorks, their magazine aimed at people like, well, you. As most of you know, it is in Dutch and therefore unfortunately not very intelligible for the most of you. However, this month's cover story is rather interesting. It features a new computerroom for MTV, which serves the broadcasts in a large part of Europe.

So what is so special about it? Two things. Firstly, the whole room was built in a mere 2 months, which is very fast… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 14, 2010 at 23:27 — No Comments

Red Hat Making 'Virtual Data Center' Gains

When Red Hat acquired KVM, it was either going to be a top or a flop. When they did that, VMware and Microsoft were battling each in a sometimes embarrassing competition of 'who has the biggest'. Citrix is barely hanging on, while other competitors just could not keep up in the years of these virtualisation war.

Everything depended on Red Hat finding some kind of niche for the KVM technology. It seems they found it:… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 10, 2010 at 22:52 — No Comments

Yet Another Giant Shares his Views

It seems that TechTarget are on a roll when it comes to interviewing industry heavyweights. A week ago, they spoke to Mike Manos. This week, they got hold of 'Dr. Bob' Sullivan, the man who stood at the cradle of the hot aisle/cold aisle cold aisle design almost twenty years ago.

Now hot/cool aisling is almost standard, even though mr. Sullivan is frustrated about the fact that not all new… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 9, 2010 at 22:30 — No Comments

What Data Centers and Household Appliances now have in Common

(picture courtesy of treehugger.com)

Yes, it is a fact now: your data center is now comparable to fridges, washing machines and microwaves. In what way?

No points if you guessed right: data centers can now earn the Energy Star label as well. It is not very easy though, as…

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Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 8, 2010 at 22:05 — No Comments

For Those of You Tired of Being Accused of Planet Killing

Short post today. Does it bother you that you as a data center professional keep on hearing that you're being part of the blackest, most polluting industry around? And that, consequently, you are one of those greedy 'suits' for whom 'green' is just a PR tool?

If that is the case, Mark Thiele (CEO of Data Center Pulse) has written a blog post just for you. Read it, and… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 4, 2010 at 23:38 — No Comments

Don't let the Smart Grid Dumb Down

Whether it is good for average consumers is one thing, but the upcoming smart grid (in the US, and probably later in Europe as well) is going to be an interesting development for data centers as well. Even so much that it is not a utility thing anymore, but mainly an IT thing. That is further reinvorced by the fact that Vint Cerf is a member of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP).

However, the smart grid has one serious problem which other IT project don't have to cope with,… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 3, 2010 at 23:14 — No Comments

Massive Takeover earns Digital Realty New Record

Digital Realty Trust is quickly becoming the Oracle of data center space. Apart from the discussion if that's a good thing or not, the fact is that DRT is on one heck of a buying spree. Just like Oracle, 'organical growth' is just not in their dictionary.

Now, the data center facility giant has made one big sweep by buying all five of the 365 Main facilities for the sum of… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 2, 2010 at 22:44 — No Comments

"Climate Change Regulation the new Y2K"

Mike Manos, the data center world's answer to Security's Bruce Schneier, has been doing his stuff now for a couple of months at Nokia. Techtarget interviewed him, asking him about what he sees as the biggest game changers in the industry.

The biggest game changer, according to him, is going to be climate change regulations, specifically the… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 1, 2010 at 23:44 — No Comments

The Data Center Professionals Network

Featured Blog Posts (81)

IT is the real James Bond

The Q2 Winners AND The Losers are Content Delivery Shops

The Anniversary of an Odd, Enduring Marriage

Storage is Boring, and here is the Evidence

About Dodgy Construction Firms

Data Center Monitoring - MUST be Enterprise in Scale!

Diagnosing Big Data

Comparing PUE is Great Fun, if not very Accurate

This Post Will Solve All Your Problems

No Vacation for you Data Center Managers!

Member Interview: From Data Center Mover to Command Center Consolidator

IT managers wary of B2B integration vendor market

MTV: About Cabinet Cooling and Cubed Floors

Red Hat Making 'Virtual Data Center' Gains

Yet Another Giant Shares his Views

What Data Centers and Household Appliances now have in Common

For Those of You Tired of Being Accused of Planet Killing

Don't let the Smart Grid Dumb Down

Massive Takeover earns Digital Realty New Record

"Climate Change Regulation the new Y2K"

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