All Blog Posts (907)

American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 - Waxman-Markey

With all of the efforts to get energy under control, it is not surprising that there are a number of new energy bills making their way through congress. One of the most 'spectacular' in-process bills with…

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Added by Robert Schmidt on June 9, 2010 at 4:35 — 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

Energy Star for Data Centers - It's a GOOD thing!

http://blog.modius.com/modiusblog/bid/37276/Energy-Star-for-Data-Centers-Finally-a-report-card…

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Added by Robert Schmidt on June 8, 2010 at 4:42 — No Comments

A Huge Test of Cloud Automation Tools

At long last. For some reason, the trade magazines refrained from doing a thorough test of cloud automation tools. But to make the cloud worthwhile, they are definitely needed. The marketplace was maturing slowly though, and only now the larger vendors are coming up with serious automation tools.

Smaller vendors have been showing their tricks though, and now Network World has finally picked it up and… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on June 7, 2010 at 22:56 — No Comments

Data Center Network Economics Blog

Data Center Network Economics addresses industry issues: router vendor cost control; building better business cases; ICO, not TCO; The Business Case for Selling Products to Governments and Not-for-Profits:

http://www.datacenterecon.com/DCNE_Blog.html

Added by Lisa Huff on June 7, 2010 at 16:00 — No Comments

GreeningIT

Free to download e-book: Greening IT: How Greener IT Can Form a Solid Base For a Low-Carbon Society.

Data centers, cloud computing and much more, take a look at…

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Added by Rien Dijkstra on June 7, 2010 at 0:08 — No Comments

How much better can it get? Data Center Energy Efficiency

http://blog.modius.com/modiusblog/bid/37181/How-much-better-can-it-get-Data-Center-Energy-Efficiency

I was flipping through the 2007 report to congress issued by Jonathan Koomey ("Report to Congress…

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Added by Robert Schmidt on June 6, 2010 at 17:44 — 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

Data Center Cooling has many components...

http://blog.modius.com/modiusblog/bid/37126/Data-Center-Cooling-has-many-components

Just read about a new innovative way to address the cooling requirements within the data center worthy of mention here. As no surprise, the data…

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Added by Robert Schmidt on June 4, 2010 at 15:23 — No Comments

Data Center Monitoring: Out-of-Band versus In-Band

http://blog.modius.com/modiusblog/bid/37058/Data-Center-Monitoring-Out-of-Band-versus-In-Band

There was a time where x86 hardware systems and the applications and operating systems chosen to be installed upon them were…

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Added by Robert Schmidt on June 4, 2010 at 15:22 — 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

Why Current Network Security Fails

Why is it that advances in data center technology have so far failed to produce decent digital security for enterprises? Even with the newest firewalls, encryption schemes and what more, breaches are an almost daily occurence.

The answer is actually quite simple, as we can read in this article in Processor Magazine. The whole model that has… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on May 31, 2010 at 22:45 — No Comments

Why Current Network Security Fails

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on May 31, 2010 at 22:45 — No Comments

Point of discussion: should less be more?

Quick post today. I came across a blogpost by Doug Mohney at Green Data Center News today. He took aim at a new solution by Alcatel Lucent.

Basically, it's very simple: it concerns a network of piping that transports heat from the racks to the heat sink. Nothing special really. The main problem is that is could well be less green as advertised. Mohney could very well be right about that: installing it might be very energy intensive.

My question to the community is: is he… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on May 28, 2010 at 21:41 — No Comments

Another Small Win for Standards

We all know the need for standards within the data center sphere. But with standards, you also need enforcement and incentives for companies to apply them. Unfortunately, that advances slowly.

Sometimes however, a small but significant step is taken. Take the recent news that SGI is redesigning their ICE Cube container data centers to fit standard… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on May 27, 2010 at 22:31 — No Comments

Hurray! The Crisis is at an End! (or is it?)

At least, that is if I can believe Gartner, who just send me this bit of news:

"Worldwide server shipments grew 23 per cent year over year in the first quarter of 2010, while revenue increased 6 per cent, according to Gartner, Inc."

Hurray! That means the crisis (at least in IT) is fading. It is about time, because server shipments were hitting rock bottom the last year.

However, that is not the whole story:

""We've seen a return to growth on a worldwide… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on May 26, 2010 at 22:11 — No Comments

Fine Corinthian Leather... or Data Center Analysis?

http://blog.modius.com/modiusblog/bid/36499/Fine-Corinthian-Leather-or-Data-Center-Analysis…

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Added by Robert Schmidt on May 25, 2010 at 22:30 — No Comments

A New Metric to Keep Uptime High

This is a bit of 'breaking news' I got from Techtarget today: The Uptime Institute has drawn up a new metric to measure the ability of a data center to keep running without interruption. Called the Operational Sustainability benchmark, it is to published on 1 July.

We know the Uptime Institute for their… Continue

Added by Michiel van Blommestein on May 25, 2010 at 21:26 — No Comments