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Amazon Web Services has quietly passed an interesting benchmark: the company’s S3 storage service now hosts more than 100 billion objects. This factoid was noted this morning at Data Center World, when keynote speaker Brian Lillie of Equinix said that Amazon now is hosting 102 billion objects in S3 (Simple Storage Service).

Over the past year, the number of objects stored on S3 has grown from 54 billion to 100 billion, according to Amazon CTO Werner Vogels, who mentioned this startling growth curve in his recent presentation at the Cebit computer trade show in Germany.

It’s a fuzzy milestone, to be sure, as we don’t know how much infrastructure is required to store those 100 billion objects, or how much revenue Amazon is generating from them. But in an industry where we’re used to big numbers, 100 billion is an eye-popping total. By any measure, that’s a huge storage cloud, and likely a sign of things to come.

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Amazon S3 Now Hosts 100 Billion Objects

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The mobile revolution is coming. and the world’s infrastructure isn’t ready yet. That’s the clear message from Equinix CIO Brian Lillie, who says new devices like the iPad are making mobile video a reality.

“Think what happens when the iPad takes off,” Lillie said. “People are surfing the Internet and streaming video on their mobiles, and it’s just starting. As prices come down for these new devices, the growth of traffic will surpass expectations.”

Lille was the keynote speaker this morning at Data Center World Spring 2010 at the Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, Tenn. He warned the audience of 800 data center professionals that the coming tsunami of mobile traffic will be disruptive to their networks and facilities.

“The mobile Internet will have a profound impact,” said Lillie. “We’re just at the beginning, but we’re not ready. This is the message we’re bringing to the carriers. And they know it.” He said some carriers are preparing to increase their network capacity ten-fold over the next decade.

Lillie said the growth is being driven by the development of mobile apps for the iPhone, Blackberry, Android phones and other mobile devices. As these new apps bring a universe of everyday tasks into the palms of users’ hands, usage is accelerating – along with the data traffic streaming across global networks.

As these apps and devices proliferate, network latency will become an increasingly important challenge for corporate IT departments and data center managers.

“We believe the mobile wave will be bigger than the fixed Internet wave,” Lillie said. “It has the potential to change the way we do business.” An example: Lillie said Equinix is redesigning its systems for mobile access, including customer management portals and capacity planning tools for the iPhone and Blackberry.

A similar transition awaits many of the companies represented at Data Center World, he said. “What are you doing to handle this growth?” Lillie asked. “You have to think about your networks and how they may need to grow. The numbers (for traffic volume) are getting to be extraordinary. Most of it is video, and it’s just starting to kick off.”

One technology likely to see broader adoption as a result of mobile traffic is WAN optimization, which can help companies better manage their existing network infrastructure to (See our WAN Optimization Outlook for an overview of the major players in this niche).

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Lillie: Mobile Growth to Have ‘Profound Impact’

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Microsoft had one of its data center containers on display at the University of Washington Thursday as CEO Steve Ballmer spoke to students about his vision for cloud computing.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer today emphasized that “when it comes to the cloud, we are all in.” He shared that message first in a speech at the University of Washington, later in an all-staff email, and also in a major ad campaign the company is launching today.

Most of Ballmer’s talk focused on the end-user experience of cloud computing services. But he brought a data center with him: one of the next-generation containers that Microsoft data center GM Kevin Timmons described yesterday in a presentation in New York. The prototype (seen above) is the latest in a series of evolving designs for Microsoft’s containers, also known as an IT-PAC (pre-assembled component). The design is likely to undergo additional refinements as Microsoft continues scouting locations for its next major data center.

“It includes the equivalent of about 10,000 servers,” said Ballmer .”It’s a cool, next-generation concept. We used to have to stick fire hoses into these things to cool them down. (With this) next generation technology, you can put a garden hose in to one of these things to cool down.”

From a data center perspective, one of Ballmer’s most interesting comments came during the question-and-answer session with students, in which he hinted that Microsoft may offer a container packed with Azure technology as a product for on-site installation.

“When you walk outside and see one of those containers, it would be OK with me if we have to dump one into every country or sell some to some people who want to implement them,” said Ballmer.

Sell a container? These kind of statements are sometimes parsed out of context by media. So here’s the full transcript of the exchange:

QUESTION: “So, I’m curious that we shouldn’t care where information is because it should be completely abstracted away, but it seems the laws and regulations do care where information is. I’m just curious how we should manage and take care of that.”

STEVE BALLMER: “That’s why we talk about a partner cloud, a customer cloud and a public cloud. I mean, I think for a lot of reasons it will be many years before many government organizations will grow comfortable with the notion of their data or citizen data living outside of the jurisdiction.

As technology people we can talk about whether that makes sense or doesn’t make sense, and why the protections can be the same, but it turns out the regulatory environment, as you highlight, is imperfect. I mean, the truth of the matter is – our guys were trying to explain this to me a week or two ago – the same data held in the same place but under different operating circumstances has different regulatory blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And we can’t assume all of the world’s important countries are going to even standardize the regulatory framework. That’s why when you walk outside and see one of those containers, it would be OK with me if we have to dump one into every country or sell some to some people who want to implement them.

I love Slovenia, it’s a great country, but there’s only a million and a half Slovenes. This company is not likely to build part of our public cloud in Slovenian anytime soon. So, somebody should be able to implement a Windows Azure cloud in that country. They should be able to buy a device that looks like that or a set of devices and go do that and have that be affiliated for the rapid advance of technology with other things going on in the world.

So, I hear you and I agree that there’s a set of issues, but they don’t have to be constraints.

Here’s just one simple way to think about it. Will all of the world’s centralized compute, storage and networking infrastructure all be built out by four or five companies, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, the cloud guys? Will we buy every server computer and every piece of storage in the world? No, that isn’t going to happen. I don’t think that – if you just think about the level of capital investment that involves.

We need to permit the private cloud, and the kind of thing we’re showing, the kinds of things we’re doing with Windows Azure is about making sure there’s a public version and there’s a customer version, and there can be a government version, all based on the same core technology, and there’s some innovation to go make that happen.”

Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie stands in front of a portable Microsoft data center outside the Microsoft Atrium of the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science at the University of Washington, where CEO Steve Ballmer spoke Thursday.

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Microsoft ‘All In’ on Container-Powered Cloud

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Can cloud computing survive the hype? As the buzz surrounding cloud computing gets ever louder, how can customers locate the signal amidst the noise?  In this presentation, Lew Moorman of Rackspace begins by addressing the hype. ”I think everyone is tired of the cloud,” says Moorman, President, Cloud and Chief Strategy Officer at Rackspace. “I think there’s some cloud fatigue going on. Some people are attaching cloud to their brand and services where it doesn’t belong. But I think it is absolutely the new reality, and here’s why: It’s cheaper, better and more reliable.” This video runs about 9 minutes.

Check out our Cloud Computing Channel for other perspectives on these topics. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

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Rackspace’s Lew Moorman on ‘Cloud Fatigue’

Popularity: 19% [?]

Skytap claims it is the first enterprise private cloud provider to offer network automation features to customers, enabling them to create multiple secure networks that support advanced virtual routing and IT policies.

Sundar Raghavan, Skytap chief products and marketing officer said the automation features, which the company has been working on for the past six months, gives Skytap a lead over other private cloud providers that are working on similar functionality. Cloud providers are currently only able to offer a single network in the cloud, Raghavan said.

“We enable customers to run their enterprise applications unchanged,” said Ian Knox, senior director of product management. The network automation features enable customers to build a computing environment with application images and complex networking topologies using firewall-based security policies. Access to the cloud is through self-service Web UI and APIs.

According to Skytap, examples of complex network topologies could be server machines with multiple network adapters; server clusters with fail-over configurations and shared services; and the ability to add virtual routers, firewalls, and gateways. The self-service network allows customers to save network topologies and virtual data centers as templates, and provides role-based access for users to deploy pre-packaged data center building blocks.

Customers pay for the virtual machines and computing hours they consume, which typically runs at $2,000 a month for 25 machines.
Customers are not limited to the number of networks that they build but Raghavan said customers typically build five or six networks. The networks are included in the price.

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Skytap: Automating Networks in Clouds

Popularity: 6% [?]

What would it mean if Apple wanted to take all the songs in all the iTunes libraries sitting on all the hard drives of its users and host them in the cloud? It would probably require Apple to build an enormous data center to house the operation. There are widespread reports that Apple is contemplating such a shift.

As it happens, Apple is also building a major new data center in Maiden, North Carolina that will span 500,000 square feet. The enormity of the new facility - which will be nearly five times the size of the company’s 109,000 square foot Newark, Calif. data center – has raised questions about Apple’s ambitions. Why would it need all that data center space?

A Shift to the Cloud?
I discussed this question in an August interview with Leander Kahney at the Cult of Mac blog. A recap: The most interesting question is whether Apple needs a much larger facility to support growth in its existing services, or is scaling up capacity for future offerings.  One of the leading theories about the size of the NC project is that Apple is planning future cloud computing services that will require lots of data center storage.

This fits neatly with Apple’s purchase last week of the streaming music service LaLa. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is planning to “reboot” its iTunes service as a browser-based service that would allow users to stream their music from anywhere.

“The shift to cloud-based music won’t be instant, and may never be total,” notes an analysis at GigaOm. “But a smartly integrated way of giving consumers access to their existing MP3 libraries side-by-side with a new streaming option is very attractive. Lala knew this, and Apple can deliver it.”

Is Video Part of the Story? 
Wired believes video looms large in Apple’s ambitions. “All these recent developments point to a significant new strategic market for Apple: personal broadcasting, or sharing personal experiences,” writes Brian Chen. “YouTube and Flip are already big players in this young space, and the logical competitive move for Apple is to make personal media deliverable and accessible anytime, anywhere.”

This shift in the iTunes model would mean a change in Apple’s data storage requirements – hence the huge scaling up of its data center platform. A de-duplicated iTunes storage hub serving music from a central repository might not require much additional space.

Apple Set to Scale Up
But video is a different matter. Users of YouTube upload 20 hours of video content every minute. That may be why Apple hired Olivier Sanche to run its data center operations. Olivier previously ran the data center infrastructure at eBay, one of the leading examples of massive scalability.

If Apple is really planning a push into online video, we’ll hear about more huge data center projects soon. Here’s why: A centrally hosted iTunes would create the potential for the Mother of All Downtime Events - a data center outage that leaves the world’s iTunes users unable to access their music.

In terms of actual impact, an online music outage would rank low on most industry lists of worst-case data center failure scenarios. But an iTunes data center crash would be a huge public relations nightmare, generating a tidal wave of digital complaining via blogs and tweets.

A single point of failure will not suffice. If the speculation about Apple’s cloud ambitions are correct, there are more huge data centers to come.

Original post:
Is iTunes ‘Reboot’ Driving iDataCenter Project?

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At the Data Center Jobs Board, we have a new job listing from SteelVault Data Centers, which is seeking a Hosting/Colocation Sales Executive with industry experience and a technical understanding of colo, web hosting, cloud computing and disaster recovery. Click  here for more information or to apply.

Are you hiring for your data center? You can list your company’s job openings on the Data Center Jobs Board, and also track new openings via our RSS feed.

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Data Center Jobs: SteelVault Data Centers

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A diagram of the design of the CLUMEQ Colossus supercomputer, from a recent presentation by Marc Parizeau of CLUMEQ.

Here’s one of the most unusual data center designs we’ve seen. The CLUMEQ supercomputing center in Quebec has worked with Sun Microsystems to transform a huge silo into a data center. The cylindrical silo, which is 65 feet high and 36 feet wide with two-foot thick concrete walls, previously housed a Van de Graaf particle accelerator. When the accelerator was decommissioned, CLUMEQ decided to convert the facility into a high-performance computing (HPC) cluster known as Colossus.

We first noted the development of the CLUMEQ site earlier this year when Marc Hamilton of Sun discussed its unique design, but offered scant details. Additional information about the design of the facility and its cooling system were discussed at the Sun HPC Consortium last month in Portland, Oregon.

The CLUMEQ Colossus cylinder features an interior “hot core” (as opposed to a hot aisle) in the center of the building and uses the outside ring of the facility as the cold air plenum. The cabinets are arranged in a ring on each floor, facing the outside of the silo. The floors supporting each ring of cabinets are comprised of grates rather than solid flooring to facilitate airflow through the facility.

The cooling coils and air handlers are located in the basement. Chilled air flows upward through the outside cold aisle and through the racks of servers. The waste heat exits the rear of the racks into the hot core, and is returned to the basement via the cold aisle.

The air flow pattern is maintained through differential air pressure – maintaining a higher air pressure in the cold aisle than the hot aisle. This keeps the air moving through the facility, which has a blowing capacity of 180,000 CFM and can cool up to 1.5 megawatts of electrical load. Up to 300 kilowatts of cooling capacity can be supplied by free cooling using fresh air from outside the facility.

“CLUMEQ silo totally blows up the paradigm of data center design,” says Nicolas Dube of Sun, who began work on the project as a graduate student at Universite Laval in Quebec. “The silo, by itself, is the CRAC (computer room air conditioner). The whole facility cools itself.”

As for computing horsepower, Colossus will have a peak of 86 teraflops of compute power. It’s equipped with a Sun Constellation HPC systems featuring 10 fully loaded Sun Blade 6048 chassis, 1 petabyte of Lustre storage and Sun J4400 storage arrays.

The data center racks are spread over three floors, with the switches on the second floor to keep the cable runs as short as possible.

For a full description of the CLUMEQ design, check out this video from Sun, which runs about 6 minutes.

Additional details are available in PDFs of presentations by Marc Parizeau of CLUMEQ and Nicolas Dube of Sun.

OTHER STORIES YOU MAY LIKE:

• Who Has The Most Web Servers?
• The Gallery of Exploding Servers
• Inside the ‘James Bond Villain’ Data Center
• Google’s Chiller-Less Data Center
• Inside a Cloud Computing Data Center

Original post:
Wild New Design: Data Center in A Silo

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IBM today announced plans to build a new data center in Auckland, New Zealand, investing $58 million (NZD $80 million) in a partnership with local developer Highbrook Development Ltd. The 56,000 square foot facility, which will feature a first phase of 16,000 square feet of data center space, will be located in the Highbrook Business Park in East Tamaki and be fully operational by late 2010. Additional data center pods will be developed as demand rises.

The New Zealand project is one of three new IBM computing facilities in Asia that were announced today. IBM is also building a new data center in Seoul, South Korea and a cloud computing lab in Hong Kong.

The Auckland data center will include a free cooling system which will leverage outside air during colder months, reducing the need for chillers.

“This is a highly significant investment in New Zealand’s future technological infrastructure,” said Jennifer Moxon, Managing Director of IBM New Zealand. “It is the result of long term strategic planning and signals IBM’s commitment to enable New Zealand to become a world class technology center and advances the growth of the digital economy.”

“IBM’s new facility is core infrastructure for the 21st century digital economy that the Government and ICT industry are mutually striving to develop,” said Brett O’Riley, Chief Executive Officer, NZICT Group. “It heralds the explosion of software as a service and cloud enabled computing which will drive a step change in productivity and innovation, while its design establishes the benchmark for green ICT in this country.”

Original post:
IBM Announces Data Centers in Pacific Rim

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The credit crunch has boosted adoption of colocation, as some companies who might normally have built their own data centers have instead leased colo space to conserve cash. But the majority of enterprise companies still want to build their own facilities, and will likely pursue either new construction or retrofits to meet their expansion needs in the next two years.

Those were some of the key points emerging from a session by Gartner analyst Lydia Leong at last week’s Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas. Leong examined the expansion options available for companies with growing IT operations, and the economics influencing the choices in today’s data center marketplace.

“The colo market has seen a real upsurge over the past several years,” said Leong. “Colocation is where you go when you need space right now. Most people choose colo close to home, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”

National Search = Savings
She noted that colocation facilities vary in quality, meaning that it may sometimes be better to look outside your immediate area. “The greater your willingness to conduct a national search, the lower your costs will be,” Leong said. “We have providers who are terrible in one facility and great in another city. The difference is often the data center manager.”

The credit crunch has led many companies to forego data center construction projects that would require a significant outlay of capital. Some enterprises companies have opted for colocation, in which they lease cages or cabinets within a third-party data center.

Others have chosen wholesale data center space, in which tenants lease entire suites of data center space with dedicated power capacity. The wholesale market has been particularly attractive for fast-growing Internet companies, such as Facebook and Rackspace, who have been major players in the wholesale space. Most wholesale leases are in the seven to 10-year range, although Leong noted that a number of recent deals have featured five-year leases.

Both models have benefited from the credit crunch, which has made it harder for companies to borrow money. The tight capital market has meant closer scrutiny of construction requirements. In an instapoll of the audience, financial considerations were the top factor in company data center decisions.

Seven to 10-Year Lifespan
“If you want to be really honest, the lifetime of your data centers is 10 years, maybe only seven,” said Leong. “The cost effectiveness of a building with that lifespan is limited.” What about retrofits as opposed to ground-up “greenfield” construction. “The up-front investment is still pretty high,” said Leong. “These are for tenant improvements you’re going to make that you don’t own.”

Leong said the economics only make sense if a company needs at least 50,000 square feet of data center space.

But many attendees at the Gartner event appear undeterred, and say they will build their next data center. An audience poll found 34 percent indicating their preference for data center expansion in the next 24 months would be greenfield construction, followed by 31 percent preferring a retrofit. Twenty one percent cited colocation as their preference, followed by wholesale space at 15 percent.

Cloud Aptions Abound
What about cloud computing? “A lot of you will probably be thinking about cloud,” Leong said. “You’re going to have a wide range of options. Just about all the major outsourcers are building clouds. It will affect the way you think about servers, particularly if you have less than 50 servers. For most of you, the cloud will be a tactical option, and not your main option.”

What’s the number one mistake companies should beware of in planning data center expansions? Leong says it’s getting the power capacity right. “Power density is going to be your major limiting factor,” she said. “But most of you completely overestimate how much power you’re going to need. One of the best ways you can contain cost is by not overbuying power. If you overestimate your power needs, you can grotesquely inflate your costs.”

Original post:
Economy Boosts Colo, But Many Prefer to Build

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