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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% [?]

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

Popularity: 6% [?]

We’re a little tardy with our review of last month’s most popular story, as we were busy at the Gartner Data Center Conference last week. But there continues to be huge interest in data center power and cooling innovations at Facebook and Google, which accounted for four of our top five stories for the month. Here’s a look at the 10 most popular stories of November 2009, ranked by total page views:

• Facebook Follows Google to Data Center Savings (Nov. 27)
• A Closer Look at Google’s New Cooling Design (Nov. 30)
• WoW’s Back End: 10 Data centers, 75,000 Cores (Nov. 25)
• Google Patent Reveals Data Center Innovations (Nov. 30)
• Inside A Cloud Computing Data Center (Nov. 4)
• Should Servers Come With Batteries? (Nov. 27)
• Power Outage Effects Rackspace Cloud (Nov. 3)
• Facebook Goes Green With New Data Centers (Nov. 5)
• Rackspace: We Have Work to Do (Nov. 4)
• Microsoft’s Windows Azure Cloud Container (Nov. 18)

You can stay current on the latest data center news by subscribing to our RSS feed and daily e-mail updates.

Original post:
Best of Data Center Knowledge, November 2009

Popularity: 6% [?]

Moving the U.S. military’s IT operations to a cloud computing model hasn’t been easy. But the payoff is clear, according to Henry Sienkiewicz, who oversees the Department of Defense’s cloud computing platform, known as the Rapid Access Computing Environment (RACE).

“This is a radical shift,” Sienkiewicz said yesterday at the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas. “We really believe we will be able to save hundreds of millions of dollars as we go forward with this model.”

“The RACE platform went into production in early October, and accelerates the process of provisioning computing services for applications used by the U.S. military. The platform was developed by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which manages information infrastructure for 4 million members of the Department of Defense. Resources will be based on DISA’s standard architecture, allowing employees to provision Windows or Red Hat Linux operating environments from a service catalog accessed via a secure web portal.

24-Hour Turnaround
“RACE is a first for DoD – our users can now customize, purchase, and receive their test and development computing platform within 24 hours and the production environments within 72 hours, and that’s a must for worldwide missions with ever-changing computing requirements,” said Sienkiewicz, the Technical Program Director for DISA.

It’s not instantaneous provisioning, but it’s a huge step forward, he said. “We look at the way our young warfighters are looking to consume apps and data,” he said. “We need to have the ability to develop and deploy applications within the timeline of the military decision cycle.”

Testing and developing applications has been a major on-ramp for cloud computing, allowing developers to work around backlogs and bureacracy in acquiring internal hardware and software for testbeds.

Convincing the Department of Defense to consider a cloud computing model wasn’t easy. “This is very much a cultural shift,” said Sienkiewicz. “Three quarters of our battle is on the cultural side, not technology. At the Defense Department, we have all sorts of cultural impediments and inertia.”

Backing From The Top Brass
A key step in cloud adoption is gaining influence in the C-suite. The defense cloud has had an influential supporter in Gen. James Cartwright, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a previous post heading the U.S. Strategic Command, Cartwright created a blog aimed at improving the flow of information across the organization.

“Gen. Cartwright gets this,” said Sienkiewicz. “He completely and totally has bought into this.”

The DISA has more than 4 million users, effectively serving as the hosting provider for the Defense Department. It has 14 data centers around the globe, a number that was reduced from 194. “We’ve done a lot of consolidation, and its provided great savings for the American taxpayer,” said Sienkiewicz.

More than 6,100 servers
DISA manages 445,000 square feet of data space, and runs more than 6,100 servers. 34 mainframes and has more than 3,800 terabytes of data storage.

RACE aims to provide app developers in the U.S. military with self-service provisioning through an online portal. “We’re modeling this on things you might see at Rackspace and 1&1, where you click a checkbox,” said Sienkiewicz. But provisioning isn’t instantaneous, as DISA is supported by fees from the various departments that use its services. The 24-hour turnaround is dictated by billing considerations, as the provisioning process requires a government credit card or completed Military Interdepartmental Purchase Request (MIPR).

“Are we completely there yet? No. But you can move your team along,” said Seinkiewicz, who said RACE currently runs in one data center, but will eventually be deployed to additional data centers. “We believe we can do dynamic provisioning across multiple data centers. There are a lot of security issues you need to wrestle with first. Enablers like a data center fabric are key to figuring this out.”

‘SourceForge for the DoD’
DISA has also created a developer hub, Forge.mil, which Sienkiewicz describes as “SourceForge for the DoD.” It currently has 3,500 users and more than 200 development projects. “You have to engage with software developers early on.”

In 2010 RACE will be integrated into SIPRNET, the Department of Defense’s classified network. DISA will also implement an accelerated process to have applications vetted for security through the DoD accreditation process.

Original post:
DoD: Cloud Will Save Us ‘Hundreds of Millions’

Popularity: 6% [?]

Cloud computing is one of the latest internet technologies that affords companies the ability to present their data and information within outside sources.  With recent concerns with regard to cloud computing and security, it is no wonder that many businesses may be a bit hesitant to jump on board.

Rackspace is endeavoring to reverse the latest cloud computing intimidation by offering solutions that will enable businesses to move their applications from in-house to the cloud.

Rackspace

Based in San Antonio, Texas, Rackspace started its services in 1998 and has grown to provide enterprise-level hosting services to businesses both small and large all around the globe.  At the latest count, this web hosting solution provider caters to over 70,000 customers of which over 51,000 are cloud computing clients.  The company specializes in managed hosting, e-mail and applications as well as cloud hosting.

New Cloud Products

In a continuing effort to bring companies onto cloud computing, Rackspace has recently announced a new set of product offerings.

The Rackspace Cloud Drive is the company’s solution to file server management.  With this product, customers can store and share files with ease, backup and restore files without a hitch and can be accessed remotely.  Additionally, all files located on this cloud solution can be quickly synced across teams and desktops.

For those in need of an online backup solution, Rackspace offers the Rackspace Server Backup product.  Powered by Jungle Disk (Rackspace sister division), this product works for both Windows and Linux servers.  Users can backup files and directories onto either the Amazon S3 or Rackspace Cloud Files storage services.

A product that has not been released yet (December 2009 release date) is the Rackspace Hosted Microsoft SharePoint solution.  This product will enable customers to utilized a centralized document repository that allows for collaboration, project tracking, content management and other business communication tools.

Best reason to use cloud computing

All online businesses strive to increase their customer base and in doing so, increase the need for resources.  Increased resources means having to purchase and implement new hardware to keep up with the demand and growth.  Cloud computing allows online businesses to increase their productivity and customer base without having to pour out money into either optimizing current hardware or purchasing new equipment.

Rackspace is leading the charge in cloud computing.  With outstanding services the hosting provider already is well-known for, the addition of new cloud computing solutions will place Rackspace as a leader in the cloud.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Shared hosting provider DreamHost has managed a lot of data center migrations over the years as it switched among Los Angeles colocation providers, some of whom were acquired along the way. The fast-growing company has opted not to build its own data center, but recently decided to take a large equity investment in Alchemy Communications and move the rest of its gear into an Alchemy facility.

So now DreamHost owns a bigger chunk of the problem, as the data center migration went poorly, with network problems leaving many customers offline for days. Additional details are available at The WHIR and the DreamHost status page.

“Never ones to be stared down, we got pretty good over the years at moving data centers,” DreamHost’s Josh Jones writes. “In fact, being unafraid to move data centers may actually have turned out to be one of our biggest competitive advantages. Of course, it may have been one of our biggest distractions too. Moving data centers has become such a huge deal that the planning for moving even just a third of our footprint now occupies our entire system admin team for the better part of a year.”

DreamHost isn’t the first provider to se a data center migration go awry, as ValueWeb and NaviSite can attest. But by this time, ongoing DreamHost customers must be accustomed to outages and overbilling, and newer customers who can use Google have plenty of information about the company’s track record. DreamHost’s continued growth suggests that despite predictions that cloud computing will make shared hosting obsolete, the cheap web hosting account will remain popular.

Original post:
DreamHost Migration Snafu Causes Outages

Popularity: 2% [?]

Here’s a roundup of news announcements from the data center and hosting industry:

• Ciena acquires Nortel Ethernet assets. Ciena Corporation announced that they were selected as the successful bidder in the auction for all of the optical networking and carrier Ethernet assets of Nortel’s Metro Ethernet Networks business.  Ciena has agreed to pay $769 million for the assets.  Ciena CEO Gary Smith said the purchase is “bringing together complementary technologies in switching and transport to create an innovative powerhouse with the scale to challenge the industry status quo and offer customers a practical path for transitioning to automated, optical Ethernet-based networking.”  In 2008 Nortel saw $1.36 billion in revenue from the assets to be acquired.
• Equinix adds to European Ethernet Exchange.  Earlier in the month Equinix announced that submarine transport cable provider Hibernia Atlantic was expanding with Equinix in New York. Now European-based carriers Exponential-e and Tinet have signed up to participate in the recently announced Carrier Ethernet Exchange platform.  The initial deployment locations include London, New York, Chicago and Silicon Valley.  The goal of the project is to provide Ethernet Network to Network Interconnections (E-NNI).  VP of Engineering at Exponential-e Mukesh Bavisi said “Equinix already plays a strategic role in our peering relationships with other Tier 1 service providers, so it is a natural choice that we leverage its carrier-rich interconnection hubs to develop an Ethernet interconnection infrastructure.”  According to Infonetics Research demand for carrier Ethernet services is set to double within five years.
• Rackspace offers complete Verisign SSL line.  Rackspace announced that they expanded an agreement with Verisign allowing them to directly sell, install and renew Verisign SLL Certificates to their customers.  Additionally the entire line of certificates is now available as a self-service option via the MyRackspacecom customer portal.  “Trust is the most valuable currency on the Internet today, and trust is what VeriSign SSL and EV SSL protection delivers for Web site operators the world over,” said Michael Lin, vice president and general manager of SSL at VeriSign.

Original post:
Roundup: Ciena, Equinix, Rackspace

Popularity: 12% [?]

Here’s a roundup of news announcements from the data center and hosting industry:

• Internap Enhances CDN for High Quality Video. On Tuesday Internap Network Services announced enhancements to its content delivery network (CDN) offering, including new ease-of-use functions and automation of key CDN capabilities.  A comScore Video Metrix service poll showed that in September 2009 more than 84.8% of the total U.S. Internet audience watched online video. Version 5.0 of Internap’s CDN MediaConsole includes an integrated rule-based transcoding that automatically converts video into the ideal formats for a broad range of devices.  It also performs a continuous bitrate adjustment that dynamically adapts video streams based on the capabilities and bandwidth of the network.  Internap is showcasing its CDN offering at the Streaming Media West conference November 17-19.
• Rackspace Launches Cloud Drive. Rackspace (RAX) announced a set of new product offerings that help businesses move their IT applications into the cloud.  New products include Cloud Drive, Server Backup, and an upcoming release of Hosted Microsoft SharePoint.  The new cloud products mark an aggressive move by Rackspace to expand into collaboration and backup applications and compete in the software-as-a-service market.  Rackspace Cloud Drive is a cloud-based, online file storage application that allows individuals and teams to store, share and backup files. Rackspace Server Backup is a cloud-based, online server backup application designed to protect file server data.  Both Server Backup and Cloud Drive are powered by technology from Jungle Disk, a Rackspace subsidiary acquired in 2008.

• Joyent Secures $8.5 million from Intel Capital. Cloud provider Joyent announced Tuesday that it received an infusion of funding from Intel’s global investment organization, Intel Capital.  The funds will be used to accelerate its product development, sales and marketing and an increased global expansion. “Joyent has developed its own data center virtualization technology that creates a flexible multi-tenant cloud,” said Joyent CEO David Young. ”As a result, Joyent’s technology delivers more than 70 percent utilization, which is eight times more than industry averages.”
• Isilon announces new scale-out NAS products. Isilon Systems announced the release of the Isilon IQ 72000X and 72NL scale-out NAS products, bringing to market a 10 Petabyte single file system and single volume for nearline archive and disk-to-disk backup environments.  The new products leverage Hitachi 2TB drives to double system capacity while reducing power, cooling and data center footprint by 50 percent.  The IQ 72NL combines 72 Terabytes of storage in a 4U chassis and will scale to more than 10 Petabytes in a single file system.  Both products are available currently in limited quantities, and will be generally available in January 2010.

Original post:
Roundup: Internap, Rackspace, Joyent, Isilon

Popularity: unranked [?]

A look at the Microsoft Corp. data center in the San Antonio suburb of Westover Hills. Local officials made aggressive use of economic incentives to land the $550 million project.

Economic development officials in San Antonio have been touting the city as a data center destination for years. The game-changing moment arrived in 2006, when Microsoft was scouting locations for a $550 million data center project. Local officials retooled their incentives, hoping to present Microsoft with an offer it couldn’t refuse.

“We were very aggressive,” recalls Mario Hernandez, who heads the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation. “We knew we had to be more aggressive because we needed a data center anchor, and we saw Microsoft as that anchor.”

Building A Data Center Cluster
The city won the project, and has used the Microsoft win to attract other data center projects, including projects from Stream Realty and Power Loft on nearby tracts in the Westover Hills section of the city. Frost Bank, Valero, Lowe’s and Christus Health Systems also operate data centers in the city, which is also home to a major cloud computing player in Rackspace (RAX).  

San Antonio offers one of the best examples of an economic development official’s data center dream scenario: one major project prompts other companies to follow, opening the floodgates for an influx of investment.

There are key differences between San Antonio’s assets and approach, which won’t work for every region. But the city’s approach offers insights for other areas seeking to attract data center projects.

San Antonio offered Microsoft a 10-year property tax abatement, making an exception to rules that limited abatements to six years unless the project created 500 jobs. Although Microsoft would need just 75 workers to staff the data center, the 10-year abatement was approved – along with a recommendation that city-owned utility CPS Energy foot the bill for $5.2 million in power transformers for the Microsoft data center.

Goal: A ‘Must See’ for Site Location
“It was a very unusual move,” said Hernandez. “But we knew that project would put us on the map, and it has. It has sent a very clear message. When Microsoft makes a decision for you, it gets attention. It has provided us the leads for most major data centers that can operate in this part of the country. We have become a ‘must see’ for most data center projects.”

San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the U.S. with more than 1.3 million residents, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Affordable land is plentiful, and the city has a favorable profile for natural disasters, with no history of earthquakes and an average of one tornado a year. San Antonio is about 120 miles inland, blunting the potential impact of all but the most powerful hurricanes. 

Power Usage Benefits City 
The city also owns the local power and gas utility, and makes 14 cents on every dollar spent on power by large users. ”We’ve always been an attractive community for power-intensive operations,” said Hernandez. “We have an added incentive to attract data centers because of the unique ownership structure, which justifies targeting data centers. You can see the impact that it has on the financing of government.”

A key factor for Microsoft was the availability of recycled water for use in its cooling towers. The San Antonio Water System has been offering recycled water to its industrial customers since 1996. Recycled “grey” water isn’t fresh or drinkable but is not contaminated by any toxic substances or toilet wastes, and is considered environmentally friendly because it reduces demands for fresh water.

Water Availability During Drought
Hernandez says recycled water is also more available then fresh water in a crisis. “It saves money on price, but it also guaranteed a supply in the event of a drought,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to provide that predictability.”

While the long-term economic benefit remains unclear for some states that have used incentives to attract large data center projects, Hernandez says the strategy has been a  winner for San Antonio.

“We’re convinced that if you want to have part of the ‘home of the Internet’ in your community, you have to make sure that you’re a player,” he said.

Original post:
San Antonio: Microsoft Put Us on the Map

Popularity: 46% [?]

Today Rackspace Hosting (RAX) will open the 120,000 square foot second phase of its headquarters facility within a former shopping mall in San Antonio. Last week we visited Rackspace’s digs inside the 1.1 million square foot facility, which showcases the company’s corporate culture and its emphasis on “Fanatical Support.” The expansion space will soon be the home of the company’s fast-growing cloud computing operation, which is among the departments being consolidated from the company’s other office sites in the San Antonia area. And yes, they have a Big Ass Fan. This video runs about 3 minutes, 20 seconds.

For more information about Rackspace Hosting, check out our Rackspace Channel. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

Original post:
Rackspace Expands Its Headquarters

Popularity: unranked [?]