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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.

From:
Microsoft ‘All In’ on Container-Powered Cloud

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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.

From:
Skytap: Automating Networks in Clouds

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In the past few weeks, there have been some major shifts in the BitTorrent community which have had a resounding impact on the larger world of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. They’ve led to some of the largest BitTorrent sites completely changing focus, or figuring out smarter ways to continue sharing files illegally.

Meanwhile, Adobe announced a massively interesting inclusion in their upcoming Flash player 10.1 update – a seemingly innocuous version number that is adding some world-changing P2P technology to Flash video streaming.

I’d like to discuss these opposing trends of illegal versus more legitimate uses of P2P technology, and what they ultimately mean for how we use the Web.

The times are a-changin’ for The Pirate Bay, Mininova, and BitTorrent

First, The Pirate Bay shut down their tracker for good. The site used to boast having “the world’s largest Bittorrent tracker,” but is now opting for a different approach.

The Pirate Bay is using a combination of DHT (a de-centralized P2P network) and PEX (peer exchange, a method for gathering peers) to share files directly between peers without the use of a traditional tracker. They’re also doing away with torrent files by offering “magnet links”, which send torrent data directly to BitTorrent clients.

Mininova, another popular BitTorrent site, recently announced that they’re going completely legit by removing all of their copyright-violating torrents. Mininova has historically been more cooperative with authorities when it came to cracking down on copyright infringement, but such a drastic move from them is still surprising.

The fate of these two BitTorrent mainstays is a direct response to recent legal pressure, and it’s also telling for the future of the protocol. One gives up illicit activities completely, and the other finds a way to further remove themselves from blame. Honestly, I’m not sure how long The Pirate Bay can keep up their efforts without going completely private, especially if smaller BitTorrent sites are forced to go legitimate like Mininova.

Overall, legitimacy seems to be the wisest course of action for BitTorrent sites that don’t want to be as confrontational as The Pirate Bay. It also falls in line with the changing tide we’ve been seeing with commercial use of P2P techniques for the past few years. Gone are the days when P2P just referred to illicit file sharing. Now, many companies are relying on P2P networking as a key component of their products.

Adobe adds P2P multicasting to Flash player 10.1

In short, multicasting is the notion of distributing one piece of content from one source to many destinations – all without the load of delivering it to everyone requesting it. On large local networks – streaming a corporate event, for example – this often occurs right at the routers. With Flash player 10.1, Adobe is making it possible for content distributors to multicast content by having viewers transparently share the stream.

According to Adobe, this will allow Flash video streams for huge events with millions of viewers – even for something as large as the US presidential inauguration. Flash player 10.1 will also allow developers to build more traditional P2P applications within the browser, or as a standalone application via Adobe Air.

Spotify shares the music love

One of the most hotly anticipated services for many music lovers is Spotify, a currently Europe-only service that utilizes P2P to allow users to instantly stream music. The Spotify application looks like a cousin to iTunes with Napster as another close relative, as it should – the service marries the desire for free tunes with the legitimacy of iTunes.

The best explanation I’ve found for Spotify’s P2P tech comes courtesy of Wikipedia:

The contents of each client’s cache is summarized in an index which is sent to the Spotify stream hub upon connecting to the service. This index is then used to inform other clients about additional peers they can connect to for fetching streamed data for individual tracks being played. This is accommodated by each client, upon startup, acting as a server listening for incoming connections from other Spotify users, as well as intuitively connecting to other users to exchange cached data as appropriate.

Other P2P uses, past and present

For years now, Blizzard has been using BitTorrent to distribute updates for World of Warcraft, and let’s not forget how useful it is for downloading large files like Linux disk images. The struggling video service Joost also relied on P2P to distribute its content with its initial desktop application, though they have since done away with P2P to focus on streaming Flash directly from their site. (The Flash player 10.1 update should be a huge boon to them.)

P2P has a legitimate place in the future

While broadband speeds are increasing worldwide, there will still be many reasons to adopt P2P methods for distributing content in the future. Primarily, it severely reduces the bandwidth load for content distributors, and it prevents the danger of overloaded servers for important events. For users, it means more reliable content delivery overall (since there may be no single point of failure), and reduced costs since content providers are saving money as well.

There’s no denying that illegal uses of BitTorrent and other P2P technologies will continue, but on the other hand P2P technology will also help legitimate efforts to offer free and inexpensive ways to legally access content. Spotify, for example, could make many users give up illegal music downloading due to its convenience and ease of use.

As legitimate means of accessing content become more widely available, many users will find less reason to pirate. How ironic it is that P2P, once seen merely as the source of content providers’ woes, could potentially be their savior.

About the author:
Devindra Hardawar is a tech/film blogger and podcast host. You can find him writing at the Far Side of Tech and Slashfilm.

Original post:
How P2P is finding legitimacy as BitTorrent sites struggle to change

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The Verari data center container housing the NASA Nebula cloud computing application arrives at Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.

What do you get when you combine cloud computing and data center containers? You get NASA’s Nebula, the space agency’s new data powerhouse, which provides on-demand computing power for NASA researchers. Nebula was recently cited by federal CIO Vivek Kundra as an example of the government’s ability to “leverage the most innovative technologies.”

The Nebula application lives in a 40-foot container at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif. The “data center in a box” was built inside a FOREST container from Verari Systems, which is filled with Cisco Systems’ Unified Computing System and servers from Silicon Mechanics.

Science Compute Power on Demand
Nebula is a self-service platform built from open source software that provides high capacity computing, storage, and network connectivity for NASA research. “Nebula has been designed to automatically increase the computing power and storage available to science- and data-oriented web applications as demand rises,” explains Chris C. Kemp, Chief Information Officer of NASA Ames Research Center.

“The containerized data center solution from Verari Systems and Cisco delivers the foundation for a next-generation cloud computing environment that is responsive to the needs of our developers so they can focus on mission success – without worrying about the capacity and availability of the computing infrastructure,” said Kemp. “his solution is transforming how we think about NASA’s future computing environment.”

Momentum for Containers
Data center containers allow for rapid expansion of IT infrastructure, and can provide excellent energy efficiency by offering more precise control of airflow within the container. Microsoft and Google have used containers as building blocks in  large data centers, while some enterprises, universities and research ;abs have used containers to add incremental compute capacity.

“Verari is simplifying data center deployment,” says Dan Gatti, senior vice president of Worldwide Market Operations, Verari Systems. “Our customers are able to meet their computing and storage requirements much more quickly and easily than ever before. The planning cycle for a data center has been cut from two years down to 120 days, on average. And our customers are able to recognize huge cost savings in both OpEx and CapEx spend.”

“Cisco and Verari Systems are delivering the data center of the future – today,” said Brad Boston, senior vice president of Cisco Global Government Solutions Group. “As NASA’s Nebula Cloud Computing Environment demonstrates, customers have a great deal of flexibility in how they integrate computing, storage, and networking capabilities with Cisco UCS to ensure a solution designed for mission success today and in the future.”

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra tours the NASA Nebula data center container during a September visit to Ames Research Center.

Original post:
NASA’s Nebula: The Cloud in a Container

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A diagram of an “air wand” indicating the location of cooling vents in the wand, a key feature of a patent application by Google data center engineers.

Google has revealed some of the secret technology inside its mighty data centers, but its engineers are busy cooking up new secrets.

An example: Google is seeking to patent an advanced data center cooling system that provides precision cooling inside racks of servers, automatically adjusting to temperature changes while dramatically reducing the energy required to run chillers.

The cooling design, which could help Google slash the power bill for its servers, reinforces Google’s focus on its data centers as a competitive advantage in its battle with Microsoft and other rivals for leadership in cloud computing. The company has customized much of the operation of its data centers, which serve as the engines powering its massive Internet business. Google builds its own servers and networking switches, and now appears to be customizing the racks that hold them.

Precision Cooling via ‘Air Wands’
The innovative rack cooling design features an adjustable piping system, including “air wands” that provide small amounts of cold air to components within a server tray. The chilled air enters the top of a rack through two vertical standpipes, which branch off into air wands – long, thin pipes lined with vents that release cold air.

The air wands can pivot to target cold air on specific components, or be swung to one side to allow equipment to be removed from the rack. Dampers on each standpipe can open and close to regulate the volume of air flowing into the pipe and air wands, while the vents on each individual air wand can be adjusted to point up or down, allowing for a highly configurable system. (See A Closer Look at Google’s New Cooling Design for a diagram).

Exaflop and Its History
It’s not clear whether Google is already using the cooling system. But the patent application was submitted by Exaflop LLC, whose 2008 patent for a UPS system integrating batteries with server power supplies helped Google achieve 99.9 percent UPS efficiency and record low Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) scores. The address for Exaflop is 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, Calif., which is Google’s headquarters. The inventors listed on the patent are Google employees Jimmy Clidaras and Winnie Leung.

The system designed by Clidaras and Leung addresses many of the most vexing challenges in data center energy efficiency. It allows Google to apply small amounts of cold air precisely where it is needed, rather than cooling an entire server room and seeking to steer the airflow into each rack and across the hot server components.

Going Beyond Containers
Google has used data center containers to isolate hot and cold air and gain greater control over airflow to its servers. The new design takes this concept to a more granular level of management. The air wands can apply cool air directly to the “hot spots” inside a server tray, meaning less air is wasted or misdirected in the server room or container. This could allow Google to use a smaller chiller plant in its data centers, saving energy in the process.

Chillers, which are used to refrigerate water for use in data center cooling systems, require a large amount of electricity to operate. With the growing focus on power costs, many data centers are trying to reduce their reliance on chillers.

This has boosted adoption of “free cooling,” the use of fresh air from outside the data center to support the cooling systems. This approach allows data centers to use outside air when the temperature is cool, while falling back on chillers on warmer days. The new design could be used as supplemental cooling in a data center using free cooling, or in facilities located in areas where fresh air cooling isn’t feasible.

Limitations of Free Cooling
Google is operating a chiller-less data center in Belgium, where the climate allows nearly year-round use of free cooling. But this strategy will only work in cooler regions, and Google’s global ambitions may eventually require data centers in hotter climates unsuitable for free cooling.

Google can gain additional control over its cooling system through automated monitoring and management, as the system is designed to respond to changes within the rack as temperatures fluctuate. “The temperature sensor output can be fed to a computer program that triggers air distribution in the event of the board temperature crossing a threshold,” the patent reads. “Each temperature sensor may be connected to a PID control loop with a damper, so the corresponding damper is opened … with an increase in temperature sensed for a particular area.”

Some Secrets Revealed, While Others Incubate
Google’s data center designs were kept secret for many years, consistent with the company’s belief that its data center innovations gave it a competitive advantage. In April Google discussed its data center operations for the first time, joining a growing industry conversation about best practices for energy efficiency.

The company revealed its data center containers, custom server design and on-board UPS, among other innovations. But some industry observers concluded that there was more in the pipeline that Google wasn’t discussing.

“Both the board and the data center designs shown in detail where not Google’s very newest but all were excellent and well worth seeing,” James Hamilton noted at the time. “I like the approach of showing the previous generation technology to the industry while pushing ahead with newer work. This technique allows a company to reap the potential competitive advantages of its R&D investment while at the same time being more open with the previous generation.”

RELATED STORIES:

• Google’s Custom Web Server Revealed
• Google Claims ‘World’s Most Efficient Data Centers
• Efficient UPS Aids Google’s Extreme PUE
• Google Unveils its Data Center Containers
• Google’s Chiller-Less Data Center

Original post:
Google Patent Reveals Data Center Innovations

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The open source groupware, Open-Xchange, recently released improvements on the software that allows for easier aggregation of e-mail and contact information all while incorporating the use of social networking tools.  This all-in-one piece of software is a boon to those business web site owners who happen to be just about everywhere when it comes to social media outlets.

Background

With offices in New York and Germany, Open-Xchange has been in the business of creating collaboration software tools for quite some time.  The company works with technology partners such as Novell, Red Hat and Parallels to enable it to bring SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions to providers from around the globe.

Beginning in 2001, Open-Xchange combined forces with SUSE Linux (now a Novell business) to create the Openexchange server – one of the top selling Linux-based groupware solutions around.  Over 3,500 businesses in 65 countries now run Open-Xchange solutions.

Dealing with 1&1 Internet, Network Solutions, Dotster and Hostpoint has brought Open-Xchange over 15 million paid mailboxes this year alone.  This is a quadrupled increase from the company’s previous year.  Open-Xchange shows no signs of stopping now.

Solutions

Because no two businesses are exactly alike, Open-Xchange offers several solutions to fit one’s particular business requirements.  Each offering allows for a free testing period prior to purchasing – the perfect way to figure which solution is the right one.

The Appliance solution offered is perfect for small and medium-sized businesses who require a document and e-mail server without the need for an internet expert on hand.

The Server edition is geared more toward mid-sized businesses and is available in two versions – the standard server edition and the edition built for the Univention Corporate Server (UCS).  The later is perfect for those businesses wishing to combine the CRM tool with an entire IT infrastructure or those already running the UCS server.

For those not wanting to completely overhaul and start with an entirely new solution, Open-Xchange offers the Hosting edition of their software.  This solution allows users to keep their existing e-mail setup without the need to completely migrate over to a new system.

The Open-Xchange Server 5 steps things up from mere e-mail solution to a full-blown collaboration tool – e-mail, documents, calendars, tasks, and contacts.  This CRM offering allows businesses to grow from webmail to complete groupware.

The company also offers mobility solutions and migration services.  Open-Xchange completes the fullness of its software by also including a Mac OS version of its collaboration tool.

What is unique about all the company’s offerings is that a wizard has been incorporated into the software that searches and gathers information from several online sources, including social media sites.  Facebook, Xing, LinkedIn as well as many others are thoroughly scoured and the pertinent data is fed back into the groupware solution chosen.  A great way to gather all one’s social media contacts into one neat package.

Final Thoughts

A good business will not only rely on its standard CRM tools but also social media outlets.  Open-Xchange offers some fabulous open source CRM solutions that combines both of these items into one very powerful and useful groupware solution.

Popularity: 6% [?]

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

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

• Cisco’s Space Router: A “space-tolerant” router designed by Cisco flew into orbit this week aboard an Intelsat, Ltd. satellite. The Intelsat 14 satellite is a demonstration of Internet Routing in Space (IRIS) for the U.S. military. “We expect IRIS to connect the Internet with satellites in space for the warfighters who need seamless communication between ground-based networks and satellites used for communications,” said Kay Sears, president of Intelsat General. “Once the capabilities of IRIS are demonstrated, there could be a great deal of interest in this technology from a wide range of end users, both inside and outside of government.”
• Fujitsu opens annex of Tokyo data center. Fujitsu announced Monday the opening of the new annex of the Tatebayashi System Center in Gunma Prefecture outside Tokyo. The data center will power outsourcing services and next-generation cloud services business in Japan. The new annex also showcases the latest eco-friendly technologies as a part of “Fujitsu’s Green Policy Innovation” green IT project. The 247,000 square foot data center can accomodate 20 kVA per rack and employs solar power generation. The facility will initially contain a server farm configured with 1,000 servers and Fujitsu is looking to implement virtualization, autonomy, scalability, and usability, further advancing its Trusted-Service Platform for cloud services in Japan.

• Juniper products awarded MEF certification.  Juniper Networks announced Monday that its M series multiservice edge routers, T series core routers and MX series 3D universal edge routers have been awarded to Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) 21 standards by Iometrix.  Juniper vice president of Operations Gert Jan Shenk said “MEF certification demonstrates that the Juniper routing portfolio enhances the operator experience and economics of networking for the service provider.”  Juniper unveiled its vision for a “new network” in October with new software, hardware and partnerships.
• Core NAP completes Type II SAS 70 audit. Austin Texas based Core NAP announced it has completed a Type II SAS 70 audit of its general controls supporting data center operations.  The report addresses the control environment, risk assessment activities, control activities, information and communication systems and monitoring activities.  “Core NAP’s management understands the ever-increasing importance of corporate governance, as well as the impact of the organization’s services on our clients’ internal controls,” said Kenneth Smith, president and CEO of Core NAP.

Original post:
Roundup: Cisco Space Router, Fujitsu, Juniper

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Power, cooling and space challenges are the norm for most data centers today. These challenges are a direct result of infrastructure sprawl and disparate technologies caused by cabling, adaptors and switch ports for networking and storage. While server virtualization has begun to address part of the issue, many problems remain and new challenges emerge. This webcast look as ways to solve some of these data center challenges using Fibre Channel over Ethernet.

The main application of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is in data center storage area networks (SANs). FCoE has particular application in data centers due to the cabling reduction it makes possible, as well as in server virtualization applications, which often require many physical I/O connections per server.

With FCoE, network (IP) and storage (SAN) data traffic can be consolidated using a single network switch. This consolidation can:

• reduce the number of network interface cards required to connect to disparate storage and IP networks;
• reduce the number of cables and switches;
• reduce power and cooling costs

Fibre Channel over Ethernet provides a homogeneous I/O such that all servers have access to both the Ethernet as well as Fibre Channel environments. This is key as workloads become more mobile and dynamic across the Data Center. Providing this incremental set of capabilities while optimizing the overall cable count, adaptors, switch ports, heat dissipation and power draw proves to be more and more compelling as servers, storage, and cables continue their otherwise unabated sprawl.

Many solutions are available today and IT organizations are realizing the benefits and efficiencies of products from Cisco, NetApp, and Panduit. This webcast will cover today’s challenges in the Data Center, perspectives on how to address them, and specific methods and products to mitigate infrastructure sprawl. Click here to register for this December 10, 2009 live webcast.

Original post:
Addressing FCoE in the Data Center

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

• Force 10 demonstrates at Interop. Force 10 Networks partnered with AFORE Solutions and Sun Microsystems at INTEROP in New York last week to demonstrate data center virutalization products and cloud computing initiatives focused on driving greater network agility. The 3 vendors demonstrated virtualized resource allocation for cloud-oriented applications as well as the AFORE ASE3300 Virutalization Extension Platform.  The ASE3300 and Force 10 switch and router solutions combine to enable a multi-site, virtual data center enabling migration to cloud computing environments.
• Avocent upgrades data center management software. Announced at Interop last week, Avocent is upgrading its MergePoint Infrastructure Explorer to include several new management capabilities.  The company said these enhancements will provide a unique view into capacity planning, bringing additional return on investment and total cost of ownership benefits.  Avocent CTO Ben Grimes said that the software will allow “customers to know where their assets are, as well as plan for different ‘what if’ scenarios, and manage their data centers to reduce risk -  all while bringing improved ROI and total cost of ownership benefits to customers.”  New features include rack timeline and an enhanced change management and capacity search capabilities.

• Deutsche Telekom Buys Strato: Deutsche Telekom has acquired German web hosting provider Strato from Freenet, the companies said on Friday. Deutsche Telekom reportedly paid $409 million for Strato, which hosts 4 million domains, “This step boosts our position on the highly interesting market for hosting solutions,” said Niek Jan van Damme, Member of the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom for fixed-network and mobile business in Germany. “Strato complements our activities in the hosting area perfectly and will make a positive contribution to net profit and free cash flow from the very first day of consolidation,” said van Damme.
• Social Networks: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace. Several news stories shed light on popular Web 2.0 sites last week.  Bloomberg estimates that common stock valuation for Facebook jumped 42% in the past four months to $9.5 billion.  The valuation comes after increased trading activity on stock service sites that allow current and former employees to sell shares of stock. Twitter COO Dick Costolo spoke at a conference last week and said that Twitter is getting more than $4 million a year in revenue from companies that use Twitter data.  Costolo also said that “you will see an advertising strategy from us in the very near future.” Cnet News reports that MySpace has aquired social-networking music site Imeem. Sources with knowledge of the deal say it is worth $8 million.
• Meanwhile, original web power-house company AOL has cut local headcount in northern Virginia by 2,400.

Original post:
Roundup: Force 10 Networks, Avocent, Facebook

Popularity: 32% [?]