SilverBack Migration Solutions Datacenter Blog

Picking the Right Data Center for Your Needs

Elizabeth English — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:27:00 GMT

Choosing between all the different facilities available is a daunting task. Fortunately, there are criteria out there to help make decisions easier. John Savageau is doing a great series on some of these criteria, and here's a quick look at some of what he's come up with:

The most basic offerings from a data center include concrete, power, air conditioning and interconnections. Besides these basics, there is a lot of variety in other details of each facility, like security, cost, and reliability, as well as comparative quality of those basics. Nothing is perfect, so choosing a facility requires you to prioritize your needs. Different locations have different strengths, so it's important to research facility-dense areas thoroughly.

It's common in the data center industry for facilities to spring up in clusters, since some locations are better suited to support the power, space, and cost requirements of such large and energy-rich structures. Areas like the southern San Francisco Bay Area, Virginia, Seattle, and Los Angeles, to name a few, boast these sorts of clusters.

Each facility will provide those four basic requirements of concrete/space, power, air conditioning, and interconnection, but the trick is to figure out which are each place's strong points vs. their weak points. Check out www.USDATACENTERLIST.com for a great resource to locate facilities and John Savageau's blog series for more details of his take on weeding through all the places out there.

-Elizabeth English

photo by s w ellis under flickr creative commons license

In the News: Ubuntu 9.10

Elizabeth English — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:31:00 GMT

Ubuntu: free, open-source software, great operating system, very widely-used Linux distribution for the desktop. Highly usable, highly installable. The name means "humanity towards others." What's not to like?

The original idea was to update it every six months to keep things running smoothly and consistently. The latest launched yesterday with the completely awesome name Karmic Koala, and features more radical changes than usual.

Karmic Koala offers better security, faster booting, and an updated kernel-based mode setting and Intel graphics driver, solving previous graphics complaints. See the lengthy article at the H-Online for a thorough run-through of updates.

Also in the news: Sweden. One missing dot during routine maintenance brought down the whole country's internet. Of course they had people on it right away, but while the root of the problem was fixed pretty quickly, externally cached ISPs are probably even now experiencing the residual effects of that mistake. Quite the Halloween horror story.

-Elizabeth English

photo by Brian Giesen under flickr creative commons license

October Newsletter

Elizabeth English — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 03:04:00 GMT

Our latest newsletter went live this week!

As usual it's full of thrilling Silverback news as well as a piece on a partner (in this case our new sister site, http://usdatacenterlist.com), and some more general data center industry topics and the controversy surrounding them.

One of the highlights this issue is our Crash Cart Contest! Make sure to check out the details and enter yours for the $200 gift card + coupon prize.

Another feature is a little special on our latest, much-read whitepaper. If you haven't already checked it out, here's another chance.

-Elizabeth English

Informatique en Nuage

Elizabeth English — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:41:00 GMT

We tweeted this a few days ago, but I'm still not over it.

Some background information: L'academie francaise is a group working to keep the French language as French as possible and protect it from getting diluted with borrowings from other languages, part of the idea being to come up with French terms so that English terms won't be used.

The neat part: A possible term to replace the use of the English term "cloud computing" was recently presented to the committee - "informatique en nuage." However, they were appalled. The term was sent back to the drawing board and roundly abused. It kind of makes you think about why we're so comfortable calling it cloud computing. Does anyone know why that term was coined? Or how to say "data center" in French?

-Elizabeth English

p.s. The article came from a blog on Translation Services USA, if that kind of thing is up your alley.

New Energy Guidelines

Elizabeth English — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:43:00 GMT

The Environmental Protection Agency has updated their Energy Star for Data Centers program by releasing new guidelines for documenting energy efficiency, called Energy Usage Effectiveness, EUE, instead of the better-known Power Usage Effectiveness, PUE.

The difference between the two systems lies in measuring the energy potential of fuel, rather than actual electrical power. Interestingly, seemingly important factors like climate and tier aren't huge factors in this metric for energy efficiency.

The EPA is rating data centers on a hundred-point scale, and these ratings have the potential to be pretty influential. According to Data Center Journal, the results will be released in November and there is a plaque involved, so be prepared!

Another interesting concern about systematized units of measure like this is whether or not they will become law, and what regulation like that will mean to the data center industry.

-Elizabeth English

photo by rooymans2000 under flickr creative commons license

More News on Data Center Cooling

Elizabeth English — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:25:00 GMT

From careful planning to hot or cold aisle containment, there are definitely things you can do to improve the efficiency of your data center cooling. Still, the technology we've got is always open for improvement, and Lawrence Berkeley Labs has just collaborated with Intel to develop and test another exciting step towards cooling efficiency.

Lawrence Berkeley Labs - photo by Derrick Coetzee under flickr creative commons license

This new technology works on the premise that your servers should be able to communicate with your building management system about their cooling needs. Instead of just keeping track of temperatures of air as it returns to the computer room air handler, sensors are used in different places throughout the data center. Getting the servers to communicate with the building management system is a fairly simple affair of using a conversion between protocols. To avoid the common problem of hot spots at the top of server racks, this process uses temperature readings from the top and bottom of racks.

Intel and LBL used computational fluid dynamics to model their ideas and then proceeded to test them successfully in Santa Clara. Now the issue is getting professionals to catch on and feel more comfortable with letting automated processes control something so crucial as data center temperature, as explained by the article at Data Center Knowledge.

-Elizabeth English

Carrier Pigeons and Your Data

Elizabeth English — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:58:00 GMT

This all happened over a week ago, but it's definitely worth sharing in case anyone missed it:

A South African company, The Unlimited, tested out a theory that they could send data faster with carrier pigeons than over South Africa's largest internet service provider's ADSL line. Sure enough, the pigeon made it to its location in a little over two hours, by which time the file it carried in a card on its leg had only finished downloading 4%.

There have been other attempts at transferring data with carrier pigeons, too, although none were so successful as this little bird - whose name is Winston, by the way.

photo by foxypar4 under flickr creative commons license

IP over Avian Carriers, although very funny and a pointed critique on the limitations of the internet, is not without its flaws. Pigeons are messy, I'm just saying. Also they have trouble with, for example, oceans. Still, congratulations Winston for being 96% faster than the internet in South Africa!

-Elizabeth English

Innovation in Data Center Heat Management

Elizabeth English — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:19:00 GMT

As we know, cooling is a huge issue in a big facility full of temperature-sensitive machines constantly producing a whole lot of heat. We can’t just tell them to stop, so what to do? Cooling depletes a lot of resources environmentally and financially - money spent on cooling can actually add up to half of a data center’s annual energy expenditure, and the energy used by data centers is environmentally significant. There is a lot of room for improvement in current data center cooling trends, and companies like Polargy, Wright Line, and Advanced Data Centers, to name a few, are working hard at increasing energy-efficiency in this area. Their approaches, although different, are both centered around the idea of aisle containment, which aims to prevent mixing of hot and cold air.

Polargy has had great success with cold aisle containment. They use a system of soft-wall curtains and rigid panels to control airflow, greatly increasing energy-efficiency. In fact, in a recent case study, Polargy’s innovative cold aisle containment design enabled a 1600 square-foot data center with a 335kW IT load to improve its energy-efficiency enough to save $30,000 annually. Their design is also adaptable for hot aisle containment. Polargy’s website provides a more in-depth account of their work.

Another exciting instance of successful data center cooling creativity is in the collaboration of Wright Line, Advanced Data Centers, and Rumsey Engineers - in this case in heat aisle containment rather than cold. The Independent Containment System is sustainable, vendor-neutral, free-standing, and scalable. All these companies are very serious about being green and it really shows in the success of their product. Refer to their websites, Wright Line, Advanced Data Centers, or Rumsey Engineers for more information about them and products like the ICS.

-Elizabeth English

Silverback's New C.O.O.

Elizabeth English — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:06:00 GMT

Team Silverback is proud to announce that our long-time business partner Don Small has accepted the position as Silverback's Chief Operations Officer.

His accomplishments and qualifications include more than 20 years of experience in systems and infrastructure development, data center engineering, and technology industry management. He is highly experienced in data center design and management, technology support and services, IT systems architecture, and software development.

His superb range of skills aside, he is also a great guy to have around, and we are very excited to welcome him to the team!

-Elizabeth English

Supercomputers, Data Centers, and Energy Efficiency

Elizabeth English — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:05:00 GMT

Who would think that the UK Meteorological Office would be a big polluter? But apparently because of the supercomputer they use to predict climate change, their energy requirements are massive. So what can we do to regulate and minimize the amazing energy consumption required by supercomputers?

The Oak Ridge National Laboratory uses a supercomputer, the Cray XT5 Jaguar, and its capabilities are truly impressive. It takes up more space than a college basketball court and is rated at 1.64 petaflops. It uses energy equivalent to what a whole town would use, up to 7 megawatts of power. Energy requirements like this can cost tens of millions of dollars, as much of that going to cooling as to actual processing.

photo by rlasell under flickr creative commons license

With technology this complex and demanding, current trends in computer architecture don't really satisfy concerns about staying green and keeping expenses reasonable.

Fortunately, and very interestingly, with the expansion of potential uses for GPUs, NVIDIA has succeeded in greatly reducing the environmental impact and energy consumption of some supercomputers. See HPC Wire's article about greening data centers for more details, but it looks like this idea of high-density computing can really help data centers get greener.

-Elizabeth English

August Newsletter

Elizabeth English — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:15:00 GMT

Don't miss our brand new August newsletter!

Features include:

-Information about data center power questions... as discussed in our whitepapers

-News and electronic resources about underground data center space

-An exciting partner profile

-And also, the introduction of our newest mascot...

The fourth in our series of newsletters, August's edition has the same goal of sharing news, insight, and any help we can offer with the world of data center operations.

-Elizabeth English

Data Centers in a Box!

Elizabeth English — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:20:00 GMT

As data center space becomes harder to find, alternate forms of data storage like data center containers are becoming more popular. This is clear, for example, from Active Power's recent success with its PowerHouse systems. These act as extensions of more conventional data centers, providing extra space in the form of containers, typically until a more permanent structure can be prepared.

Active Power has just sold three of these containers between two customers - deals amounting to $5 million. Two of the containers are rated at 480 kW and each feature a standby generator, Active Power's CleanSource 600 kVA UPS, a generator starting module, switchgear, and chiller. The third is rated at 240 kW with all the same features except with a CleanSource 300 kVA UPS.

Using the containers is said to save 25% on capital and 60% on operating expenses.

photo by Robert Scoble under flickr creative commons license

Interestingly, the Department of Defense is also getting in on containerized solutions, in Texas. It looks like they are using containers to extend cooling and power capabilities at a pre-existing site with the aid of Lee Technologies.

For more news, check out Data Center Knowledge.

-Elizabeth English

Choosing a Data Center Monitoring Solution

Elizabeth English — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:36:00 GMT

This morning I came across a very helpful article about things to consider before choosing a data center monitoring solution. Because there are so many different components to consider, it can be really complicated to prioritize and negotiate how to monitor the physical aspects of a data center.

Considerations include:

-First of all, figure out exactly what needs to be monitored and have that list ready before talking to vendors.

-Think of the cost. While monitoring is clearly going to be expensive, downtime can be absolutely catastrophic. Also, you don't have to choose the priciest monitoring solution.

-Don't just use alarms. Without a solution that provides a visual of your data center, problems are harder to pinpoint.

photo by James Cridland under flickr creative commons license

-Look for architecture which will expand with you. It's important not to end up limited by your space, or limited by a monitoring solution which won't be successful in multiple data centers.

-Try to choose a monitoring solution which is not specific to devices from only one manufacturer - it should be able to incorporate all your devices.

-Look into whether you need a hardware solution or a software solution.

-Don't waste time figuring out alarms by yourself - make sure your solution provides intelligent alarm processing.

-You may run into trouble with monitoring solutions if you have devices using different protocols. Watch out for this.

-See if you can do a trial installation before investing in whatever monitoring solution you are thinking of choosing.

For more information, see the full article from Data Center Journal here.

-Elizabeth English

Announcing: The Green Gorilla - Green Data Center Mascot

Ken Jamaca — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 18:49:00 GMT

It seems as though Green IT and Data Center initiatives have become a fairly common theme in our blog, twitter, and whitepaper publications. It is for that reason, we would like to announce our new mascot..."The Green Gorilla"!!

As we move forward with our Green IT, Technology and Data Center reporting, any publication we release that touches on new ways to "Go Green" will be tagged with "The Green Gorilla" to make the search for your next Green IT implementation as simple and straightforward as possible.

It is our belief that the more green opportunities that present themselves to organzations, the more likely it is that more organziations will take that first step into Green Technology for their IT and Data Center environments.

Please remember to subscribe to our blog, twitter, and newsletter so you can be kept informed about all of the Green IT & Data Center initiatives we uncover!

So Much for Word Processing

Elizabeth English — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:35:00 GMT

This just in: a judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling Microsoft Word by the end of the next 60 days. Sure Word is annoying, but really?

Apparently, the way Word separately manipulates a document's content and architecture infringes on some copyright. A version of word that couldn't open documents in .XML .DOCX or .DOCM formats containing custom XML would be fine... but that doesn't help Microsoft out any right now. The 2003 and 2007 versions are both now illegal. They also have to pay $240 million in damages to the company that holds the patent they infringed upon.

And really, who needs this:

photo by GlennFleishmann under flickr creative commons license

Missing floppy...? If that's what they're using over there maybe they do need to rethink things.

Microsoft plans to appeal, naturally... but this is one more thing for me to add to my list of reasons to switch to Macs.

-Elizabeth English

Sun Data Center Video

Elizabeth English — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 02:55:00 GMT

I just checked out a video from Sun Microsystems about their cloud computing facility in Las Vegas.

At 400,000 square feet, with a military-trained security team, the place is pretty impressive.

photo by JosefRousek under flickr creative commons license

photo by matze ott under flickr creative commons license

They host extremely important material, including government information, medical records, and data belonging to Fortune 500 companies.

Their efforts at being green and sustainable (my favorite subject) are interesting as well. They utilize Las Vegas' weather, which is cool enough most of the year, by flushing air in from the outside and processing heated air out of the building. Their statistics show that they get 10 times the power density of other facilities in a 70% more efficient manner.

Tour the Sun Cloud Data Center yourself for more information.

-Elizabeth English

Announcing New Data Center Space

Elizabeth English — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 13:31:00 GMT

In El Segundo, California, new data center space from Base Partners Inc. has finished construction and is ready for development.

The facility:

-a powered shell space of 121,586 square feet

-demisable to raised floor pods of about 15,000 square feet

-a dedicated substation delivering 20 MVA, on-site!

-discounted wholesale rates

-seismic upgrading is at 1.25G

-lots of fiber providers easily accessible

Don't miss out on this excellent space with its on-site substation and great California location.

-Elizabeth English

Alba 1: Massive Scottish Data Center

Elizabeth English — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Rumors about what is set to become the largest data center in the world, the planned Alba 1 facility in Scotland, have been afoot for a while.

The data center will provide about 3 million square feet of space for hosting, which is more than any other similar facility already in existence. Scotland, full of wide open spaces and equipped with many competent workers, is seeing a lot of data center construction. They're keeping it green, too - exploring sources of power like ocean water and wind farms. Alba 1 is set to use wind farms for power. While some people are concerned that such large facilities are harmful to the picturesque quality of the Scottish countryside, these concerns do not seem to be doing a lot to halt construction. It's rumored that Alba 1 would increase internet speed, perhaps significantly, in the UK by providing a more even distribution of stored data.

Although the construction will cost about 1 billion British pounds, which is close to $2 billion USD, Internet Villages International has already raised 600 million pounds of that total from anonymous supporters of the project. With any luck the facility will open in 2010, providing lots of jobs along the way.

For more information, check out The Guardian's article, £1bn data centre in Scotland could be world's biggest.

-Elizabeth English

Data Center Power - Our New Whitepaper

Elizabeth English — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:32:00 GMT

Figuring out what a specific data center facility needs in order to meet business requirements is, of course, complicated. There are a lot of factors involved, not least of which is data center power.

Our new whitepaper can help answer your questions about selecting the right voltage for a facility. We hear a lot of similar questions about data center voltage, and we're going to do our best to help out with the dilemmas IT professionals deal with in this complex business.

Since even small efforts at improving energy efficiency can save money in the tens of thousands of dollars, as well as protect the environment, maximizing efficiency is definitely attractive. Download our free whitepaper, hot off the presses, to learn more about selecting the right voltage in your data center.

-Elizabeth English

System Administrator Appreciation Day - Tomorrow!

Elizabeth English — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:06:00 GMT

Tomorrow, July 31st, is the tenth annual System Administrator Appreciation Day.

This article goes into depth about the holiday. Remember everything your sysadmin does for you... from set-up to maintenance, day and night. It's an international holiday to celebrate a rather under-appreciated but extremely essential workforce.

Consider not only taking time to thank any system administrators you know, but also reminding them how important they are with a little gift.

We've come a long way since this...

photo by timonoko under flickr creative commons license

...And we should make sure the people who help us along the way know how much it means to us.

-Elizabeth English

Underground Data Centers

Elizabeth English — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:38:00 GMT

As the data center industry grows, it gets trickier to find ample space to house new facilities or provide companies with room to expand. Interestingly enough, underground locations are a viable option, since a lot of abandoned mines and military bunkers meet necessary criteria. Some underground locations were even built so that reuse would be easy. Directors of these facilities note that people tend to imagine the data centers to be dark, drippy holes in the ground, but this is definitely not accurate.

Although anyone with data storage needs might enjoy having such an interesting, high-security facility, so far, underground data centers are especially appealing to high-security organizations like the government. They are extremely well-protected in the event of disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and fires, as well as potential terrorist attacks.

Although there are a few issues with some of the underground data centers, like that some of them are in very rural areas, other problems one would imagine to exist, in reality, are not serious obstacles. Water is kept out easily enough, and can even be used for cooling. Limestone mines tend to be dry anyway. The main benefits are the amazing security, and the high amount of readily available space.

It all sounds like a lot of fun to move into, and data center migrations are what we're all about.

Check out this article for a more in-depth look.

photo by aliwest44 under flickr creative commons license

-Elizabeth English

Green Data Centers

Elizabeth English — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:49:00 GMT

Going green is getting easier and more popular for data centers and IT in general. This article about a data center planned in Texas inspired me to do some very interesting research about what's happening in green IT lately. The company building the new facility, Baryonyx, was founded earlier this year specifically to create data center projects powered by renewable energy. They have been awarded three different sites on which to build wind farms which will power the new facility. They are not the first to use wind to power a data center, and it will be about three years before it's ready, but one really striking feature of the Baryonyx data center is that the project will pay royalties to Texas schools. So... what they're trying to say is that they're saving the world and educating the children, all in one.

It seems like perceptions about going green are changing, too. There are several great reasons it has caught on - as people get used to the idea, it becomes obvious that not only is it a "good" thing to do, in terms of preserving the environment, but it also saves money. Studies show a lot of disturbing evidence about current data center power usage: a lot of energy is going to waste. This article, on Microsoft's TechNet, talks a bit about that and lists some interesting criteria for defining "green" when it comes to data centers.

Something else interesting about the race to get green is that it's really a contest that benefits everyone. The harder companies try to outdo each other, as with the amazing sustainability innovations big names like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are developing, the better off we all are.

Considering moving to a more sustainable facility, or reworking your current systems to meet new criteria? Team Silverback is here to help with any data center engineering and co-location migration needs.

-Elizabeth English

Data Center Cooling - Our New Partners

Elizabeth English — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Silverback Migration Solutions is pleased to announce our partnership with CoolSolve. We have seen a lot of good come from incorporating Computational Fluid Dynamics studies into capacity planning and environment reconfigurations, and we are happy to have the opportunity to integrate CoolSolve’s strengths in this respect with our portfolio of offerings, in order to provide the best services possible.

Keeping a data center cool as efficiently as possible can be a daunting task, but CoolSolve makes it their priority. Based in Jacksonville, Florida, they know about heat. The problem is that even if your cooling strategy was great to start with, as a data center grows, its original equipment cooling systems may not keep up with the new developments. To solve this problem, CoolSolve uses a thorough approach, their Computational Fluid Dynamics modeling services, to work with data center teams and create models to calculate the optimum cooling strategy for a specific facility. There are a lot of reasons to choose to work with specialists on updating or reworking such an important aspect of your data center. CoolSolve can help achieve greater efficiency not only in the way cooling systems actually function, but also in the cost and trouble of selecting and installing equipment, since they are authorities on the subject. They also enhance data security, since optimized cooling decreases the risk of a potentially catastrophic outage from heat complications, and they can even help support green initiatives, since a more efficient system leads to less wasted resources.

photo by ricardo.martins under flickr creative commons license

If you need any more information, go ahead and send them an email at info@coolsolve.com.

-Elizabeth English

New Data Center Construction

Elizabeth English — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:54:00 GMT

Because of an ever-increasing demand for data center space, we’re seeing a lot of news about construction. Some of these exciting new projects are huge corporate affairs, while others are more focused on hosting and colocation space. It also looks like there’s strong interest in developing more and more green data center technology – which makes a lot of sense, considering taking measures to protect the environment and conserve natural resources is not only a way to save the world a little bit at a time, but it also tends to save money for your company.

Here at Silverback Migration Solutions we can move you where you need to go, minimizing the trouble and risk of relocating or setting up new data center environments. Check out our Services page... because no one should have to handle this alone:

photo by AlonzoD under flickr creative commons license

A few new hosting and colocation projects:

Here in the US, we have Superb Internet opening a new data center in Springfield, Virginia, which will be their third facility, with another in Virginia and one in Seattle, Washington. They are a leading web host company headquartered in Hawaii, and this new data center represents their efforts to stay on top of growth and demand on the East Coast. Their website: http://www.superbhosting.net/

We also have Internap expanding their existing facility in Manhattan and increasing its green features, including an ultrasonic humidification system and energy-efficient electronically commutated fans. Besides gaining 8500 square feet of new space, they are anticipating saving 15%-20% of the energy they would consume with less environmentally-conscious technology. http://www.internap.com/

Across the Atlantic, in Wakefield in the UK, the managed hosting and colocation provider Node4 is opening a new data center. It will also employ green measures like energy efficient air conditioning. http://www.node4.co.uk/

A bit north, in Scotland, Internet Villages International has proposed opening what might turn out to be the biggest data center in the world. Called “Alba 1,” it could be as enormous as 3 million square feet, and will use some of Scotland’s green energy sources like wind farms.

Other new data centers:

Also interesting are the massive data center openings of organizations like Yahoo, Apple, and the National Security Agency. Yahoo and Apple continue to stun us with innovative ideas like using Niagara Falls to power systems (in Yahoo’s case). Becoming green is an important trend, and these new projects do not disappoint on that front. The National Security Agency’s new Utah project is impressive more for its vastness: the eventual total cost of the project is estimated at about $2 billion, for a 1 million square foot facility using no less than 65 megawatts of power. See http://www.theregister.co.uk/ for more information about these massive private projects.

-Elizabeth English

New poll on LinkedIN...how do you track your IT and datacenter assets?

Ken Jamaca — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 09:51:00 GMT

We are doing a poll to determine how the industry is keeping track of their IT and data center assets. Is everyone just using Excel and tracking data in long and cumbersome spreadsheets?

Are you using software to track and manage your environments? There are several packages out there that will track your data for you...Rackwise, GDCM, Visual Data Center, Aperture, etc...

Please go to the LinkedIN Poll and let us know how you are currently tracking your data.

There are only 5 options in the LinkedIN poll, so if the option that best fits your solution isn't shown, please select "other" and post a comment on this blog with your current solution!

Thanks for your participation!

Ken