Data Center of the Future Virtual Event

Register today for a Data Center of the Future live virtual event on July 21, 2010. During this day-long event, you will have the opportunity to get valuable information about how leading companies are addressing new IT challenges such as sophisticated virtualization, workload mobility, and application complexity.

You will be able to participate in live discussions with leading industry experts on subjects including networking, storage, applications, and physical infrastructure, as well as experiencing presentations by Cisco, APC by Schneider Electric, BMC, EMC, Emerson Network Power, Intel, NetApp, and Panduit.

Take advantage of this opportunity to join other IT and data center decision makers in this unique virtualized environment. This event will provide informative resources, networking and interactive tools, and staffed partner rooms where you can engage directly with subject matter experts.

Join the Data Center of the Future virtual event and learn what these innovations mean to you and your organization. Learn how you can put the latest technology to work to evolve your data center architecture and how this technology can improve your business operations and your overall profitability. Register today for a chance to win an Apple iPad.

Roundup: Iron Mountain, APC, BLADE Network

Here’s a roundup of some of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

Iron Mountain acquires Mimosa Systems. Iron Mountain (IRM) announced it has acquired content archiving solutions company Mimosa Systems, Inc. for approximately $112 million. The acquisition allows Iron Mountain to have an all-in-one, on-premise archive to complement their existing cloud archives. “This deal strengthens Iron Mountain’s position in the market as a comprehensive provider of information management solutions,” said Arun Taneja, founder and consulting analyst of the Taneja Group. “Its customers now have greater flexibility to store and manage their information onsite or in the cloud, where it makes sense for their budget and business.”

APC introduces NetShelter SX. APC by Schneider Electric announced the NetShelter SX Networking Enclosure, designed for improved support for high density networking applications. When combined with the new Side Airflow Duct Kit, the Networking Enclosure provides complete isolation of hot exhaust and cold intake for large switches and SAN directors.  Also included in the enclosure are integrated high density cable managers that offer enough cable capacity for 768 data ports. The Side Airflow Duct Kit is designed to be compatible with Cisco 6509, 6513, 9509, and 9513 series switches.

Roundup: Telco rumors, Ingram Micro, CBTS

Here’s a roundup of some of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

• Telecom acquisition rumors. Separate reports recently show Deutsche Telecom thinking about purchasing Sprint Nextel and Seeking Alpha revisits the rumor about Google buying Level3.  Marketwatch reports that German telecommunications giant and T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telecom might bid for Sprint Nextel within the next few weeks.   The Telecom Ramblings blog sums up the Google/Level3 rumor nicely as “baseless yet immortal rumor”.  Both Google and Level3 stocks were up Monday.
• Cincinnati Bell opens new Ohio data center. Wholly owned subsidiary of Cincinnati Bell CBTS announced Monday that they have opened a new facility in Lebanon, Ohio.  The 50,000 square foot data center will offer colocation, disaster recovery and managed services.  The Lebanon facility will be connected to the CBTS DWDM network and five other facilities in the Cincinnati area.  CBTS is providing premier data center services to Fortune 1000 companies in 25,000 square foot of space and an additional 25,000 square foot is ready to receive additional customers.
• Ingram Micro unveils Australian data center. Distribution giant Ingram Micro announced Monday that it opened an AUS$6 million data center in Sydney.  The facility, branded as the Partner Technology Centre will help Ingram demonstrate partner solutions and is backed by 12 suppliers.  Equipment on show at the site will come from Avocent, APC, Brocade, Cisco, EMC, Fortinet, HP, HP ProCurve, IBM, Microsoft, Symantec and VMware.  The Sydney facility is based on green datacentre practices and will undergo certification through Carbon Planet.

Roundup: DataPipe, Peak 10, Equinix, APC

Here’s a roundup of some of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:

• DataPipe rolls out 3PAR services. Utility storage provider 3PAR announced Monday that Cloud-Agile partner DataPipe now offers differentiated virtual private array (VPA) and disaster recovery (DR) services as a part of their Stratosphere cloud services, which are powered by 3PAR Utility Storage.  DataPipe’s cloud platform leverages VMware and 3PAR to offer a managed, secure virtualized service. “We now have the opportunity to expand our cloud service offerings in the areas of security and compliance to increase the value we offer our customers,” said Michael Parks, Chief Technology Officer for DataPipe.  The 3PAR ASSURED product allows DataPipe to use remote copy, data replication, DR and automatic data backup to end users.  The 3PAR SECURED product offers isolated, secure virtual private array servies.
• Peak 10 deploys VMware vSphere 4.  Data center operator Peak 10 announced the delivery of Private Cloud Infrastructure Solutions, via VMware’s vSphere 4 platform.  The platform offers customers pools of virtualized resources that federate between on and off-premise environments on-demand and with ease.  By using vSphere 4 Peak 10 customers can maintain the integrity of their data and applications, while migrating to the cloud platform.  Peak 10’s leadership team are in San Francisco this week attending the VMworld 2009 conference.  Enhancements allowed from Peak 10’s vSphere 4 platform include twice as many virtual processors per virtual machine, four times the memory, three-times increase in network throughput, and additional SAN tiers available for high-end databases.

APC Gets Containerized With Datapod

APC by Schneider was one of the early players in the data center container market with its InfraStruXure Express, a fully mobile data center trailer. While taking a more low-key approach as other vendors rolled out container offerings, last May San Francisco General Hospital purchased one of APC’s data center on wheels.

Last week APC and Australian data center engineering specialist Datapod Pty Ltd announced that they are partnering to launch the Datapod system of containerized data center infrastructure solutions. Datapod containers are designed and manufactured in Australia, and feature container “building blocks” in a variety of sizes, which can include either IT equipment or power and cooling gear such as modular generators and chillers.

Demo: APC Symmetra PX 250/500kW UPS

APC’s Mark Tarantelli provides a demo and overview of the Symmetra PX 250/500kW UPS, which was on display this week at the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas. This video runs about 8 minutes, 30 seconds.

For more news from APC, visit our APC Channel. For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.

Vendors Expand, Seeking One-Stop Shops

In the past several years we’ve seen a number of major deals among data center equipment vendors and service providers seeking to create a “one-stop shop,” hoping to build deeper relationships with their data center customers.

One of the biggest of these deals was Schneider Electric’s $6.1 billion acquisition of American Power Conversion (APC), which closed in early 2007. Schneider says it is beginning to leverage the company’s full array of data center offerings as it works with major data center operators.

“The thing that’s interesting now is the level of integration and breadth of offering we can bring to this,” said John de Pippo, a solutions VP at Schneider who also is a Senior VP for Software and Services at APC. “We can offer a lot of ways a customer can get energy efficiency throughout its operations. Schneider really has the ability to do that with all the resources it has.”

An example is the company’s relationship with Switch Communications, which is building the 407,000 square foot SuperNAP in Las Vegas. Switch is buying up to 60 APC 1.4 megawatt UPS units and potentially thousands of server racks, as well as Square D circuit breakers and controllers and Pelco security products.

APC to Provide More Energy Efficiency Info

APC has begun publishing detailed information about the electrical efficiency of its power and cooling products, the company said this week. Offering product efficiency data, including graphs on its products in a consistent format, will allow data center designers to combine the component efficiencies to predict the performance of an overall system.

APC has begun publishing data for its three-phase and single-phase uninterruptible power supplies, power distribution units and InRow cooling solutions on its Web site. An examples can be seen on this product page (scroll down to find “Energy Use/Efficiency), showing the equipment’s efficiency at a variety of loads.

APC Launches Data Center Planning Tools

APC today introduced TradeOff Tools, a group of web-based applications that allow data center professionals to experiment with numerous “what if” scenarios for virtualization, efficiency, power sizing, and other key design issues. The Flash-based tools let managers model different approaches and configurations to their data centers, allowing them to calculate Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCIE), potential gains from virtualization, and compare AC and DC power distribution.

APC unveiled the new tools today at a media presentation in West Kingston, Rhode Island. “The demand for higher densities, for higher efficiencies to defray rising energy costs, and for 7 x 24 x 365 uptime are taxing existing data centers with an unprecedented level of complexity,” APC said. “APC TradeOff Tools are designed to reduce complexity by helping data center professionals quickly identify their data center preferences and weigh those preferences against their budgetary and physical environment constraints.”

Seven different tools are now available on the web at tools.apc.com. They include:

• Data Center Energy Efficiency Calculator: This tool profiles a data center to calculate efficiency and electrical cost. As the user inputs details of the power and cooling configuration, and results are calculated based on a tested and validated three-parameter efficiency model.
• Data Center Capital Cost Calculator: This tool identifies calculates capital costs based on parameters including load, redundancy, density, and power/cooling characteristics, the tool can project the number of racks required and the floor space required.
• Power Sizing Calculator: This tool defines basic characteristics of the IT load and calculates how much utility input power would be required to support that load, allowing users to experiment with “what if” scenarios by modifying the load characteristics of servers, mainframes, and storage. Total load is then calculated and the tool generates a corresponding utility power requirement.