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Roundup: Intel, Equinix, Level 3, Active Power
July 14th, 2010 : John RathHere’s a roundup of some of this week’s headlines from the data center and hosting industry:
Intel reports best quarter ever. Intel (INTC) reported second quarter revenue of $10.8 billion, up 34 percent year over year. Operating income was reported at $4 billion, net income at $2.9 billion and EPS of 51 cents. Intel’s outlook for the third quarter puts revenue at $11.6 billion, plus or minus $400 million. “Strong demand from corporate customers for our most advanced microprocessors helped Intel achieve the best quarter in the company’s 42-year history,” said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO. Second quarter highlights include revenue gains for the PC Client Group and Data Center Groups, a higher second quarter gross margin of 67 percent and a $204 million net gain from equity investments.
Equinix and Level 3 open Transatlantic route. Equinix (EQIX) and Level 3 Communications (LVLT) announced the opening of a new access node in Equinix’s International Business Exchange (IBX) London 4/London 5 (LD4/5) data center campus located on the outskirts of London. The node will link transatlantic routes from New York to the LD4/5 campus, bypassing central London. “Our collaboration with Equinix is the latest example of Level 3’s commitment to expanding its low-latency offerings across the Atlantic, enabling more options for transatlantic connectivity independent of central London, and providing top-quality solutions for the most demanding of international enterprise customers,” said James Heard, president of European markets at Level 3.
Active Power OEM orders triple. Active Power (ACPW) announced sales volume from its OEM partnership with Caterpillar Inc. continues to increase. In the first half of 2010 Caterpillar ordered 83 flywheels, compared to 28 ordered in the same period of 2009, a nearly 200 percent increase. “We’re seeing a renewed interest on the part of Caterpillar to market the CAT UPS products as a part of their continuous power solutions for datacenters and other mission critical operators,” said Martin Olsen, vice president, Global Channels and Business Development for Active Power. The 83 flywheels represent approximately 24 megawatts of critical backup power compared to the eight megawatts ordered in the first half of 2009.
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Data Centers With No UPS or Generator?
July 14th, 2010 : Rich Miller
Three of the Yahoo Computing Coops (YCCs) at the new Yahoo data center in Lockport, New York. Some future Yahoo data centers may be designed without UPS ssytems, or even generators.
First came data centers with no chillers. But is the industry ready for a data center with no UPS and no generators?
That seems like a radical concept. But Yahoo is considering going without UPS (uninterruptible power supply) and generators for some future data center projects. It’s not alone in advocating design choices that represent a huge departure from current practice. A number of data center designers are urging clients to consider limiting UPS support to loads that are genuinely critical.
Scott Noteboom, the head of data center operations at Yahoo, said in his keynote at last month’s 7×24 Exchange conference that the Internet portal is exploring scenarios in which it would build data centers without generators or UPS, and use its network to route around any power outages that occur at those facilities.
That’s a strategy that only the largest data center providers can contemplate, as it requires multiple data centers in major network capacity. Google has pursued a similar strategy during maintenance on some of its data centers, shifting capacity to other facilities (see How Google Routes Around Outages for details).
Chillers Targeted for Elimination
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Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have all built new data centers that operate without chillers, eliminating one of the most power-intensive pieces of equipment from their infrastructure. This has been accomplished by building new facilities in locations that support fresh air cooling. Eliminating key components in power infrastructure is a tougher challenge, given the data center industry’s focus on redundancy and reliability. -
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Power and Cooling Maintenance Tips
July 7th, 2010 : Rich MillerLate June and early July can be tough on uptime. That was true last year, when the data center industry saw a series of major outages between June 29 and July 5. This year we’ve also seen a flurry of incidents, with recent downtime for Intuit, Amazon.com and Wikipedia. This morning the Gawker Media sites were down, though they’re back now.
There are a variety of causes for these outages. But as the heat wave in the Northeast persists, many local utilities are experiencing rolling blackouts and brownouts, testing the readiness of backup power systems. Regular maintenance is critical to maintaining the reliability of your power and cooling infrastructure. Processor has some timely tips on ways to Keep Your Power & Cooling Up & Running.
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Emerson Wins Battle for Chloride
July 5th, 2010 : Rich MillerThe board of directors of Chloride Group has approved Emerson Electric’s revised $1.5 billion takeover offer, and says it will recommend that Chloride shareholders tender their shares at the deal price of 375 pence, the companies said Friday. The deal appears to end a bidding war for the UK-based critical power vendor, with Emerson prevailing over a rival offer from ABB.
Both Emerson and Chloride are major providers of electrical infrastructure for data centers. Emerson said said it believes a combination with Chloride will “create a powerful force in the global UPS.” Emerson says that Chloride will serve as the company’s new European Network Power Systems headquarters and Chloride will form the basis for Emerson’s European UPS growth strategy.
Emerson also said it has acquired 19 percent of the shares of Chloride Group through open market purchases. Emerson said that its subsidiary Rutherfurd Acquisition bought 49.9 million shares of Chloride on Friday, July 2 at a price of 378.3 pence per share.
The bidding war appears to provide a great outcome for Chloride shareholders, as the latest Emerson offer represents a 79 percent premium to where shares were trading when Chloride was put in play in April. Emerson has posted a web page offering detailed information on its offer for Chloride.
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Green DC Alliance Funding to Boost Best Practices
June 30th, 2010 : Colleen MillerThe Green Data Center Alliance (GDCA) received a grant that will underwrite the creation of guidelines for data centers to significantly lower their energy consumption. The $500,000 in funding from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) will bring together both data center owners and power utilities.
The alliance will use the grant funding to create a system of best practices for data center operators, rate selected data centers against standard metrics, provide options for participating centers to improve efficiency and verify data on energy users.
Targeting Five Disciplines
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“To achieve significant and long-lasting energy conservation, the GDCA believes it is necessary to view the data center from five disciplines: engineering & facilities, information technology, finance, governance, and process,” said Derek Schwartz, Executive Director & Founder of the GDCA. “Our membership strongly believes that decisions in each category can have a tremendous impact on over energy consumption. The most effective strategy for increased data center productivity must encompass all areas.” -
Emerson Makes Higher Bid for Chloride
June 30th, 2010 : Rich MillerThe bidding war continues for UK critical power equipment vendor Chloride Power. Emerson Electric appears to have seized the upper hand with a revised bid of 375 pence, valuing the deal at approximately $1.5 billion. That offer tops a bid of $1.3 billion by ABB, which bested a previous $1.1 billion offer by Emerson.
The bidding war appears to provide a spectacular outcome for Chloride shareholders, as the latest Emerson offer represents a 79 percent premium to where shares were trading when Chloride was out in play in April.
Both Emerson and Chloride are major providers of electrical infrastructure for data centers. The two customers discussed a deal in 2008, but were unable to reach an agreement on price. Emerson said said it believes a combination with Chloride will “create a powerful force in the global UPS.” The offer reflects the focus on global reach in the data center equipment business. One of Emerson’s historic rivals, APC, was acquired in 2006 by the French conglomerate Schneider.
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SharkRack, Raritan Partner on Power
June 30th, 2010 : Rich MillerData center equipment manufacturer SharkRack will partner with Raritan Inc. to provide customers better insight and control of energy usage at the device level, the companies said Tuesday. The new partnership is targeting organizations seeking to optimize power management for Cisco networking switches and blade servers from a variety of manufacturers.
SharkRack plans to add Raritan cabinet distribution units (CDUs) into its T2 and Integrity line cabinets as a bundled product, and will also be adding Raritan products to its stand-alone lines. The combined solution will provide organizations with power information on individual servers and other devices, as well as rack-level temperature data, the companies said. The solution also enables remote shutdown of IT equipment, which can help companies implement energy policies, such as turning off specific servers when not in use.
“We believe that many enterprise customers could benefit from Raritan’s best-of-breed product offerings,” says Seth Schalet, President of SharkRack. “We are pleased to partner with Raritan on this effort and we look forward to the success of this new partnership.”
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Large UPS Sale for Active Power
June 23rd, 2010 : Rich MillerActive Power (ACPW) said yesterday that it has received a follow-on multimillion dollar order for its CleanSource UPS (uninterruptible power supply) systems, totaling nearly 13 megawatts of total rated UPS capacity. the company said the order was from “one of the world’s largest Internet search engine providers.” The likely suspect is Yahoo, which is using Active Power equipment in its new data center in Lockport, N.Y., which is now in its second phase of construction.
“White floor space is a premium in a data center, particularly in large, multi-megawatt enterprise and collocation facilities,” said Jim Clishem, president and CEO, Active Power. “Our UPS technology is extremely power dense, providing a tremendous amount of critical backup power in a small footprint compared to conventional UPS systems. This means operators can dedicate more space to server equipment to help meet business and IT demands.”
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Energy Star for Data Centers is Launched
June 8th, 2010 : Rich Miller
Alexandra Sullivan from the EPA Energy Star program speaking at the 7x24 Exchange conference today in Boca Raton, Fla.
Data centers can now earn the Energy Star label seen on TVs, refrigerators and computer monitors. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has officially launched a program that allows data centers and buildings that house large data centers to earn the Energy Star label. To qualify, data centers must be in the top 25 percent of their peers in energy efficiency, according to EPA’s energy performance scale.
The new Energy Star for Data Centers rating is a customized version of the EPA’ Energy Star for Buildings program, with some adaptations that recognize the unique power use of data centers. The EPA rating for buildings is usually based on “energy intensity” measured in watts per square foot of space, a measure in which data centers score off the scale compared to most commercial.
Based on PUE Metric
Energy Star for Data centers will instead be based on Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), an energy efficiency metric developed for data centers by The Green Grid. After a study of data submitted by about 100 data center operators, the EPA adapted PUE ratings to the 100-point scale used in the buildings program.“The main objective is to provide a simple, easily-communicated management tool,” said Alexandra Sullivan, the Technical Development Manager of the Energy Star for Buildings program, who discussed the program Tuesday at the 7×24 Exchange spring conference in Boca Raton, Fla. “We’re looking for something really simple that can provide motivation for energy savings in buildings.”
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