VMworld can be a lot to digest, but it also can be a good barometer of where IT is and where it’s going. A couple days removed from the show, I gave some thought to the interesting trends I noticed and the insightful discussions I had. Read more »
Despite OpenStack’s continued growth, a combination of product updates and acquisitions from Citrix, Eucalyptus, Red Hat and VMware over the past week demonstrate that the race to become the dominant private cloud provider, as well as win over the enterprise, is far from over. Is one of ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
With power accounting for between 30 and 50 percent of functional operating costs in a data center, power consumption is on everyone’s mind. So much so that at semiconductor conference Hotchips on Friday, Intel and AMD, two companies that have long competed around processor performance, spent hours discussing ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The latest idea from Facebook on how to revolutionize the data center is elegant in its simplicity: put a switch on hard-disk drives that slows their speed when their data is no longer hot. I wonder if Facebook will take up the cause and build it. Read more »
As the digital world and connected devices take over more and more aspects of people’s lives large Internet companies are becoming more and more conscious of the need to invest in clean power and alternative resources. ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Data centers might not be the energy hogs anticipated in 2010, but they’re still offering a growing market for both energy efficiency technology and clean power. Read more »
Last week’s Verdantix and AT&T report on the energy and carbon emission savings to come from cloud computing is the latest in a long line of studies stating the obvious: Shifting computing from inefficient, dispersed data centers to highly efficient, centralized cloud data centers should save ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It took me 25 minutes to download OS X Lion at home, but using LTE mobile broadband service, you could do the same in a few hours. I wouldn’t recommend it, but it’s amazing when you realize 3G networks, like OS X, launched 10 years ago. Read more »
A growing list of data-center operators are looking to buy tech to help them reduce their energy consumption. Which is why startup SynapSense, which provides such monitoring tech, is looking to expand and has raised a $16 million round from VCs. Read more »
According to Lou Modano, head of global infrastructure for NASDAQ OMX, there is “a lot of opportunity for new [hardware] players” to feed a ceaseless demand for ever lower latency in electronic trading systems. When you rely entirely on electronic trading, a faster system is key. Read more »
If you think people are over-sharing on the Internet today, brace yourself, says Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. As the sharing booms, so will the online data. And Facebook plans to build more of its own data centers to deal with the coming data boom. Read more »
A common misperception is that the bulk of the energy consumption associated with the Internet and connected-computing comes from massive data centers. In reality, the billions of end devices — computers, set-top-boxes — are currently the bigger and more wasteful culprits. Read more »
Allied Fiber may be able to do something the FCC can’t: help make American broadband just a bit more competitive. In a few weeks it will begin construction on its new type of optical network. It’s six months late, but better late than never. Read more »
Apple appears to be getting a little help from its frenemies in getting iCloud off the ground. A series of screenshots posted at InfiniteApple indicates that iCloud may be utilizing Amazon’s cloud storage system AWS and Microsoft’s Azure cloud service to help run iMessage. Read more »
GoGrid CEO John Keagy wrote on his blog yesterday that when it comes cloud computing, things such as cheap hydroelectric power and massive-scale data centers are overrated. His theory doesn’t make sense for every cloud provider, but he does make some good points. Read more »
As a rule of thumb, systems can grow ten times under their current architecture or paradigm, and then they must be re-architected. This 10X effect causes old technologies to become obsolete, new ones to emerge and underlies the massive shift to cloud computing. Read more »
Today, at our third-annual Green:Net event, we’re looking at digital energy: how technology can reduce energy consumption and help the environment. The livestream begins at 8:25 PT, and we’ll update this post throughout the day with the liveblogs from the event. Read more »
Is the greentech industry headed for a breakout year or is it retrenching for hard times to come? The first three months of 2011 provided evidence that could support both assertions, with a big rise in venture capital investment and a big drop-off in global energy financing. Solar power remained the largest green technology sector in terms of venture capital investment, while in the world of electric vehicles, GM’s Chevy Volt hybrid and Nissan’s all-electric Leaf — the first two mainstream plug-in vehicles — hit the showroom floors in significant numbers. Meanwhile the smart grid sector’s relative dearth of VC investment was more than made up for by the massive round of acquisitions. Companies mentioned in this report include NRG Energy, Microsoft, Silver Spring Networks, Tesla and BrightSource Energy. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Two markets stand out above all else when looking at the first quarter of 2011: infrastructure as a service (IaaS) — the epitome of cloud computing — and big data. Amazon Web Services continues to lead the IaaS space in terms of customers and innovation, while Rackspace, buoyed by momentum around OpenStack, will be its primary competitor for mainstream customers. In the big data space, there are so many players and terms floating about it’s difficult for outsiders to get a handle on who’s who and what’s what, though such activity validates the technologies. Other developments this quarter included HP’s impending presence in the cloud computing and big data spaces and the realization that Intel won’t be left to die if low-power servers based on x86 processors catch on like the buzz late last year suggests they will. Additional companies mentioned in this report include VMware, Microsoft, Cloudera, SeaMicro and Facebook. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
According to a survey by AFCOM, cloud computing is on the rise among data center operators, more than doubling since last year and expected to reach 80-90 percent in the next five years. The survey also shows that energy efficiency is driving data center decisions. Read more »
Switzerland-based cloud provider CloudSigma opened a U.S. office this week, the first step in what could be a successful attempt to bring its unique brand of cloud computing to the United States. CloudSigma’s “freedom through technology” approach stands out in its resemblance to traditional colocation services. Read more »
Is it possible that the ever-increasing demand for data center space could be the cure for vacant commercial real estate plaguing cities? In some areas, data center operators are buying up vacant real estate to house new operations and helping revitalize those areas as a result. Read more »
Some might call this past quarter in the infrastructure space transformative. The rise of ARM-based processing suggests the days of x86 dominance might be coming to an end, while the Amazon Web Services-WikiLeaks controversy cast new light on the legal aspects of cloud computing. Big data got bigger, meanwhile, as the Hadoop ecosystem expanded, and amid all these cutting-edge technologies, two archaic topics — Novell and Java — proved they aren’t going anywhere soon. Companies mentioned in this report include Intel, AMD, Amazon Web Services, IBM, Yahoo, Appistry, VMware, Joyent and Microsoft. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
We’ve already covered the trends that began to shape up in the infrastructure market in 2010 and will really materialize in 2011. Several companies played — and will continue to play — a big role in making those trends happen. From Facebook to Cloudera to Microsoft, here ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Further Wikileaks analysis aside, Google was all over tech headlines over the past day. It upgraded App Engine, leaked a secret new consumer storage feature, and bought a data center hotel housing some of the biggest names in data centers and business. Read more »
The analogy goes that with more organizations hosting applications in the cloud and data volumes skyrocketing, the cloud data center takes the place of the on-premise server. And if the data center is the server, the cloud computing management software, atop which applications run, must ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Cost, scalability and instant access are all reasons for companies to embrace cloud computing services, but the argument that it’s a much greener option warrants further examination. Cloud computing, can deliver a more efficient use of computing power. But according to a report to be released ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Dell is often characterized as a mere server maker. It’s easy to see why when Dell is compared with competitors like HP and IBM, both of which complement their hardware with software and services that add the real value – and account for most of the ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Has Google struck geothermal gold in West Virginia? A Google-funded report shows the state’s underground heat could provide 18,890 megawatts of power, more than its current coal-fired generation capacity. Read more »
There are many tech-paved roads that lead to reduced energy use in data centers, from software-centric solutions to those that put sensors on every server and fan. But the paths to commercializing those technologies are, by comparison, relatively few. Read more »
The second quarter of 2010 belonged to the little guys and the new guys. Almost across the board, from processors to virtualization to cloud services, relatively small vendors and startups had the market cornered on innovation and mindshare. And where there’s tinder in the forms of customer demand, products, funding and a greater societal movement toward environmentalism, something is bound to catch fire. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
There’s a gold rush mentality going on right now when it comes to building data centers in Iceland, according to execs of the companies that have been moving into that market. The latest person to reference this phrase to me is the CTO of Verne Global. Read more »
Silverlake Partners, a Silicon Valley-based private equity and buyout firm, says it’s bought Intel’s data center in Santa Clara, Calif., and made it part of Vantage Data Centers, a new company headed by Jim Trout, a veteran of both the telecom and data center business. Read more »
The EPA has just opened up its Energy Star program to data centers, using an efficiency rating system years in the works that’s based on the Power Usage Effectiveness, or PUE, metric. Read more »
If you’ve been following the data center hardware space for the past year, you might be under the impression that integrated stacks are the future of IT. After all, Oracle’s purchase of Sun Microsystems was all about integration, and HP and Cisco appear locked in a ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
HP researchers this week put forth an intriguing idea for powering data centers: harvesting and processing cow waste. Under their setup, dairy farmers get an additional revenue stream and data center operators get a clean and cost-effective source of energy. Sounds like a solid win all ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Well, I sure didn’t see this one coming. HP Labs researchers this week put forth an intriguing idea for powering data centers: harvesting and processing dairy cow waste. But what are the pros and cons of powering data centers with cow power? Read more »
A new aspect of data center energy use is getting increasing attention lately: software. If the code running on all the servers in a data center was inherently more energy-efficient and governed by its own energy-aware logic, IT managers could have another, less costly option to ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The Telx Group, an NYC-based data center operator, has filed for an initial public offering that could see it raise as much as $100 million from the public markets. With the demand for data centers and Internet services on an upswing, Telx’s IPO is very timely. Read more »
A feature of e-book readers is the ability to take notes in books. Consumers who like to scribble notes in the margins of books can do so in the electronic versions. This brings to mind a question — who owns the notes you “write” in e-books? Read more »
