Mega data centers’ innovations in serviceability, automatically detecting and recovering from failures, procurement practices, and so forth will become standard practice in all modern data centers. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Backblaze pioneered the concept of open source storage hardware in 2009, and its designs have caught on. Hundreds of institutions — including Netflix and Shutterfly — use the designs, which have just entered their third generation. Read more »
A transmitter for an Open Compute server’s debug port won the Open Compute Project’s first hackathon. Read more »
A hardware-oriented hackathon at the Open Compute Summit on Wednesday could become a model for similar events on college campuses. Read more »
China’s big four internet companies are big — huge, in fact — but they’re not yet technological innovators like their American counterparts. However, scalability is an an issue that knows no borders, which has spurred some cross-continental cooperation. Will it also inspire a Chinese tech awakening? Read more »
When companies such as Google and Facebook design their own servers, switches and data centers, it’s more a business decision than it is a test of their hardware-hacking skills. Custom gear means lower power bills, better performance and the flexibility to adapt to unforeseen situations. Read more »
New guidelines for the design of wider data center racks are available for discussion, according to the Open Compute Project. In theory, racks designed using the Open Rack 1.0 specification will allow more flexible, energy-efficient design of data center resources. Read more »
Most companies in the market for a new data center deal in total secrecy with agents and data center providers under NDA. Cloud backup player Backblaze is turning that model on its head by publishing the RFP it’s using for its new data center. Read more »
Truly green data centers need to conserve water as well as power. Facebook just released the first water usage efficiency (WUE) number for one of its Prineville, Ore. facilities. While the figure is good, it could be better, the company said. Read more »
Discussions about the cloud now involve more than just the IT department. New developments in hardware architectures, more-energy-efficient data centers, regulatory concerns and simplifying analytics are all discussions currently circling through the industry. Here’s what to consider when thinking about your business in the cloud. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Lest storage vendors thought they were immune to disruption that open source hardware is having on the server industry, Netflix’s new Open Connect content-delivery network might make them think again. It’s inspired by open source storage designs first released by Backblaze almost three years ago. Read more »
Facebook is rethinking how it does networking, as Wired reports, but it’s actually rethinking the entire composition of the data center. Its plans will destroy the servers, switches and storage boxes vendors sell today in an effort to operate efficiently at web scale. Read more »
Facebook’s hyperinflated valuation heading into its IPO has everything to do with its promise, and very little to do with its actual profits. Here are some numbers we know about Facebook’s infrastructure that speak to its promise perhaps as much as its 900 million users. Read more »
Programmers like to visit Facebook, but they don’t want to live and work there, according to an informal poll posted to Hacker News. Respondents said they’re more likely to turn to Github, Twitter or Google+ to keep abreast of what’s going on in their field. Read more »
Beneath all the Zynga games, likes, personal timelines and pokes, Facebook’s business relies on fast, reliable infrastructure. And concerns about that underlying figure heavily in the risks it faces as it goes public, according to its S-1 filing. Read more »
While 2011 was a busy year for the tech industry, don’t expect things to slow down in 2012. We’ve rounded up some of GigaOM’s biggest stories of the year with a bit of insight on what each will mean for 2012. Read more »
If your company has a cloud application with a predictable audience size or one that is costing you more than $25,000 a month to host, you may want to consider maintaining a private cloud. This paper provides an overview of the factors that decision makers who are developing a public-to-private cloud-migration strategy should consider, recognizing that public versus private cloud strategy is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It also details pitfalls that must be avoided along the way and provides a case study of Zynga, a company that has found a way to use both the private and public clouds to create a hybrid solution. Companies mentioned in this report include Akamai, Foursquare, Nimbula and ARM. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
James Hamilton, VP and distinguished engineer for Amazon Web Services, has some hot tips on building or running a cooler, and more energy-efficient data center. Hamilton, something of a data center rock star, spoke at a recent Open Compute Project event. Read more »
The Open Compute Foundation’s new board of directors includes a big name from Intel, but not from AMD. And, Open Compute Project members so far include Dell but not HP. What vendors are in or out is of interest to data center pros. Read more »
Amazon’s data center whiz James Hamilton and Sun Microsystems’ co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim starred at the Open Compute Foundation debut in New York Thursday. Here are the top five threads coming out of the event that could help you run a leaner, greener data center. Read more »
The Open Compute Foundation, with directors including Andy Bechtolsheim, aims to bring more vendors to the Open Compute mix, make sure contributed IP is well tended, and foster the idea that open-source development — so important in software — can benefit the stodgy world of data center servers. Read more »
Less than two years after open sourcing the design of the 67TB “storage pods” that underpin its cloud backup service, Backblaze is at it again. This morning, it shared on its blog specs for a new, 135TB storage pod that costs only $7,384. Read more »
