Underground Data Centers New Trends

Europe Data Center Provider The Bunker Opens New High Specification Data Hall in Kent

2012-01-11T13:35:00.000-10:00

The Bunker News – KENT, UK – The Bunker, provider of ultra secure Managed Hosting, Cloud Computing, Colocation, and Outsourced IT from within Europe’s most secure data centres, is pleased to announce that it has successfully opened a significant new high specification data hall in Kent.
The former military operations room at its South East facility becomes the latest high specification data hall to open in Europe’s most secure data centre. The new data hall has been fitted out with state of the art power and cooling infrastructure, providing up to 32 amps of UPS power per rack and N+1 fully redundant power and air conditioning.

The facility also benefits from hot and cold aisle separation, dual power feeds, generator back-up and over 150 ISP connections available.
The new data hall in Kent is part of The Bunker’s continuing investment programme, to meet the growing demand for high specification, ultra secure data facilities for fully managed and colocation customers.
Simon Neal, Director of Data Centre Services at The Bunker, said: “I’m delighted with the new data floor at our Kent facility. The ongoing investment allows us to expand our business and provide security conscious organisations with the reassurance of knowing that their hosting and managed services needs are being met in an ultra secure, high specification environment.”
Growing awareness of limited power availability and high prices in London is driving up demand for high power density, out-of-London locations. The Bunker is an obvious choice for organisations that require secure, high specification, managed services and colocation hosting facilities.
“The first customer has already moved in and we anticipate a rapid take-up of space and the opening of phase 2 in the near future.” continued Neal.

Bunker 2

State of the art and military grade
The Bunker is expanding its Kent operations. The Bunker² maintains the highest standards set by The Bunker by blending state of the art M & E infrastructure with military grade security. The new data centre facility provides an alternative highly secure, low risk Internet hub outside London servicing clients who wish to establish systems in the UK, but who also require access to the World Wide Web without entering the high risk London zones.

The Bunker² offers 12,000m² Tier 3 data floor within the existing defences of The Bunker’s facility, along with 2,000m² of office and support accommodation, staffed 24/7/365 by security and technical personnel. The development will be of a modular low profile design, cut into the landscape with a grass roof. Each module of 2,200m² blends into the surrounding environment with minimum visual impact.

London is the second largest Internet Exchange in the world. Unfortunately London is also one of the highest risk cities in the world.

The Bunker² is a Carrier Neutral Data Centre, situated at a strategically important location on the cross roads of the main Internet fibre routes leaving the UK towards Europe, Asia and the USA. For our clients this affords peace of mind that traffic can be routed via the traditional channels across London, however in the event of a catastrophe, disabling the main Internet hubs in the London Docklands and the City, traffic can still route to any location in the world via the main Internet exchanges in Europe.
The next step for a trusted brand

The Bunker² facility
The Bunker² is owned and developed by The Bunker Secure Hosting Limited. The Bunker delivers secure Managed Hosting and Data Centre solutions from within Europe’s most secure Data Centre and has done so since 1994. Our technical leaders are recognised experts in security and cryptography, renowned for their work on Apache-SSL. Our management team includes Data Centre experts with over 10 years experience. The Bunker is ISO 27001 accredited, are recognized experts in Open Source technology, we are Microsoft Gold partners and practice Prince 2 and ITIL standards.

About The Bunker
The Bunker delivers Ultra Secure Managed Hosting, Cloud Computing, Colocation, and Outsourced IT from within Europe’s most secure data centres.

Our data centres, which are outside the M25 yet within easy reach of London, are military-grade nuclear bunkers purpose built to house the UK’s air defence systems. We run 24x7x365 – our NOC monitors systems both nationally and internationally and is staffed around the clock by system and network engineers and security staff. The Bunker is ISO 27001 and PCI DSS accredited and follows ITILv3 best practice and PRINCE2 project management standards.

Our clients are financial services organisations, technology companies, healthcare, government and other regulated businesses that value a premium service built around security.
For more information visit www.thebunker.net
info@thebunker.net

The Green Mountain Data Center

2011-12-27T10:47:00.000-10:00

The Green Mountain Data Center is adjacent to a fjord, which provides a supply of 8 degree C water that will be used in the cooling system.

Green Mountain Data Center

2011-12-27T08:56:00.001-10:00

Green Mountain Data Center
Located inside the mountain in a former NATO ammunition depot (the largest in northern Europe)
Built for the highest military security level. Secured against electromagnetic pulses (EMP)
"Nuclear secure" facility, secured against sabotage and direct attack from the sea.

Green Mountain Data Center

Green Mountain Data Center a prime piece of real estate tucked inside a scenic Norwegian mountain. Built next to a cool water fjord and surrounded by evergreens and lush rock-clinging mosses, the space boasts of bright, airy subterranean halls carved out of natural cave walls and almost transcendental settings above ground. This will be the comfortable new home for many of Norway’s data servers. The Green Mountain Data Center is one of the first pioneering data centers that will greatly reduce its costs by harnessing the cooling power of the environment, namely, the steady flow of cool water from an adjacent fjord. Alas, the grass seems to be consistently always greener in Scandinavia.
The Green Mountain Data Center contains nine ‘Mountain Halls’—each spanning well over 1,000-square-meters of space to host rows and rows of servers—a workshop, and an administration building. Its servers will be hooked up to an uninterrupted supply of power from a total of eight independent generators as well as three supply lines connected to the central Norwegian network, and its carbon footprint has been thoroughly eliminated.

Of course its most compelling feature, aside from its generally pleasant, Hobbit-like atmosphere noted by Gizmodo, is the cooling system, which relies on the nearby Rennesøy fjord to provide an abundance of cold water year round to cool its resident motherboards. Facebook has gone a similar route by planting a server farm in the Arctic, but we wouldn’t be hard pressed to say that we like the hospitable environment of this data farm better, and it’s nice to see yet another Scandinavian mountain bunker to add to our favorites!

The Mountain Hall

    Approx. 21,500 m2 floor space in the mountain
    The areas consists of:
    – 6 mountain halls each of 1,855 m2
    (11 x 164 m each) in size
    – 2 mountain halls of 1,546 m2 (19 x 82 m each) in size
    - 1 Mountain hall with internal structure 1,370 m2 in size
    - I.e. combined mountain halls of 15,692 m2
    - Warehouse/workshop 520 m2
    - Administration building 840 m2
    - Quay w/"roll on-roll off" option

Fire safety and fire
protection

    Closed caverns enable the use
    of inert / hypoxic air ventilation
    Reduced oxygen level to prevent fire and smoke
    - 02 reduced to 15 -16 %
    - Fire cannot arise as the combustion process
    does not get enough oxygen
    - Corresponds to an altitude of approx. 3,000 m
    Hypoxic air ventilation/Inert ventilation system
    - Reduces/limits smoke formation
    - Prevents combustion/fire
    - Ensures continuous operation
    - No fire damage
    - No secondary extinguishing damage (corrosion,
    harm to the environment, poisoning, etc.)
    - No problems with hard disks due to the triggering
    of fire extinguishing equipment

Safe as a vault

    Located inside the mountain in a former NATO
    ammunition depot (the largest in northern Europe)
    Built for the highest military security level
    - Secured against electromagnetic pulses (EMP)
    - "Nuclear secure" facility
    - Secured against sabotage and direct attack
    from the sea
    "Best in class" data security

Communication
- redundancy

    High capacity and redundancy
    Local broad band operators
    Good connectivity to the world
    Multiple high capacity lines to Oslo
    Multiple high capacity lines directly to the UK
    Multiple high capacity lines to continental Europe
    Carrier neutral availability

Subterranean “data bunkers”

2011-11-24T10:19:00.000-10:00

Subterranean “data bunkers” in unusual locations continue to stir the imagination of the technology world. The latest data hideout to enter the spotlight is the “Swiss Fort Knox” facility deep below the Swiss Alps, which offers ultra-secure data storage in a nuke-proof data center. The facility was featured in the November issue of Wired magazine.
Like many of the data bunkers, the Swiss Fort Knox facility takes advantage of existing infrastructure. in this case an old Cold War bunker built by the Swiss military and designed to survive a nuclear blast. The facility is really two separate data centers about 10 kilometers apart, which were developed over the past 15 years by SIAG (Secure Infostor AG), a Swiss provider of IT security solutions. Two related companies, Mount 10 Swiss Data Backup and SISPACE AG, provide services within Swiss Fort Knox bunker, with Mount 10 providing secure data backup while SISPACE focuses on records storage and management.

The data center also takes advantage of the cooling potential presented by its location deep under the mountains. The facility uses Mother Nature as its chiller, pulling glacial water from an underground lake to use in its cooling systems. It also features survivalist-level security measures, including face-recognition surveillance software, bulletproof plastics and vault doors courtesy of the Swiss banking industry.

More details of the facility’s operation are available at the web sites for Mount 10 and Swiss Fort Knox.

The Worlds Greenest Underground Data Center

2011-11-24T09:51:00.000-10:00

Helsinki:The Worlds Greenest Underground Data Center – Planetsave.com: climate change and environmental news (via Planetsave)

Buildings house secret servers that keep Net humming. Not every data center is a fortress..

2011-11-24T09:07:00.000-10:00

CHICAGO – From the outside, the Gothic brick and limestone building a few blocks south of downtown almost looks abandoned.

Plaques identify it as a landmark completed in 1929, a former printing plant that once produced magazines, catalogs and phone books. The sign over the main door says "Chicago Manufacturing Division Plant 1."

There are hints, though, that something is going on inside. Cameras are aimed at the building's perimeter. A small sign at the back entrance says "Digital Realty Trust."

Sturdy gates across the driveway keep the uninvited out.

There's good reason for the intentional anonymity and security, says Rich Miller: "The Internet lives there."

Miller, editor of Data Center Knowledge, which tracks the industry, and Dave Caron, senior vice president of portfolio management for Digital Realty, which owns the 1.1 million-square-foot former R.R. Donnelley printing plant, say it is the world's largest repository for computer servers.

Caron won't identify its tenants, but he says the building stores data from financial firms and Internet and telecommunications companies. "The 'cloud' that you keep hearing about … all ends up on servers in a data center somewhere," he says.

There are about 13,000 large data centers around the world, 7,000 of them in the USA, says Michelle Bailey, a vice president at IDC, a market research company that monitors the industry. Growth stalled during the recession, but her company estimates about $22 billion will be spent on new centers worldwide this year.

The need for data centers is increasing as demand for online space and connectivity explodes. Some are inside generic urban buildings or sprawling rural facilities. For all of them, security is paramount. Inside, after all, are the engines that keep smartphones smart, businesses connected and social networks humming.

Some data centers have "traps" that isolate intrusions by unauthorized individuals, technology that weighs people as they enter and sounds an alarm if their weight is different when they depart, bulletproof walls and blast-proof doors, Bailey says.

When Wal-Mart opened a data center in McDonald County, Mo., a few years ago, County Assessor Laura Pope says she signed a non-disclosure agreement promising "I wouldn't discuss anything I saw in there." She hasn't.

Borrowing a line from a 1999 movie, Miller says, "I used to kid about the Fight Club rule: Rule No. 1 is you don't talk about the data centers, and Rule No. 2 is you do not talk about the data centers."

Although the rapid growth of data centers has diminished their ability to "hide in plain sight," he says, many owners and occupants are "very secretive and … sensitive about the locations."

That makes sense, Miller says. "These facilities are critical to the financial system and the overall function of the Internet."

Making new use of the old

Some data centers — sometimes called carrier hotels because space is leased to multiple companies — are in large urban buildings where they can tap into intersecting networks, Miller says

Old manufacturing facilities such as Chicago's Donnelley printing plant often are repurposed because they have high ceilings and load-bearing floors to support heavy racks of servers.

"They are interesting examples of the new economy rising up in the footprints of the old," he says.

Giant companies such as Google, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo and Amazon often build their data centers in rural areas. "They're looking for cheap power and cheap real estate," Miller says. While the number of private centers grows, the federal government is consolidating. It has more than 2,000 data centers and this summer announced plans to close 373 by the end of 2012.

Communities such as Quincy, Wash., population 6,750, and Catawba County in western North Carolina want to become data center hubs. Catawba and neighboring counties dubbed themselves "North Carolina's data center corridor," says Scott Millar, president of the Catawba County Economic Development Corp.

Apple last fall opened a 500,000-square-foot, $1 billion facility in Catawba County. Google and Facebook have data centers in nearby counties and more are under construction.

Catawba County is building a second data center park in hopes of attracting more, Millar says. Because data centers don't require many employees, most of the permanent jobs are created by contractors who provide electrical, cooling or security support, he says. About 400 people work at the giant Chicago data center; many employ far fewer.

The Apple data center, Millar says, is "pretty secretive." No signs indicate what the building holds, he says, "but everybody knows what it is."

James Lewis, a senior fellow in technology and security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a public policy research group in Washington, D.C., compares the evolution of data centers to changes in the way electricity is generated.

A century or more ago, he says, factories and other companies operated their own electric plants to power their lights, elevators and other functions. Those with spare capacity began to sell it to their neighbors. "That's what happened to computing," Lewis says.

Instead of maintaining computer servers in their own facilities for rapidly growing data storage needs, some businesses locate their servers or backup servers in data centers, he says. They can save money because the centers minimize energy consumption, ensure security and allow computers to share tasks. Data centers also give companies places to store backed-up data that is crucial to their businesses.

"The amount of data in the world doubles every couple of years and people … are willing to pay for it to be stored," Lewis says.

He doesn't think it's essential to conceal the centers' locations, though, because hackers won't try to come in through the front door. "The main source of risk isn't physical, it's cyber," he says. "If hiding the location … is all that they're doing, they're not doing enough."

Tall building, low profile

Keeping a low profile is just the beginning of the security measures at Digital Realty Trust's massive Chicago data center.

The exterior is embellished with terra cotta shields depicting printers' marks. The building occupies almost a full block, is nine stories tall and has a 14-story tower. Inside, there are visible and unseen protections, some of which the company won't talk about publicly. There are guards at both entrances, cameras inside and out, motion sensors and much more. To access the rooms where rows of servers live, a card must be scanned and a fingerprint recognized.

The interior of the building is a mix of old and new. Because it is a landmark, its wood-lined two-story library, which has been used for photo shoots, must be kept intact. Some corridors feature stone arches overhead, and some offices are paneled in English oak.

Other hallways are sterile and silent. Inside the locked doors of the individual data centers are locked metal-grid cages and, inside them, rows of black shelving with the blinking lights of servers visible through the doors. The only sound is an electronic buzz. Cameras scan every square foot of the room.

Between the rows of servers are "cooling aisles" with thousands of round holes in floor tiles feeding cool air into the space. Over the server shelving are ladder racks that suspend "raceways" — yellow plastic casing enclosing fiber optic cables. The shelving doesn't extend to the ceiling; air must circulate above the servers to keep temperatures down.

Caron says it costs $600-$800 per square foot to build a data center and often less than $70 a square foot for a normal industrial building, including the land. The giant printing presses that once filled space in the former Donnelley building made it ideal for conversion to data center use, he says. A data center floor must be able to handle at least 150 pounds and as much as 400 pounds per square foot. By comparison, most office buildings are built for 70 pounds per square foot.

Huge amounts of electricity power all those servers, he says: 100-150 watts or more per square foot, compared with 3-5 watts for each square foot of an office building. To keep the servers running, there's more than one electrical feed into the building and backup systems and generators ensure there's never an interruption in power. The Chicago facility has 63 generators.

Digital Realty Trust, which bought the building in 2005, owns 96 properties, most of them data centers, in the USA, Europe and Asia, Caron says. There is, he says, "a lot of demand" and the company expects to spend up to $500 million this year on acquisitions. Last year it spent more than $1 billion , he says.

'You have no idea what's here'

Not every data center is a fortress. The one owned by the city of Altamonte Springs, Fla., is a former 770,000-gallon water tank next to City Hall.

Lawrence DiGioia, information services director in the city of 40,000, says he relocated the city's servers after being forced by three hurricanes to pack everything up to keep them out of harm's way. The tank has 8-inch-thick walls. "It did a great job holding water in," he says, "so we knew it could keep water out."

Even a small-scale data center needs security, though. DiGioia says his is protected by video surveillance, requires dual authentication to enter and a biometric lock limits access to the server room.

It's even harder to get into the five data centers 200 feet deep in a former limestone mine in Butler County, Pa.

"The facility affords a very high level of security, not only physical — armed guards, steel gates, layers of security, biometrics — but also we're protected from the elements, civil unrest, terrorist-type things," says Chuck Doughty, vice president of the Underground, as it's called, for Iron Mountain, an information management company.

Except for the cars parked outside, he says, "you'd have no idea what's here." Besides 7 million gigabytes of digital data, including e-mail, computer backup files and digital medical images such as MRIs, the Underground is home to documents, film reels and computer backup tapes owned by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Sony Music and Universal, among others.

Doughty worked for years on Room 48, an experiment in making data centers more energy-efficient and reliable, and is working now on ways to utilize some of the cold water in the mine to cool the computer space without using chillers or cooling towers. He hopes to begin construction next year.

The security of data centers, Doughty says, is becoming increasingly important for companies and governments "not only because of the situation in the United States with terrorism, but because of the world situation."

Lewis says one of the lessons of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was the importance of having data stored in more than one place. As more data centers are built, he says there will be more debate about legal issues: What happens if law enforcement has a warrant for a server that also contains data owned by other companies? Should there be standards for protecting consumers, including requirements that they be notified of breaches? Should data centers be regulated by the government?

John McKay, a visitor to Chicago from Vancouver, Canada, snapped photos of the former printing plant recently. A brochure highlighting historic buildings in the neighborhood had led him to it.

"What a shame," he said, "that it's vacant."

Iron Mountain finds limestone a natural fit for data center efficiency

2011-11-24T05:26:00.001-10:00

Iron Mountain

Twenty-two stories below ground, deep within the secure confines of a former limestone mine in Pennsylvania, resides Room 48, Iron Mountain's state-of-the-art underground data center. Designed by Iron Mountain vice president of engineering Chuck Doughty, the facility takes advantage of the natural properties of the subterranean location to help the data storage and security company put a dent in its significant energy costs.

"A major challenge was helping our engineers and equipment suppliers understand the basic physics, thermodynamics, and electrical transformation and distribution of this unique location and how they could be leveraged -- and not just apply typical data center designs that have been used for the last 25 years," said Doughty.
The location's geothermal and subterranean conditions open up opportunities for energy reduction that you wouldn't find in a traditional data center. For starters, the natural temperature of the facility is between 55 and 65 degrees, so Room 48 benefits from free cooling. Ducting above the servers pushes air down naturally, using far less power than would be necessary to blow air upward, as a traditional data center would.
Iron Mountain also employs a cold-air containment strategy, which uses the limestone walls and ceiling vents to cool wires and cables hanging above the server racks to increase cool-air distribution by up to 20 percent. At the same time, air pressure differentials force warm air from the servers up and out through perforated ceiling tiles. Room 48 (which gets its name from its location on the underground facility map) has no need for raised floors found in traditional data centers, thanks to the natural limestone walls' ability to absorb 1.5 BTUs per square foot per hour.
Geothermal and subterranean conditions of former limestone mine yield significant savings on cooling
Mother Nature alone isn't responsible for the efficiency gains of the facility. As part of the design, Iron Mountain located the power distribution and air conditioning equipment outside of the facility, resulting in a further reduction in heat while freeing up 30 percent more space for racks.
Room 48 uses motion-sensor, low-power, low-heat lighting to further reduce temperature and costs. Additionally, Iron Mountain opted to purchase run-of-the-mill K-rated transformers and electrical load centers in the data center, the kind you'd find in an everyday electric supply store, rather than pricey electrical equipment typically used in data centers. The company also incorporated readily available, energy-efficient T8 fluorescent bulbs into its lighting scheme.

Iron Mountain's efforts paid off in spades. The company estimates that Room 48 cost about 30 percent less to build than a traditional data center because of its energy-efficient design and use of standard equipment instead of specialty gear. The various efforts to slash cooling save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. Moreover, the natural cooling allows Iron Mountain to boost power in the room to 200 watts per square foot, 50 percent above the 125 watts per square foot used in data centers located in the same underground facility.
"Room 48's design and construction provided a powerful lesson in discarding prior data center design templates and leveraging the natural advantages this unique location provided," said Doughty. "Future Iron Mountain data centers will use the lessons of Room 48 to help design, construct, and operate the most cost-effective data centers, utilizing the geothermal cooling of the underground."

Consumer Broadband Test Update

2011-04-03T10:49:00.001-10:00

Consumer Broadband Test Update

March 17th, 2010 by Jordan Usdan - Attorney-Advisor, Broadband Task Force Thanks to the over 150,000 unique users who have taken over 300,000 Consumer Broadband Tests, as well as the nearly 4,000 addresses submitted to the broadband Dead Zone Report. The popularity of the consumer tools has exceeded our expectations.We’ve made some text changes to the short “About” section found on a tab below the Consumer Broadband Test Tool. Some users have been confused by the differences between the two testing platforms presented by the FCC – Ookla and M-Lab – and this section explains the variability
Over the weekend, the FCC also updated both the Android and iPhone FCC Apps to improve the user experience. The FCC App can be found by searching for “FCC” in either the Android or iPhone App store.
The FCC chose to use two testing applications for the Beta version of the Consumer Broadband Test. The two applications are among the most popular on the Internet and the FCC hopes to make available additional testing platforms in the future. However, software based broadband testing is not an exact science and contains inherent variability, as described in the About section. This is why the FCC will also be conducting a hardware based scientific study of broadband quality across the country. See this recent blog post about this venture, and the RFQ here. The FCC will use the results of this hardware study for analytical purposes. The results of the software bases testing (see data below) are interesting and show broad trends, but the FCC is not relying on the data for analytical purposes.
Here are the user experienced differences between the two testing platforms:

Metric	M-LAB	OOKLA
Average Download Speed (mbps)	7.04	11.5
Median Download Speed (mbps)	3.95	8.14
Average Upload Speed (mbps)	2.74	2.09
Median Upload Speed (mbps)	0.87	1.01

You will see that Ookla provides a higher overall average and median speed than M-Lab. This is likely due to the different methodologies these testing applications use. The difference comes from the fact that broadband speeds vary over time, even within a single second. Ookla measures peak performance and ignores short periods of slow speed, which it considers to be speed bumps in performance, while M-Lab takes many rapid speed measurements and averages them all. For more detail, see the Ookla and M-Lab methodology sections. Additionally, Ookla and M-Lab each have testing servers geographically distributed across the country. Individual’s proximity to these testing servers could also affect testing results.

Although software based testing cannot provide users with a 100% reliable measures of broadband quality, the FCC makes these tools available as they provide comparative and relative real-time performance information and helps the FCC collect broadband availability data.

Here are some interesting data and maps from the first six days of the Consumer Broadband Test. This data is derived from the results of both testing applications.

As you can see, 87% of test takers are home users, which is the FCC’s target audience with this application. Additionally, a clear trend is visible across business sizes, high bandwidth connectivity for community institutions, and lower bandwidth for mobile connections. Again, these results are non-scientific extrapolations from the Beta version of the Consumer Broadband test. Additionally, about 98% of user submitted addresses are geo-coding correctly, which is a very good rate.

Given that this is the Beta version, we want to hear from you about additional features we can add to this interface. We already have some internal plans to rollout an updated version in the near future that provides greater context to users about the meaning of their testing results.

USSHC, a leading ultra secure data center

2011-01-31T19:41:00.002-10:00

Welcome to Geek With A Box, the economy data suite on the USSHC campus. We wanted to give people some of the advantages of the excellent physical and network security present at the USSHC campus, but with scaled back redundancy to reduce the cost. It’s some of the advantages of being located at a data bunker, but without the costs of being IN a data bunker. At GWAB you bring in your own rack and UPS (or if you need we can supply) we’ll get you set up with floor space, power, and network drops. You’ll get 24/7 access with your own keycode for the external door and entry in the fingerprint scanner. You’ll get web access to video monitoring for the suite as well. Basically, we were asked by lots of people – geeks- that just wanted a good place to colocate their box. Geek with a Box was born.
Check out our Colocation page for more details on our standard plans, or contact us by one of the methods on the right to discuss something that’s not listed.

USSHC, a leading ultra secure data center company, has launched their Geek With A Box data suite service for economical colocationOnline

PR News – 19-January-2011 –The Geek With A Box product allows USSHC to utilize the extensive infrastructure of our ultra secure underground data center to create low cost suites available for colocation use on other parts of the campus. This allows entrepreneurs and smaller businesses a low cost option for colocation, whether they want to colocate a single server, a rack, or lease an entire turnkey suite.

"We're very excited to offer our clients and fresh startups a way to work with us outside of our usual secured site. One implementation we've already worked on is using our Geek With A Box space for less critical equipment and providing a direct fiber cross connection to another space in our underground nuclear bunker site for databases, backups, and other systems that require an even higher level of reliability," said Isaac Helgens, Project and Marketing Director of USSHC. "We are excited to be flexible enough to make these two very separate products work either together or on their own and provide a new, lower cost opportunity for our clients.

The cost of redundancy and the quest for increased uptime can be stifling to a smaller business or a startup. "The ability to have the best of both worlds without paying a premium is important to these companies just getting off the ground and we think it's a great way to help promote their growth and expansion."

USSHC is the owner of the popular underground data center campus. Its EMP shielded nuclear bunker data center is known for its relentless pursuit of the highest levels of redundancy, reliability, and security. The company employs 10 people in the greater Cedar Rapids area and has been the focus of numerous industry whitepapers and articles regarding high security data centers and disaster recovery. The company’s web site at http://www.USSHC.com contains additional information.

2011-01-31T12:01:00.000-10:00

Underground Caverns Keep Things Cold, Safe… and Secret

When WikiLeaks wants to safeguard its trove of diplomatic cables or Kraft needs to keep tons of cheese cold, they head beneath the surface.

Pionen Data Center Stockholm, Sweden

Where does WikiLeaks keep its secrets? In a former military bunker and nuclear shelter under Stockholm’s city streets. Nicknamed the James Bond Villain Data Center, this 8,000-server facility, which could theoretically withstand a nuclear impact, is protected by 24-hour video surveillance and a 2-foot-thick armored door. Two German V12 diesel submarine engines are on standby for backup power. Recycling a war room comes at a price, though: Bahnhof—the ISP that runs the data center—had to have the glass and frames for the walkway and conference room custom-cut to accommodate the curved walls and uneven ceiling.

Photos: Christoph Morlinghaus

John Clune, President, Cavern Technologies Data Center

2010-11-01T10:08:00.006-10:00

John Clune, President, Cavern Technologies Data Center, Will Speak On President/CEO Panel IMN’s Data Center Forum John Clune, President of Cavern Technologies--the Midwest’s premier underground data center-- will speak on the President/CEO Panel, at IMN’s upcoming Data Center Forum. The two-day event will be held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, on November 8th and 9th.

John Will Speak On President/CEO Panel IMN's Data Center Forum John Clune, President of Cavern Technologies--the Midwest's premier underground data center-- will speak on the President/CEO Panel, at IMN's upcoming Data Center Forum. The two-day event will be held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, on November 8th and 9th. October 31, 2010 John Clune, President of Cavern Technologies--the Midwest's premier underground data center-- will speak on the President/CEO Panel, at IMN's upcoming Data Center Forum. The two-day event will be held at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza, Los Angeles, CA, on November 8th and 9th. The Forum on Financing, Investing and Real Estate Development for Data Centers features leading industry experts who will address the successes and challenges of the data center industry, including over 20 Presidents, CEOs and COOs of Data Center companies. Data Centers, the emerging asset class that investors need to seriously consider for their investment portfolio, has continued growing throughout the recession. With demand doubling every two years, many believe this is the one place where 20% returns are still possible. The major highlight of the conference are the 20 data center Presidents and CEOs who will be speaking at the conferencesays Steven Glener, Senior Vice President at Information Management Network, the forum host. They will be addressing the key financing, expansion, corporate strategy, capital markets, power and technology, from a C-Suite level -- a unique and critical perspective, exclusive to the IMN conference. Cavern Technologies specializes in the development, leasing and operation of build-to-suit wholesale data centers, located 125-feet underground in a 3 million square foot facility designed for energy efficiency, housed in an environmentally regulated, secure infrastructure. Cavern Technologies' world-class data center and collocation facility is SAS-70 certified and designed to meet the specialized power, cooling and security requirements companies need to house IT systems that support their mission-critical business processes. Cavern provides tenants with unique business solutions and a value proposition focused on minimizing the total cost of ownership of data center and collocation infrastructure.

Hunt Midwest seeks tenant for SubTech underground data center space Read more: Hunt Midwest seeks tenant for SubTech underground data center space -

2010-10-05T15:18:00.007-10:00

SubTech Data Center is a ground-level facility built inside solid limestone,
offering security unmatched by any other data center facility. SubTech is located in Kansas City, which provides one of the lowest utility costs in the country and is ranked #2 in the United States for enterprise data center operating affordability. SubTech's data center solutions are reliable and flexible, offering maximum power and connectivity for your robust data center needs. Site plans by

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Expanding or needing data center space? SubTech has millions of square feet available for IT and raised floor area. The facility provides clients with data center space ranging from 5,000 - 100,000+ square feet with 16' clear ceiling heights throughout. The initial 100,000 s.f. can be built out in 20,000 s.f. modules. Click here to download our site plan. http://www.subtechkc.com/site_plan.pdf

Ora Reynolds (left), president of Hunt Midwest Real Estate Development, and Tammy Henderson, director of real estate marketing and governmental affairs, are preparing for when a portal (background) will be the front door to an underground data center.

Hunt Midwest Real Estate Development Inc. is getting into the data center business — or rather, under it. Subtechkc

The Kansas City-based company plans to build a 40,000-square-foot data center in Hunt Midwest SubTropolis. The massive underground business complex is roughly northeast of Interstate 435 and Missouri Highway 210 in Kansas City.
Construction on the estimated $30 million SubTech project will begin once Hunt Midwest signs a tenant or tenants for the first 20,000 square feet, company President Ora Reynolds said.
Reynolds said the company originally planned a 100,000-square-foot project but scaled back after an unsuccessful attempt in the summer to add state tax incentives for data centers to a bill aimed at retaining automotive jobs. Missouri is at a disadvantage, she said, because Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Oklahoma offer financial breaks for data centers.
“The investment in a data center is so much more expensive than a regular building,” Reynolds said. “The investment is so large you can’t do ‘If you build it, they will come’ if you don’t think you can compete.”
Reynolds said the company envisions a Tier 3 facility, meaning it has redundant power and cooling systems, with the ability to expand in 20,000-square-foot increments.
“The thing that we’re saying is the biggest advantage, and what makes us different, is we have 8 million square feet that has been mined out and has not been developed at the present time,” Reynolds said. “Somebody who’s out there and says, ‘I need 20,000 square feet now, but I know I’m going to grow and need 100,000 square feet in the next five years,’ we can accommodate them while somebody who has an office building wouldn’t let half the building stay empty.”
She said Hunt Midwest would be strictly a landlord, preferring to find a managed services/collocation firm to become the main tenant, subleasing rack and cabinet space to smaller companies or leasing entire data suites or powered shells — where the tenants install most of the technical infrastructure themselves.
The data center business has taken off in recent years as companies have looked for options to remotely operate or back up data networks.
New York-based Tier 1 Research said in a Sept. 23 report that demand has outstripped supply in many markets because the economy has slowed construction and financing of new data centers.
The underground data center is relatively new in the industry, despite the obvious increase in security and resistance to natural disasters.
Tier 1 analysts Jason Schafer and Michael Levy said in a separate report looking at the SubTech project that so-called data bunkers have had trouble attracting tenants in other markets because of the added complexity of supplying power and getting rid of excess heat and moisture.
They said that SubTech does have size and the ability to grow in phases going for it but that it will run into the same skepticism other operators encounter.
“This isn’t to say that there isn’t a market for a secure underground data center facility,” they wrote. “It just fits the needs of fewer types of tenants that are likely comparing all data center providers.”
Cavern Technologies operates a 40,000-square-foot data center in the underground Meritex Lenexa Executive Park. Cavern President John Clune said the company has grown from four customers three years ago to 35.
“Our market has really taken off,” he said, adding that not having to construct an actual building and underground’s cooler air temperatures let Cavern compete on cost. “The economics of the underground allow us to provide more space for the money.”
Clune said that data centers typically charge as much as $1,200 a rack but that he charges $2,900 for 250 square feet — enough room for four racks.
“It’s when people come down here that the light goes on,” he said.
Numerous area companies operate their data centers, including some in underground space.
Overland Park-based Sprint Nextel Corp. has three data centers supporting network operations, with two built into earthen embankments, spokeswoman Melinda Tiemeyer said.
Other companies use underground caves to store computer data tapes.

What is SubTropolis?

SubTropolis was created through the mining of a 270-million-year-old limestone deposit. In the mining process, limestone is removed by the room and pillar method, leaving 25-foot square pillars that are on 65-foot centers and 40 feet apart.

The pillars’ even spacing, concrete flooring and 16-foot high, smooth ceilings make build-to-suit facilities time and cost efficient for tenants. A tenant requiring 10,000 to one million square feet can be in their space within 150 days. SubTropolis is completely dry, brightly lit, with miles of wide, paved streets accessed at street level.

Hunt Midwest SubTropolis sets the standard for subsurface business developments.

USSHC Ultimate Underground Data Bunker

2010-08-03T13:10:00.005-10:00

USSHC was founded in 2002. However, the process of creating the ultimate underground data bunker actually started in 1999 with the needs of an Internet Service Provider. It was found that truly geographic IP transit could not be fulfilled by the local telephone carriers due to telephone tariffs. The larger Tier 1 Network Service Providers could not provide higher reliability because they depend on the local carriers to deliver the local access to their network. No matter how services were delivered via these traditional means, there was always a single point of failure.

There are solutions that use fiber rings to deliver services, but even fiber rings have single points of failure: The telephone exchange central offices.

The only way to have true IP redundancy is to have different connections from multiple IP transit providers from opposite directions, that use different local fiber networks, from entirely different companies. Most data centers try to meet these needs using fiber paths from carriers not bound by telephone tariffs. However, this “solution” was accompanied by a host of other problems.

In terms of physical security, every data center investigated shared a common building with other tenants. Either the data center was an afterthought and added to an existing building (server closet that grew in to dedicated space), or it was purpose built but with much office space and other common space in the same facility. Both of these types of shared structures increase the risk of collateral damage due to fires in the same building, and to security risks due to the large numbers of people sharing the facility. The best data center fire suppression system in the world doesn’t do a bit of good if the office above it building burns down on top of the data center.

Major shortcomings in physical security were also a recurring theme during the search for a data center. Many facilities share common space with other businesses. Despite partitioning off a building, the common mechanical facilities such as chiller plant, and electrical, are typically shared with other tenants. Obtaining building wide security is difficult not only due to the different tenants sharing common areas, but due to reception areas in buildings that were open to the public and entirely unsecured. Most “secure” server spaces were found to be secured from public areas by walls made of sheet rock! Some sheet rock walls contained windows! We desired something a little more secure than two layers of half inch thick sheet rock, or a single pane of glass.

Despite finding several facilities that all claimed to be “hardened” and able to withstand the force of a tornado with walls made of reinforced concrete, and at least one door made of steel with no windows to the outside world, further investigation revealed that at most, they were only partially below ground, (walk out basement) and all lacked physical plant equipment that was designed to operate during major contingencies. They also shared office space in the same building. Time and time again, it was found that 100% of the data centers had their heat rejection and standby power systems above ground. And in no case were the generators or air conditioning systems “hardened” at all. While the servers may survive if the data center took a direct hit from even a small EF-1 tornado, they would not remain operational for any length of time once the uninterruptible power supply batteries were exhausted. Even if the connectivity and building itself survived, and a generator was tough enough to operate after a storm or tornado, the external cooling would not. Even with power, the servers would quickly overheat, leading to downtime, and possible data corruption or loss.

Some data centers that claimed to be “hardened” were found to require a constant feed of municipal water for on site cooling. With all of the redundancy built in to the site, the whole data center could fail due to a non redundant source of cooling water that could be interrupted due to a pipe break, power outage, earthquake, or even simple maintenance. Or the whole data center could fail due to a water pipe break that would flood the facility with a high pressure torrent of municipal water.

Then there were the data centers located in flood plains. We were shocked at just how many data centers were located in flood plains. More alarming was the “head in the clouds” attitude that most had about the flood plain being entirely acceptable because the data center was on an upper floor.

The harder we looked, and the more we uncovered, the more discouraged we became. Eventually however, USSHC solved all of these problems, and then some.

The idea behind USSHC was to provide a safe, secure place to house an Internet Service Provider that would be immune from any form of disaster, “deep in an Iowa underground bunker” where the power would always stay on, and the servers would always stay connected, fully online, and fully operational, despite what was going on in the outside world.

Since it went live in 2002, the facility has been expanded to allow other companies to share the same level of redundancy, security, and performance.

In 2009, USSHC opened the GWAB (Geek with a box data suite) to offer an economical alternative to our premium data center colocation offerings.

Innovations for the Data Center

2010-08-02T18:43:00.002-10:00

6 Cool Innovations for
The Data Center

1. Fiber optics with a twist

The success of the HDMI cable in consumer electronics has proved that having a common cable that works with Blu-ray players, HDTV sets and just about any set-top box helps remove clutter and confusion. Intel has developed Light Peak following this same approach. It's fiber-optic cable that will first be used with laptop and desktop computers to reduce clutter and to speed transmission, but it could also make its way to the data center as a way to connect servers and switches.

The 3.2mm cable, which is about as thin as a USB cable, can be up to 100 feet long. Intel has designed a controller that will sit inside a computer, and cables are currently in production. Third parties, including Hewlett-Packard and Dell, will start making computers with Light Peak fiber-optic cables in them by 2011, according to Intel.

For data centers, Light Peak presents a few interesting possibilities. Fiber optics have been in the data center since the early 1990s, when IBM introduced its Escon (Enterprise Systems Connection) product line; it connects mainframes at 200Mbit/sec. Light Peak differs in that it runs at 10GB/sec., and Intel claims that the components will be less expensive and lighter-weight than existing fiber-optic products.

"Intel claims Light Peak will be less complex and easier to manage by eliminating unnecessary ports, and deliver the higher throughput required by high performance e-SATA and DisplayPort systems," says Charles King, an analyst at Pund-IT in Concord, Mass. "If the company delivers on these promises, Light Peak could simplify life for data center managers plagued by installing, managing and troubleshooting miles of unruly optical cables."

Success here will depend on "how willingly developers and vendors" embrace Light Peak and build products around it, King explains.

2. Submerged liquid cooling and horizontal racks

Liquid cooling for data centers is not a new concept, of course, but Green Revolution Cooling has added a new twist. For starters, the rack is turned on its side, which helps with cable management and makes it easier for administrators to access equipment, and the horizontal rack is surrounded by liquid. A new coolant, called GreenDEF, is made from mineral oil that is nontoxic, costs less than other liquid-cooling methods and is not electrically conductive like water, according to a GR Cooling spokesman.

"The liquid actually moves through the floor and circulates up through all of the computing nodes," says Tommy Minyard, director of advanced computing systems at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, part of the University of Texas at Austin. This means more-effective cooling because heat is moved away from the processors via cables on the sides and under the rack, he explains. Minyard is installing GR Cooling systems in his data center and expects a 30% to 40% savings compared to traditional air-cooled systems.

Data center cooling device

Green Revolution uses horizontal devices for racks, along with a new type of coolant, to reduce energy costs in a data center.

Minyard says liquid cooling has made a rebound lately, recalling the days when Cray offered submerged cooling systems, and he notes that even IBM is moving back into chilled-liquid-cooling some compute nodes.

Pund-IT's King says a major issue is that enterprises have fought the return of liquid cooling in the data center because of the high costs of implementing the technology and because it is unproven as a widespread option.

"Liquid cooling usually costs much more to install upfront than air cooling," says Mark Tlapak, GR Cooling's co-founder. "Compared to air, every liquid cooling system has some added nuance, such as electric conductivity with water-based cooling systems. " But, he says, "spring a leak in the water systems, and you lose electrical equipment." Still, for Minyard, GR Cooling is an ideal fit: His data center gravitates toward dense, powerful systems that pack intense power into small spaces, such as IBM blade servers and the latest Intel processors. The Ranger supercomputer, for example, uses 30kw of power per rack.

3. Several broadband lines combined into one

Enterprises can spend many thousands of dollars on fiber-optic lines and multiple T1 connections, but at least one emerging technology is aiming to provide a lower-cost alternative.

Mushroom Networks' Truffle Broadband Bonding Network Appliance creates one fast connection out of up to six separate lines, a technique known as bonding. The Truffle combines the bandwidth of all available broadband lines into one giant pipe, with download speeds of up to 50Mbit/sec., the company says. Internet access may be through a DSL modem, cable modem, T1 line or just about any broadband connection.

This helps increase overall throughput, and acts as a backup mechanism, too. If one of the "bonded" lines fails, the Truffle connection just keeps running with the other available lines.

Steve Finn, a television producer in Kenya, uses Mushroom Networks' appliance for a program called Africa Challenge that is broadcast to eight African countries. He relies heavily on broadband to produce the content and at one time paid as much as $4,000 per month for connectivity. Speeds vary depending on latency and traffic, but he says the bonded speed is generally about four times faster (four lines times the speed of each individual line), at about half the cost of one equivalent high-speed line.

Frank J. Bernhard, an analyst at Omni Consulting Group, says Mushroom Networks fills a niche for companies that do not want to pay the exorbitant fees for multiple T1 or T3 connections but still need reliable and fast Internet access. Other companies, including Cisco Systems, offer similar bonding technology, but at a greater cost and with more complexity at install, which means the technique has not yet been widely used.

4. Multiple data centers more easily connected

In a very large enterprise, the process of connecting multiple data centers can be a bit mind-boggling. There are security concerns, Ethernet transport issues, operational problems related to maintaining the fastest speed between switches at branch sites, and new disaster planning considerations due to IT operations running in multiple locations.

Cisco's new Overlay Transport Virtualization, or OTV, connects multiple data centers in a way that seems really easy compared with the roll-your-own process most shops have traditionally used. Essentially a transport technology for Layer 2 networking, the software updates network switches, including the Cisco Nexus 7000, to connect data centers in different geographic locations.

The OSV software costs about $25,000 per license and uses the maximum bandwidth and connections already established between data centers.

There are other approaches for linking multiple data centers, a Cisco technical spokesman acknowledges, including those involving Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) or, before that, frame-relay and Asynchronous Transfer Mode protocols.

But unlike some of the older approaches, the spokesman explains, Cisco OTV does not require any network redesign or special services in the core, such as label switching. OTV is simply overlaid onto the existing network, inheriting all the benefits of a well-designed IP network while maintaining the independence of the Layer 2 data centers being interconnected.

Terremark, a cloud service provider based in Miami, uses Cisco OTV to link 13 data centers in the U.S., Europe and Latin America. The company says there is a significant savings compared with taking a "do-it-yourself" approach to linking data centers, due to reduced complexity and OTV's automated fail-over system that helps multiple data centers act as one if disaster strikes.

"Implementing the ability to balance loads and/or enact emergency fail-over operations between data centers traditionally involved a dedicated network and complex software," says Norm Laudermilch, Terremark's senior vice president of infrastructure. "With Cisco OTV, Ethernet traffic from one physical location is simply encapsulated and tunneled to another location to create one logical data center."

Virtual machines from one location can now use VMware's VMotion, for instance, to automatically move to another physical location in the event of a failure.

5. Priority-based e-mail storage

Communication is what drives a business, but too often the bits and bytes of an e-mail exchange are treated in the data center as just another data set that needs to be archived. Messagemind automatically determines which e-mails can be safely archived onlower-cost systems.

The tool analyzes all company communication -- tracking which messages end users read, delete or save -- and then groups them according to priority level.

Data center administrators can use that information to store e-mail based on priority level, which in turn can save money. For example, instead of storing all e-mails in one high-cost archive, messages marked as low priority -- based again on the end user's clicking behavior -- can be stored in lower-cost storage systems. High-priority e-mail can be stored on higher-performance, and higher-cost, media.

That same behind-the-scenes analysis can be used outside the data center, rolled up into a dashboard that managers and end users can view to help them on projects. For example, business units can view e-mail diagrams that show who is communicating effectively on a project and who seems to be lagging behind and rarely contributing.

Pund-IT's King says Messagemind is an intriguing prospect because e-mail has become such a wasteland of broken conversations and disconnected project discussions. Managing e-mail becomes even more painful if a company is subject to litigation, and e-mail becomes part of the legal discovery process.

"Even the best e-mail solutions require employees to manage their messages," says King. "If it works as advertised, I could see this catching hold in enterprises. By managing e-mail more effectively -- and automatically -- Messagemind's solution could take a great deal of weight off the shoulders of data center admins struggling under ever-increasing volumes of stored messages."

6. User accounts virtualized for easier restoration

Virtualization has become the buzzword of the past decade, but it usually involves abstracting an operating system from a server or data from your storage allocations. AppSense is virtualization software for user accounts. It extracts user profile settings from Windows applications and maintains them separately. That means that if an application is updated or changed, the user information is still available. If user settings are corrupted or lost, administrators can restore the settings with a minimum of bother.

Landon Winburn, a software systems specialist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, uses AppSense to virtualize user-account profiles for his 3,000 students. Winburn says the university used to manage user settings manually, taking about 40 to 60 calls per week related to log-ins. The university also had five to 10 corruptions per day related to user settings.

"Before AppSense, the only solution for a corrupt profile was to delete the profile and have the user start again from scratch for all applications," says Winburn.

But now, with AppSense's ability to restore these settings, the university doesn't have to directly address the problems, since they are handled automatically. By virtualizing accounts, the university could also increase the number of XenApp Server accounts from 40 user profiles per server to about 80.

John Brandon is a veteran of the computing industry, having worked as an IT manager for 10 years and a tech journalist for another 10. He has written more than 2,500 feature articles and is a regular contributor to Computerworld.

Underground Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Centers in the US

2010-07-03T15:35:00.001-10:00

Montgomery Westland is owned by Pudge Properties. Since acquiring the property in April 2007 the partners have invested over $15M in campus improvements. The partnership has committed to develop the campus into one of the largest Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity Centers in the US.

The Montgomery Westland facility sits on 52 acres in Montgomery Texas. The property is secured by 24 hour guard, completely fenced, with total camera surveillance and biometric-card key access. It is located approximately 40 minutes from Houston, 100 miles from the gulf coast. An onsite helicopter pad is provided for emergency access when required. The Montgomery Westland campus is 300 feet above sea level. It is a comprehensive data campus that offers business continuity solutions and data storage in an optimal secure environment. The data campus consist of an existing 100,000 square foot office building for Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity and a 33,000 square feet of secure underground data storage space in our bunker. The bunker space can be scaled for collocation by the unit, cabinets, caged suite or customized private suite. We offer Tier 11 and Tier 111 storage solutions.

Power to the facility is fed by two diverse routes. Power distribution is supplied via two 4000a/480V switchboard, six generator sets provide a total capacity of 4600KW, and UPS power is supplied via (6) 500kva modules. There are four underground fuel tanks with a storage capacity of 57,000 gallons. Bunker space is provided with a minimum of N+1 cooling utilizing Liebert down draft units with humidification, reheat, and moisture detection. Temperature, humidity, and alarm conditions are monitored electronically 24/7.

The master plan for Montgomery Westland includes a four phase expansion in office buildings for business continuity/disaster recovery and an additional 100,000 square feet in new bunker space for secure data storage. Connectivity to the complex is offered via diverse fiber routes at Gig E speeds from various carriers. Montgomery Westland is a carrier neutral facility and can offer DS1, OC-12 or Ethernet VLAN from our Houston POPS’s. As part of our Cisco IP telephone system can support redirects of your original office numbers regardless of your location in Texas. Additional cities around the US are available on a per request basis.

As part of our Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity solution we are supported by our partner La Torretta offering our clients a first class comprehensive family plan for lodging, food service, meeting facilities and leisure.

DataChambers Underground Data Center

2010-07-03T13:41:00.002-10:00

Nicholas L. Kottyan

With more than 25 years of experience in the technology and telecommunications industries, Nicholas Kottyan is especially well-versed in the critical information technology challenges facing today’s businesses. He helps clients develop business continuity plans that ensure seamless customer service… manage growing electronic records…and find cost-effective ways to monitor, manage and maintain critical data networks.

Mr. Kottyan has led DataChambers through two significant expansions of its data center facilities to meet growing demand.

Before joining the company, he was president and CEO of Peak 10 Inc., a data center services company he co-founded. He also has served as senior vice president for CT Communications Inc., a publicly traded local telephone company in Concord, N.C., where he led an expansion into new long distance, wireless PCS and Internet services markets.

In 1991 Mr. Kottyan founded Teledial America of North Carolina, which he sold to LCI International (now part of Qwest Communications). He also has served as president and CEO of Phone America of Carolina.

Mr. Kottyan is currently chairman of the N.C. Technology Association, the primary voice of North Carolina’s technology industry.

Patrick Craig

Patrick Craig is chief technology guru for the DataChambers team – experienced in the hardware, software and industry protocols that underpin successful networks and data centers.

Patrick Craig

Mr. Craig was instrumental in the design of the high-availability infrastructure DataChambers uses to support mission-critical business functions for its clients. He also leads the company’s Network Operations Center (NOC). The NOC team monitors and manages client systems around-the-clock to detect and resolve potential issues before they impact performance.

Before joining DataChambers, Mr. Craig was managed services administrator for Divine Inc., a software and technology company. He also served as vice president of IT technologies and as lead systems administrator for NetUnlimited, a voice and data solutions provider. During his tenure with NetUnlimited, he managed three of the company’s divisions and designed the infrastructure needed to support thousands of users.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – MAY 6, 2010 – DataChambers, a North Carolina-based technology firm, today announced it has secured financing from NewBridge Bank to support construction of a new data center on its 80-acre campus in Winston-Salem.

Work is well under way on the 20,000-square-foot, $9 million project, which was announced last spring. When completed, it will more than double the company’s capacity to house data networks for its clients, including more than 110 firms in 28 states.

“We’ve been pleased with the progress of the project, which positions us for significant growth,” said Nicholas Kottyan, CEO of DataChambers. “We expect to be up and running by early summer.”

Construction of the new facility involves the demolition and rebuilding of a section of the former office building where DataChambers is headquartered. The space is located 18 feet underground in a secure, blast-resistant bunker.

General contractor for the project is Landmark Builders.

“DataChambers is a great success story in our region, and we could not be more pleased that they have chosen NewBridge Bank as their financial partner,” said Terry Freeman, Senior Vice President and Commercial Relationship Manager for NewBridge Bank. “This locally owned and operated business is the ideal client for NewBridge Bank to help move forward.”

About DataChambers

DataChambers is a full-service information technology and managed services provider specializing in electronic data storage, 24×7 managed information technology solutions, secure co-location services for mission-critical information technology infrastructure, secure tape vaulting, and offsite records storage and management. The company is SAS 70 Type II audited and meets rigorous national standards for safeguarding client systems and data. DataChambers’ 140,000⁺-square-foot headquarters in Winston-Salem, N.C., is based on an 80-acre campus owned by the firm’s majority shareholders. For more information, visit www.datachambers.com.

About NewBridge Bank

NewBridge Bank is a full service, state chartered community bank headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina. NewBridge Bank offers financial planning and investment alternatives such as mutual funds and annuities through Raymond James Financial Services, Inc., a registered broker dealer. NewBridge Bank is one of the largest community banks in North Carolina with assets of approximately $2 billion. The Bank has 33 banking offices in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina, the Wilmington, N.C. area and Harrisonburg, Va. The stock of NewBridge Bancorp, the Bank’s parent company, trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol “NBBC.”

http://www.datachambers.com/2010/05/06/datachambers-secures-financing-for-major-data-center-expansion/#more-571

Underground data center to help heat Helsinki

2010-05-19T16:01:00.003-10:00

Underground data center will save $561K, heat homes in Helsinki

From deep underground, data center will help heat Helsinki homes

By Andrew Nusca |

The Finnish capital of Helsinki is preparing to house what may be the greenest data center on the planet.

Hidden deep within the bedrock of a massive cave underneath popular orthodox Christian landmark Uspenski Cathedral, the planned data center — which will be comprised of hundreds of computer servers — is expected to emit substantial amounts of heat.

That heat will then be captured and channeled into the city’s district heating network, a system of water-heated pipes that are used to warm homes in the city.

How’s that for renewable energy?

The new data center is due online in January and is intended for use by local IT services firm Academica. It’s a novel way of using the power consuming nature of data centers — known to be energy hogs — for good.

Data centers themselves have recently been under scrutiny for their expense, which can account for up to a third of a corporation’s total energy bill. Together, those data centers add up: the server farms run by Google alone use 1 percent of the world’s energy, and demand for more power only grows each year.

Temperature is part of the problem. Often, more power is used to cool large data centers than actually compute with them.

What’s more, all that power consumption leads to emissions: data center emissions of carbon dioxide total one-third the amount that airlines produce, according to a Reuters report, grow 10 percent each year.

That’s enough emissions to rival entire nations such as Argentina or the Netherlands.

The new Helsinki data center promises to use half as much energy as the average data center, and its capacity to heat homes will be the energy-producing equivalent of one large wind turbine — about 500 large homes.

The data center is expected to shave approx. $561,000 per year from Academics annual power bill, said sales director Pietari Päivänen.

Oh, and the significance of the church above it? Security. The cave used to be a World War II-era bomb shelter for city officials to escape from Russian air raids.

The Finnish capital of Helsinki is preparing to house what may be the greenest data center on the planet.

That heat will then be captured and channeled into the city’s district heating network, a system of water-heated pipes that are used to warm homes in the city.

another9 Subterranean Bunker

2010-04-30T14:53:00.003-10:00

The Bunker enjoys a unique physical location. Situated in
a hardened, subterranean location, we are one of the
safest computing centers ever built. The facility was
originally designed as a mainframe bunker in the 1970’s
for a Union Carbide corporation.

Connectivity
The Bunker is a carrier-class, datacom hotel facility. We
offer diverse-path fiber connectivity from four providers.
We maintain an OC-48 with Con Edison Communications,
an OC-48 with Lightpath, OC-12 and OC-3 with Verizon
and an OC-12 with MFS/MCI. We provide our customers
the benefit of private NAP connectivity to InterNAP,
Abovenet and Lightpath/Cablevision. As a carrier-neutral
facility with cross connects at Telehouse, 60 Hudson, 111
8th Avenue and others, our clients may provision
bandwidth from the providers of their choice.

Physical Information
• Subterranean location – 30 Miles north of Wall Street
• Conveniently located off two major parkways
• Five-minute taxi trip from two Metro North stations
• Built on a 54” steel reinforced concrete seismic slab
• 18” Raised floors w/250lbs per foot capacity
• Diverse path, dual-entry fiber to four providers
• Zoned for FM-200 fire suppression
• 10,000 square feet of total facility space
• 7,200sf main raised floor datacenter
• Private suites available – 10’ x 11’ and up
• Private cage space from 100sf and up
• Locked, secure full and half cabinets
• Public cage shelf and rack space by the U
• Fireproof Diebold media storage vault
• Bio-metric & card-access security & alerting service
available

Iron Mountain's Underground

2010-04-27T09:16:00.003-10:00

A Slide show Of Iron Mountain's
Underground And Its Innovative
Room 48 Data Center,
200 Feet Below The Earth
In A Former Limestone Mine.

To view an exclusive slideshow of photos of Room 48, please visit http://www.ironmountain.com/make-every-day-earth-day .

Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM), an information management services company, announced today that one of its underground data centers has been named to IDG’s InfoWorld Green 15, an annual ranking of the most innovative green IT projects. The Green 15 recognizes organizations from around the world that have embraced green technology to drive projects and develop products aimed at boosting energy efficiency, trimming waste, and reducing or eliminating the use or the production of harmful substances.

Average data centers require enormous energy to power and cool stacks of computer servers that must run year round. Seeking to cut this energy consumption for the massive volumes of customer data it manages, Iron Mountain conceived and built “Room 48,” a highly efficient data center located 200 feet underground in a former limestone mine in Western Pennsylvania.

Room 48 is two times more efficient than traditional data centers because it takes advantage of its unique subterranean environment. The mine’s steady temperature of 55 degrees and the sponge-like ability of the limestone walls to absorb heat eliminate the need for typical data center cooling systems that consume large amounts of power and squeeze space.

“We are honored to be named among the greenest IT projects in the world,” said Bill Brown, senior vice president, chief information officer, Iron Mountain. “Our customers require us to manage their digital information in a way that's secure and accessible, but also cost-effective and efficient. Our data centers, and particularly Room 48, provide that security, access and efficiency. Room 48 uses nature’s ‘technology’ and offers a blueprint for creating a new kind of data center that harnesses both technology and unique natural properties."

Room 48 rejects traditional datacenter designs in favor of concepts that reduce the amount of heat emitted inside the room. Among these strategies is a “cool-air containment” configuration that increases cool-air flow between server racks and ceiling vents. The room is also staffed only 20 percent of the time allowing it to utilize motion-sensor, low-heat lighting. Cooling units sit outside the room, which operates at 2-3 degrees warmer than traditional datacenters. These design modifications and others have combined to boost the datacenter’s power efficiency by 50 percent, improve space efficiency by 30 percent and drastically reduce both energy consumption and costs

Iron Mountain finds limestone a natural fit for data center efficiency
Geothermal and subterranean conditions of former limestone mine yield significant savings on cooling

Twenty-two stories below ground, deep within the secure confines of a former limestone mine in Pennsylvania, resides Room 48, Iron Mountain's state-of-the-art underground data center. Designed by Iron Mountain vice president of engineering Chuck Doughty, the facility takes advantage of the natural properties of the subterranean location to help the data storage and security company put a dent in its significant energy costs.

"A major challenge was helping our engineers and equipment suppliers understand the basic physics, thermodynamics, and electrical transformation and distribution of this unique location and how they could be leveraged -- and not just apply typical data center designs that have been used for the last 25 years," said Doughty.

The location's geothermal and subterranean conditions open up opportunities for energy reduction that you wouldn't find in a traditional data center. For starters, the natural temperature of the facility is between 55 and 65 degrees, so Room 48 benefits from free cooling. Ducting above the servers pushes air down naturally, using far less power than would be necessary to blow air upward, as a traditional data center would.

Iron Mountain also employs a cold-air containment strategy, which uses the limestone walls and ceiling vents to cool wires and cables hanging above the server racks to increase cool-air distribution by up to 20 percent. At the same time, air pressure differentials force warm air from the servers up and out through perforated ceiling tiles. Room 48 (which gets its name from its location on the underground facility map) has no need for raised floors found in traditional data centers, thanks to the natural limestone walls' ability to absorb 1.5 BTUs per square foot per hour.

Mother Nature alone isn't responsible for the efficiency gains of the facility. As part of the design, Iron Mountain located the power distribution and air conditioning equipment outside of the facility, resulting in a further reduction in heat while freeing up 30 percent more space for racks.

Room 48 uses motion-sensor, low-power, low-heat lighting to further reduce temperature and costs. Additionally, Iron Mountain opted to purchase run-of-the-mill K-rated transformers and electrical load centers in the data center, the kind you'd find in an everyday electric supply store, rather than pricey electrical equipment typically used in data centers. The company also incorporated readily available, energy-efficient T8 fluorescent bulbs into its lighting scheme.

Iron Mountain's efforts paid off in spades. The company estimates that Room 48 cost about 30 percent less to build than a traditional data center because of its energy-efficient design and use of standard equipment instead of specialty gear. The various efforts to slash cooling save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. Moreover, the natural cooling allows Iron Mountain to boost power in the room to 200 watts per square foot, 50 percent above the 125 watts per square foot used in data centers located in the same underground facility.

"Room 48's design and construction provided a powerful lesson in discarding prior data center design templates and leveraging the natural advantages this unique location provided," said Doughty. "Future Iron Mountain data centers will use the lessons of Room 48 to help design, construct, and operate the most cost-effective data centers, utilizing the geothermal cooling of the underground."

Google and Microsoft Data Centers

2010-04-22T10:42:00.003-10:00

BY RANDY H. KATZ // FEBRUARY 2009

The serene countryside around the Columbia River in the northwestern United States has emerged as a major, and perhaps unexpected, battleground among Internet powerhouses. That’s where Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Yahoo have built some of the world’s largest and most advanced computer facilities: colossal warehouses packed with tens of thousands of servers that will propel the next generation of Internet applications. Call it the data center arms race.

The companies flocked to the region because of its affordable land, readily available fiber-optic connectivity, abundant water, and even more important, inexpensive electricity. These factors are critical to today’s large-scale data centers, whose sheer size and power needs eclipse those of the previous generation by one or even two orders of magnitude.

These new data centers are the physical manifestation of what Internet companies are calling cloud computing. The idea is that sprawling collections of servers, storage systems, and network equipment will form a seamless infrastructure capable of running applications and storing data remotely, while the computers people own will provide little more than the interface to connect to the increasingly capable Internet.

All of this means that what had been not-so-glamorous bit players of the tech world—the distant data centers—have now come into the limelight. But getting their design, operation, and location right is a daunting task. The engineers behind today’s mega data centers—some call them Internet data centers, to differentiate them from earlier ones—are turning to a host of new strategies and technologies to cut construction and operating costs, consume less energy, incorporate greener materials and processes, and in general make the facilities more flexible and easier to expand. Among other things, data centers are adopting advanced power management hardware, water-based cooling systems, and denser server configurations, making these facilities much different from conventional air-conditioned server rooms.

Take Microsoft’s data center in Quincy, Wash., with more than 43 600 square meters of space, or nearly the area of 10 American football fields. The company is tight-lipped about the number of servers at the site, but it does say the facility uses 4.8 kilometers of chiller piping, 965 km of electrical wire, 92 900 m2 of drywall, and 1.5 metric tons of batteries for backup power. And the data center consumes 48 megawatts—enough power for 40 000 homes.

Yahoo, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., also chose the tiny town of Quincy—population 5044, tucked in a valley dotted with potato farms—for its state-of-the-art, 13 000-m2 facility, its second in the region. The company says it plans to operate both data centers with a zero-carbon footprint by using, among other things, hydropower, water-based chillers, and external cold air to do some of the cooling. As some observers put it, the potato farms have yielded to the server farms.

To the south, Google, headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., opened a vast data center on the banks of the Columbia, in The Dalles, Ore. The site has two active buildings, each 6500 m2, and there’s been talk of setting up a third. Google, however, won’t discuss its expansion plans. Nor will it say how many servers the complex houses or how much energy and water it consumes. When it comes to data centers these days, there’s a lot of experimentation going on, and companies are understandably secretive.

Another hush-hush data center project is taking place about 100 km east, in Boardman, Ore. Last year, news emerged that its owner is the Seattle-based online retailer Amazon, a major contender in the cloud-computing market. The facility is said to include three buildings and a 10-MW electrical substation, but the company has declined to confirm details.

Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are trying to keep up with the ever-growing demand for Internet services like searching, image and video sharing, and social networking. But they’re also betting on the explosive growth of Web-based applications that will run on their computer clouds. These apps, which display information to users on an Internet browser while processing and storing data on remote servers, range from simple Web-based e-mail like Gmail and Hotmail to more complex services like Google Docs’ word processor and spreadsheet. The applications also include a variety of enterprise platforms like Salesforce.com’s customer management system. So the race to the clouds is on. It’s taking place not only in the Pacific Northwest but also in many other parts of the United States and elsewhere.

With reportedly more than 1 million servers scattered in three dozen data centers around the world, Google is spending billions of dollars to build large-scale facilities in Pryor, Okla.; Council Bluffs, Iowa; Lenoir, N.C.; and Goose Creek, S.C. Last year the company released its Google App Engine, a cloud-based platform that individuals and businesses can use to run applications. Microsoft, whose Quincy facility will house the initial version of its Windows Azure cloud-based operating system, is constructing additional facilities in Chicago, San Antonio, and Dublin, at roughly US $500 million each. The company is also said to be looking for a site in Siberia.

Designing bigger and better data centers requires innovation not only in power and cooling but also in computer architecture, networking, operating systems, and other areas. Some engineers are indeed quite excited by the prospect of designing computing systems of this magnitude—or as some Googlers call them, ”warehouse-size computers.”

The big data centers that went up during the dot-com boom in the late 1990s and early 2000s housed thousands, even tens of thousands, of servers. Back in those days, facility managers could expand their computing resources almost indefinitely. Servers, storage systems, and network equipment were—and still are—relatively cheap, courtesy of Moore’s Law. To get the computing power you needed, all you had to do was set up or upgrade your equipment and turn up the air-conditioning.

But in recent years, this approach has hit a wall. It became just too expensive to manage, power, and cool the huge number of servers that companies employ. Today’s largest data centers house many tens of thousands of servers, and some have reportedly passed the 100 000 mark. The data centers of the dot-com era consumed 1 or 2 MW. Now facilities that require 20 MW are common, and already some of them expect to use 10 times as much. Setting up so many servers—mounting them onto racks, attaching cables, loading software—is very time-consuming. Even worse, with electricity prices going up, it’s hugely expensive to power and cool so much equipment. Market research firm IDC estimates that within the next six years, the companies operating data centers will spend more money per year on energy than on equipment.

The data centers of the dot-com era consumed 1 or 2 megawatts. Now facilities that require 20 megawatts are common, and already some expect to use 10 times as much

What’s more, the environmental impact of data centers is now on the radar of regulators and environmentally conscious stakeholders. The management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. reports that the world’s 44 million servers consume 0.5 percent of all electricity and produce 0.2 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions, or 80 megatons a year, approaching the emissions of entire countries like Argentina or the Netherlands.

Data center designers know they must do many things to squeeze more efficiency out of every system in their facilities. But what? Again, companies don’t want to give the game away. But in their efforts to demonstrate the greening of their operations, Google, Microsoft, and others have revealed some interesting details. And of course, a number of innovations come from the vendor side, and these equipment suppliers are eager to discuss their offerings.

First, consider the server infrastructure within the data center. Traditionally, servers are grouped on racks. Each server is a single computer with one or more processors, memory, a disk, a network interface, a power supply, and a fan—all packaged in a metal enclosure the size of a pizza box. A typical dual-processor server demands 200 watts at peak performance, with the CPUs accounting for about 60 percent of that. Holding up to 40 pizza-box-size servers, a full rack consumes 8 kilowatts. Packed with blade servers—thin computers that sit vertically in a special chassis, like books on a shelf—a rack can use twice as much power.

The new large-scale data centers generally continue to use this rack configuration. Still, there’s room for improvement. For one, Microsoft has said it was able to add more servers to its data centers simply by better managing their power budgets. The idea is that if you have lots of servers that rarely reach their maximum power at the same time, you can size your power supply not for their combined peak power but rather for their average demand. Microsoft says this approach let it add 30 to 50 percent more servers in some of its data centers. The company notes, however, that this strategy requires close monitoring of the servers and the use of power-control schemes to avoid overloading the distribution system in extreme situations.

How the servers are set up at Google’s data centers is a mystery. But this much is known: The company relies on cheap computers with conventional multicore processors. To reduce the machines’ energy appetite, Google fitted them with high-efficiency power supplies and voltage regulators, variable-speed fans, and system boards stripped of all unnecessary components like graphics chips. Google has also experimented with a CPU power-management feature called dynamic voltage/frequency scaling. It reduces a processor’s voltage or frequency during certain periods (for example, when you don’t need the results of a computing task right away). The server executes its work more slowly, thus reducing power consumption. Google engineers have reported energy savings of around 20 percent on some of their tests.

But servers aren’t everything in a data center. Consider the electrical and cooling systems, which have yielded the biggest energy-efficiency improvements in some facilities. In a typical data center, energy flows through a series of transformers and distribution systems, which reduce the high-voltage ac to the standard 120 or 208 volts used in the server racks. The result is that by the time energy reaches the servers, losses can amount to 8 or 9 percent. In addition, the servers’ processors, memory, storage, and network interfaces are ultimately powered by dc, so each server needs to make the ac-to-dc conversion, generating additional losses. This scenario is leading some data centers to adopt high-efficiency transformers and distribution systems to improve energy usage, and some experts have proposed distributing high-voltage dc power throughout the data center, an approach they say could cut losses by 5 to 20 percent.

Even more significant, data centers are saving lots of energy by using new cooling technologies. Traditional facilities use raised floors above a cold-air space, called a plenum, and overhead hot-air collection. The major drawback of this scheme is that hot spots—say, a highly active server or switch—may go undetected and the overheated device may fail. To avoid such situations, some data centers cool the entire room to temperatures much lower than what would otherwise be needed, typically to around 13 °C.

Now data centers are turning to new cooling systems that let them keep their rooms at temperatures as high as 27 °C. American Power Conversion Corp., in West Kingston, R.I., offers a special server rack with an air-conditioning unit that blows cold air directly onto the servers. Hewlett-Packard’s ”smart cooling” techniques use sensors within the machine room to position louvers in the floor that direct cold air at local hot spots, allowing the data center to run at a higher ambient temperature and reducing cooling costs by 25 to 40 percent.

Traditional air-conditioning systems are also making way for higher-efficiency water-based units. Today’s large data centers rely on cooling towers, which use evaporation to remove heat from the cooling water, instead of traditional energy-intensive chillers. Several hardware vendors have developed water-based mechanisms to eliminate heat. IBM’s Rear Door Heat eXchanger mounts on the back of a standard rack, essentially providing a water jacket that can remove up to 15 kW of heat. It’s back to the mainframe days!

Data centers are also trying to use cold air from outside the buildings—a method known as air-side economization. At its Quincy data center, Yahoo says that rather than relying on conventional air-conditioning year-round, it has adopted high-efficiency air conditioners that use water-based chillers and cold external air to cool the server farms during three-quarters of the year.

Finally, the most radical change taking place in some of today’s mega data centers is the adoption of containers to house servers. Instead of building raised-floor rooms, installing air-conditioning systems, and mounting rack after rack, wouldn’t it be great if you could expand your facility by simply adding identical building blocks that integrate computing, power, and cooling systems all in one module?

That’s exactly what vendors like IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems, Rackable Systems, and Verari Systems have come up with. These modules consist of standard shipping containers, which can house some 3000 servers, or more than 10 times as many as a conventional data center could pack in the same space. Their main advantage is that they’re fast to deploy. You just roll these modules into the building, lower them to the floor, and power them up. And they also let you refresh your technology more easily—just truck them back to the vendor and wait for the upgraded version to arrive.

Sun was the first company to offer a container module. Its MD S20 includes 280 pizza-box-size quad-core servers plus Sun’s monitoring and control equipment. All in all, it consumes 187.5 kW, which translates to about 12.6 kW/m². Conventional raised-floor data centers have much more modest densities, often as low as 0.5 kW/m². Verari Systems’ container houses 1400 blade servers, and it can use either self-contained or chilled water cooling, consuming 400 kW, or 12.9 kW/m². Rackable Systems’ ICE Cube uses a self-contained cooling system and a dc power system, allowing the containers to handle a power density of 16 kW/m².

Microsoft’s Chicago data center, which will support the company’s cloud initiatives, is a hybrid design, combining conventional raised-floor server rooms and a container farm with some 200 units. The space where the containers will sit looks more like a storage warehouse than a typical chilled server room. Pipes hang from the ceiling ready to be connected to the containers to provide them with cooling water and electricity. As one Microsoft engineer describes it, it’s the ”industrialization of the IT world.”

So what kind of results have Google and Microsoft achieved? To interpret some of the numbers they have reported, it helps to understand an energy-efficiency metric that’s becoming popular in this industry. It’s called power usage effectiveness, or PUE, and it’s basically the facility’s total power consumption divided by the power used only by servers, storage systems, and network gear. A PUE close to 1 means that your data center is using most of the power for the computing infrastructure and that little power is devoted to cooling or lost in the electrical distribution system. Because it doesn’t gauge the efficiency of the computing equipment itself, PUE doesn’t tell the full story, but it’s still a handy yardstick.

A 2007 study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported that typical enterprise data centers had a PUE of 2.0 or more. That means that for every watt used by servers, storage, and networking equipment, an additional watt is consumed for cooling and power distribution. The study suggested that by 2011 most data centers could reach a PUE of 1.7, thanks to some improvements in equipment, and that with additional technology some facilities could reach 1.3 and a few state-of-the-art facilities, using liquid cooling, could reach 1.2.

Curiously, that’s where Google claims to be today . The company has reported an average PUE of 1.21 for its six ”large-scale Google-designed data centers,” with one reaching a PUE of 1.15. (The company says its efficiency improvements amount to an annual savings of 500 kilowatt-hours, 300 kilograms of carbon dioxide, and 3785 liters of water per server.) How exactly Google achieves these results remains a closely guarded secret. Some observers say that Google is an extreme case because its massive scale allows it to acquire efficient equipment that would be too costly for other companies. Others are skeptical that you can even achieve a PUE of 1.15 with today’s water-based cooling technologies, speculating that the facility uses some unusual configuration—perhaps a container-based design. Google says only that these facilities don’t all have the same power and cooling architectures. It’s clear, though, that Google engineers are thinking out of the box: The company has even patented a ”water-based data center,” with containerized servers floating in a barge and with power generated from sea motion.

For its part, Microsoft has recently reported PUE measurements for the container portion of its Chicago data center. The modules have proved to be big energy savers, yielding an annual average PUE of 1.22. The result convinced the company that all-container data centers, although a radical design, make sense. Indeed, Microsoft is pushing the container design even further in its next-generation data centers, with preassembled modules containing not only servers but also cooling and electrical systems converging to create a roofless facility—a data center that could be mistaken for a container storage yard.

But the containerization of the data center also has its skeptics. They say that containers may not be as plug-and-play as claimed, requiring additional power controllers, and that repairing servers could involve hauling entire containers back to vendors—a huge waste of energy. With or without containers, the EPA is now tracking the PUE of dozens of data centers, and new metrics and recommendations should emerge in coming years.

IT’S CERTAIN that future data centers will have to take today’s improvements far from where they are today. For one thing, we need equipment with much better power management. Google engineers have called for systems designers to develop servers that consume energy in proportion to the amount of computing work they perform. Cellphones and portable devices are designed to save power, with standby modes that consume just a tenth or less of the peak power. Servers, on the other hand, consume as much as 60 percent of their peak power when idle. Google says simulations showed that servers capable of gradually increasing their power usage as their computing activity level increases could cut a data center’s energy usage by half.

Designers also need to rethink how data centers obtain electricity. Buying power is becoming more and more expensive, and relying on a single source—a nearby power plant, say—is risky. The companies that operate these complexes clearly need to explore other power-producing technologies—solar power, fuel cells, wind—to reduce their reliance on the grid. The same goes for water and other energy-intensive products like concrete and copper. Ultimately, the design of large-scale computer facilities will require a comprehensive rethinking of performance and efficiency.

And then there’s software. Virtualization tools, a kind of operating system for operating systems, are becoming more popular. They allow a single server to behave like multiple independent machines. Some studies have shown that servers at data centers run on average at 15 percent or less of their maximum capacity. By using virtual machines, data centers could increase utilization to 80 percent. That’s good, but we need other tools to automate the management of these servers, control their power usage, share distributed data, and handle hardware failures. Software is what will let data centers built out of inexpensive servers continue to grow.

And grow they will. But then what? Will data centers just evolve into ever-larger server-packed buildings? Today’s facilities are designed around existing equipment and traditional construction and operational processes. Basically, we build data centers to accommodate our piles of computers—and the technicians who will squeeze around them to set things up or make repairs. Containers offer an interesting twist, but they’re still based on existing servers, racks, power supplies, and so on. Some experts are suggesting that we need to design systemsspecifically for data centers. That makes good sense, but just what those facilities will look like in the future is anyone’s guess.

To Probe Further

For more about Google’s data centers and their energy-efficiency strategies, see ”The Case for Energy-Proportional Computing,” IEEE Computer, December 2007, and also the company’s report on this topic athttp://www.google.com/corporate/datacenters.

Microsoft’s Michael Manos and Amazon’s James Hamilton offer insights about data centers on their respective blogs: LooseBolts (http://loosebolts.wordpress.com) and Perspectives (http://perspectives.mvdirona.com).

Data Center Knowledge (http://www.datacenterknowledge.com), The Raised Floor (http://theraisedfloor.typepad.com), Green Data Center Blog (http://www.greenm3.com), and Data Center Links (http://datacenterlinks.blogspot.com) offer comprehensive coverage of the main developments in the industry.

Data Center of the Future: 1 million server data center

2010-04-22T10:25:00.004-10:00

What Will the Data Center of the Future Look Like?

BY: ERICO GUIZZO

Today's most advanced data centers house tens of thousands of servers. What would it take to house 1 million?

New York Times Magazine has an article on data centers -- the massive (though invisible to most users) computing infrastructure that runs our web searches, email, blogs, tweets. The article does a good job describing the architecture of current mega data centers and the challenges in building them. But what I missed in the story is: Where do we go from here. What will the data center of the future look like?

Spectrum tried to offer an answer to this very question early this year. In the February '09 article "Tech Titans Building Boom," by UC Berkeley professor Randy H. Katz, we presented an illustration (below) of what a 1 million server data center might look like. That vision -- a roofless facility with hundreds of server-packed shipping containers -- was based in part on Microsoft's Generation 4 data center design. But I'm still wondering: Is that the future of the cloud? A parking lot crammed with steel boxes?

True, there's been some innovation, including an underground data center in Sweden and Google's patented servers-on-a-barge idea. But I guess I was hoping for some real breakthrough in data center design -- a real departure in how these facilities are built and operate. Just to throw out an idea, what about a data center based on AS/RS (Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems)? Picture servers piled vertically into high enclosures with robotic arms that attach power/cooling/network connections and replace defective parts.

Have a wild vision for the data center of the future? Let us know. If it's good we might even run it in the magazine.

The Million-Server Data Center. See a larger version here.

Illustration: Bryan Christie Design

Why data center temperatures have moderated

2010-04-05T12:50:00.003-10:00

Computerworld – Industrial Light & Magic has been replacing its servers with the hottest new IBM BladeCenters — literally, the hottest.

For every new rack ILM brings in, it cuts overall power use in the data center by a whopping 140 kW — a staggering 84% drop in overall energy use.

But power density in the new racks is much higher: Each consumes 28 kW of electricity, versus 24 kW for the previous generation. Every watt of power consumed is transformed into heat that must be removed from each rack — and from the data center.

The new racks are equipped with 84 server blades, each with two quad-core processors and 32GB of RAM. They are powerful enough to displace seven racks of older BladeCenter servers that the special effects company purchased about three years ago for its image-processing farm.

To cool each 42U rack, ILM’s air conditioning system must remove more heat than would be produced by nine household ovens running at the highest temperature setting. This is the power density of the new infrastructure that ILM is slowly building out across its raised floor.

These days, most new data centers have been designed to support an average density of 100 to 200 watts per square foot, and the typical cabinet is about 4 kW, says Peter Gross, vice president and general manager of HP Critical Facilities Services. A data center designed for 200 W per square foot can support an average rack density of about 5 kW. With carefully engineered airflow optimizations, a room air conditioning system can support some racks at up to 25 kW, he says.

At 28 kW per rack, ILM is at the upper limit of what can be cooled with today’s computer room air conditioning systems, says Roger Schmidt, IBM fellow and chief engineer for data center efficiency. “You’re hitting the extreme at 30 kW. It would be a struggle to go a whole lot further,” he says.

[Read our related story, "Why data center temperatures have moderated." Also, read Robert Mitchell's blog post, "Fans: The new power hogs in the data center."]

The sustainability question

The question is, what happens next? “In the future are watts going up so high that clients can’t put that box anywhere in their data centers and cope with the power and cooling? We’re wrestling with that now,” Schmidt says. The future of high-density computing beyond 30 kW will have to rely on water-based cooling, he says. But data center economics may make it cheaper for many organizations to spread out servers rather than concentrate them in racks with ever-higher energy densities, other experts say.

Energy-efficiency tips

Refresh your servers. Each new generation of servers delivers more processing power per square foot — and per unit of power consumed. For every new BladeCenter rack Industrial Light & Magic is installing, it has been able to retire seven racks of older blade technology. Total power savings: 140 kW.

Charge users for power, not just space. “You can be more efficient if you’re getting a power consumption model along with square-footage cost,” says Ian Patterson, CIO at Scottrade.

Use hot aisle/cold aisle designs. Good designs, including careful placement of perforated tiles to focus airflows, can help data centers keep cabinets cooler and turn the thermostat up.

Kevin Clark, director of information technologies at ILM, likes the gains in processing power and energy efficiency he has achieved with the new BladeCenters, which have followed industry trends to deliver more bang for the buck. According to IDC, the average server price since 2004 has dropped 18%, while the cost per core has dropped by 70%, to $715. But Clark wonders whether doubling compute density again, as he has in the past, is sustainable. “If you double the density on our current infrastructure, from a cooling perspective, it’s going to be difficult to manage,” he says.

A virtual tour of the SpringNet Underground data collocation center in Springfield, Mo.

2010-04-01T11:58:00.002-10:00

Located 85 feet below the surface and surrounded by solid limestone, SpringNet Underground provides the perfect place to house your computer operations. Here it is safe from natural and even most man-made disasters, as well as secure from wrongful entry. The facility was established in October of 2003 and offers 25,000 square feet of raised floor space.

Iron Mountain's 1950s nuclear bunker, 'The Undergroundhigh-security facility in Pennsylvania'

2010-04-01T11:34:00.002-10:00

Originally built in the 1950s as a nuclear bunker, Iron Mountain's 'The Underground' high-security facility in Pennsylvania, USA, is now home to one of the safest data centres in the world.

2,700 people, many of them government officials, work in the facility under a limestone mountain - which holds everything from classified documents to old movie reels and valuable photograph collections.

But there has also been significant expansion in one area of the business: the storage and backup of online data in massive servers, or 'cloud storage'.

Ramon Goni tours the tunnels of The Underground with its vice-president Charles Doughty.

Published on BBC NEWS (4/1/2010)
Producer/Reporter: Ramón J. Goni
Shot & Edited: Ramón J. Goni & Scott DuQuette

Underground Data Center: design, construction, commissioning

2010-03-19T14:14:00.005-10:00

http://www.dataspecialtiesinc.com/index.html
Phil Rafferty, President and Co-Founder, has more than 27 years of experience in the data center and cabling industries. Prior to co-founding DSI in 1990, he was the General Manager for a Los Angeles data center electrical contractor. In addition to running the company, Phil leads DSI’s key projects from design through completion. He also leads the company’s efforts to expand its geographic presence.
Underground Data Center: design, construction, commissioning
Data Specialties Inc. was founded in 1990 to serve the electrical and communications systems needs of U.S. corporations. We have stayed abreast of the dynamic technology, climate and security control, reliability assurances and political realities that our clients face—and have become a leader among data center design-build and cabling plan/install specialists. Today we manage all aspects of site selection, design, construction, commissioning and maintenance of mission-critical data centers. We also continuously anticipate future developments, ensuring that our designs deliver the reliability through redundancy that clients expect now and the scalability and flexibility to accommodate future moves, adds and changes.

Data Centers to Expand in 2010, 2011: Campos Research & Analysis said's demand will be high for data centers

2010-03-17T19:00:00.006-10:00

Data Centers to Expand in 2010, 2011

Rich Miller

More than a third of large corporate data center users in North America plan to expand their footprint in 2010, and many are expanding because they have run out of power, not space. Those were the key findings in survey data released Wednesday by Digital Realty Trust. The survey of senior decision makers with responsibility for their companies’ data center strategies was conducted by Campos Research & Analysis for Digital Realty. Among the key findings:

83 percent of respondents are planning data center expansions in the next 12 to 24 months;
36 percent of respondents have definite plans to make those expansions during 2010;
73 percent of respondents plan to add two or more facilities as part of their data center expansions;

It’s not surprising that Digital Realty believes demand will be high, since the company is in the business of building and leasing data centers. But the customer survey’s major points were echoed by multiple panelists at Wednesday’s New York event.

Financing is a Factor
“Demand has been pretty steady,” said Dan Golding, Managing Director at DH Capital, an investment bank specialized in hosting and telecom deals. “The story has really been supply. It’s been very, very difficult for people to finance new data centers.”

At the national level, the pending demand for data center space may be three times greater than the available supply of quality space, according to Jim Kerrigan, the director of the data center practice at the real estate firm Grubb & Ellis. “All those deals that got shelved in 2009 because the CFO said no .. they’re going to happen,” said Kerrigan.

The end users at DataCenterDynamics New York included large firms in the financial sector, who concurred with the notion that cost-cutting has resulted in pent-up demand for data center space. “A year and a half ago we were talking about new data centers,” said Glenn Neville, Director of Engineering at Deutsche Bank. “Since then we’ve been talking about how long we can go with our current data centers. Our plans for growth are still there. Those plans are being postponed, but they’re not being cancelled.”

“It feels like someone closed a door, and things are backing up behind it,” said David Schirmacher, a vice president at Goldman Sachs.

Big Chunks of Space Grow Scarce
Kerrigan said the supply and demand challenges will be most acute for companies needing large footprints of contiguous space. That imbalance stands in stark relief to the requirements described in the Digital Realty survey, in which 70 percent of companies planning data center expansions say they envision large projects of at least 15,000 square feet in size or 2 megwatts or more of power.

“One of the most interesting pieces of data in this study is the lead role that power is now playing in these expansions,” said Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development for Digital Realty Trust. “The need for additional power has become the main driver for data center expansion plans as companies seek facilities with adequate power and favorable utility rates to control operating costs.”

As a result, more companies are tracking their data center power usage and using the data in their capacity planning. The survey found that 76 percent of respondents now meter their power use, while the number of companies that meter power down to the PDU level increased by 29 percent over last year. “These are very positive signs that companies better understand their data centers’ energy use and can make informed decisions to reduce energy consumption,” said Crosby.

Digital Realty Trust: Data Centers to Expand in 2010, 2011

Written by Jeffrey Clark

Tuesday, 09 March 2010

A 2010 survey conducted by Campos Research & Analysis on behalf of Digital Realty Trust indicates that a significant portion of large North American companies are planning to expand their data center infrastructure in 2010 and 2011. This survey, conducted in mid-January, queried high-level company employees (executives or upper-level managers in information technology or finance) from 300 large companies. The participant companies were required to have a minimum of 5,000 employees or a minimum annual revenue of a billion dollars, and the individual respondents were required to be in charge of managing some aspect of the company’s data centers, whether operation, expansion, or implementation.

The companies represented in the survey consist of a fairly wide cross section of industry, with slightly over a quarter dedicated to IT, the Internet, or telecommunications. About 15% of the companies were in finance, with the remainder in the “other” category. According to the survey, the companies average about four data centers each, with nearly 20% operating six or more data centers.

Of the companies represented in the survey, 22% built or acquired a new data center in the 12 months preceding the survey, and 63% did so between one and three years prior to the survey. With ever-increasing demand for data services despite the recent economic downturn and with most companies having built or acquired additional data center facilities over a year prior to the survey, a significant increase in data center facilities in 2010 and 2011 seems to make sense, especially as companies hope for continued economic recovery.

For 2010, 36% of responding companies indicated that they were “definitely” planning data center expansions; 46% responded that they would “probably” expand their data centers, leaving only 18% that were unlikely to initiate an expansion this year. The numbers for planned data center expansions in 2011 were virtually identical, with a total of 84% either “probably” or “definitely” planning an expansion. Most of the companies (63%) with definite plans to expand have only one or two locations slated for expansion; 14% indicated plans to expand four or more data center locations.

The survey also indicated that data center budgets are on the increase, with 75% of the respondents expecting some increase; 35% expect an increase of less than 10%, and 30% expect an increase between 10% and 20%. According to the survey report, the average budget increase for 2010 is forecast at 8.3%—a change of +1.7% over the 2009 budget increase. IT budgets followed a similar trend, with an average expected increase of 8.1% and with about 73% expecting some level of budget growth. On average, the survey report indicated that 35% of represented companies’ IT budgets are dedicated to data center operations and development.

At the top of the list of preferred locations for new or expanded data centers are several American metro areas, led by New York City, which is closely followed by Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas. Foreign locations that ranked high on the survey’s list included London, Singapore, Paris, and Tokyo.

The survey also inquired about the respondents’ reasoning for their expected data center expansion in 2010; those that indicated on the survey definite plans for expansion rated the relative importance of various reasons for this expansion. The leading reason was power capacity, with 74% of the respondents indicating that this reason was “extremely important.” Next was disaster recovery and Sarbanes-Oxley (compliance, presumably) at 72%, followed by security at 69% responding with “extremely important.” Other possible reasons cited in the survey include energy efficiency, consolidation, cooling, redundancy, potential regulations, environmental concerns, and need for additional space.

A potential indicator of the scope of the expected 2010 data center expansions is the expected change in power usage. According to the survey report, the average expected power usage increase among companies that have definite plans for expansion is 12.8%, with 40% planning between a 10% and 20% increase. For all companies included in the survey, the average expected power usage increase is 8.3%.

Overall, the survey commissioned by Digital Realty Trust indicates no slackening in large companies’ increasing need for data center services. The expected expansions over the next two years are likely predicated on whether the economy begins to recover or whether the United States (and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the world) is in for a so-called double-dip recession.

Baltics - Underground Data Center Former Soviet Army bunker

2010-03-11T13:15:00.004-10:00

The most secure underground data center in the Baltics - data center "Grizinkalns". Located in a former Soviet Army bunker - 9 meters above sea level, but at the same time 12 meters below ground. Opened in 2000. TIER I / II infrastructure, carrier-neutral. http://www.deac.eu

What happen to USDCO Underground Data Center

2010-02-04T18:28:00.002-10:00

Let's Go back in time!!! USDCO Launches Underground Data Center in Former Mine. What Happen to them??? The Mine??

November 26, 2001 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- A Michigan-based technology company has built a new data center in a 100 year-old mine to host computer equipment 85 feet below the Earth's surface. Underground Secure Data Center Operations (usdco.com), a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based data center, launched its operations in an inactive gypsum mine, deep underground and secure from disasters, both natural and manmade.

USDCO says the facility has advantages over traditional data centers, such as increased security, lower cost, scalability and ideal environmental conditions. USDCO said its economic model works, despite the proliferationof data center providers, thanks largely to the natural qualities inherent in the mine.

With 750,000 square feet available, there is lots of space to be subdivided to accommodate the growth needs of clients. In addition, the data center has an unlimited supply of naturally cool, 50-degree air, providing the ideal temperature and humidity for computer equipment with minimal HVAC cost. "We are one of the most secure data centers in the country and unparalleled in terms of square footage, scalability and environmental control," said Irvin Wolfson, USDCO partner. "Yet, while the physical and cost benefits of being underground make us attractive, we have also invested heavily in high-speed connectivity and redundant power and fiber systems to ensure our operations are not just secure, but also state-of-the-art."

USDCO said it is initially focused on providing co-location services. Clients lease space for their own servers, while USDCO provides secure facilities, power and bandwidth. USDCO offers redundant power sources and multiple high-speed Internet DS-3 connections through an OC-12 SONET ring linked to outside connectivity providers through redundant fiber cables. Through its alliances, the company augments its core services to include disaster recovery solutions, wireless connectivity and more.

Strategic partners like Analysts International, a national information technology company, enable USDCO to offer technology solutions ranging from System design and implementation to the sale of software and equipment. "The data center market is over-built with pricey Class A space or cut-rate Class C space that lacks true redundancy, capacity or security," Wolfson said. "The natural qualities of the mine allow us to offer the best of both worlds - premier services and security at highly competitive rates."

USDCO was established in Sept. 2000 when its founders realized the former gypsum mine offered optimal conditions for a data center. The mine, which was being used to store food and other cold-storage products, offered superior environmental conditions for electronic equipment, almost invulnerable security and was located between two power grids. The facility became operational in July 2001.

Adam Couture, a Mass.-based analyst for Gartner Inc. said USDCO could find itself a niche serving businesses that want to reduce vulnerability to any future attacks. A company fact sheet said that the mine would protect the data center from a cruise missile explosion or plane crash. "Every company that I've talked to all are going back and re-evaluating their business-continuity plans," Couture told Associated Press. "This doesn't say everybody's changing them, but everybody's going back and revisiting them in the wake of what happened."

Data Mining Goes Underground

Data centers strain local resources, don't hire locally, erect ugly buildings, and tear up city streets to complete fiber links. But USDCO might have the last laugh, sinking to new depths and stymieing critics while quarrying data into dollars.

by Alex Goldman
ISP-Planet Associate Editor
[August 24, 2001]

There are four things that municipalities don't like about data centers. First, urban utility companies complain that these facilities put a strain on city power grids. Second, local government types fret about the fact that data centers provide little in the way of employment opportunities for the average Joe Citizen. Third, urban planners grumble that data centers are windowless warehouses contributing no aesthetic value to cityscapes or suburbia.

And last of all, but perhaps most important, cities are no longer enthusiastic about allowing their streets to be dug up to lay new fiber optic runs. Last year, local authorities in Washington, DC even placed a temporary ban on new fiber pipes—these anti-data storage facility sentiments are mimicked and murmured across the nation.

It's enough to make data center operators want to find a big hole and climb inside.

At least one data center operator has done just that. Underground Secure Data Center Operations (USDCO) opened for business in July and offers 750,000 square feet of data center space hidden deep inside a disused gypsum mine near Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The company was founded by six partners in September 2000 when the mine owner, food warehouser Michigan Natural Storage, decided to find out what else could be squirreled away in its underground expanse besides perishables. Because data has a better shelf-life than lettuce, the six-some decided that data storage could turn their subterrestrial real estate into a real gold mine.

Inside out buildup
Irvin Wolfson, USDCO partner and vice president of sales, and Bob Savage, USDCO vice president of IT, explained how the data center was built. Savage said USDCO's data storage solution would not be easy to imitate.

"Most data centers are built from the outside in," Savage said. "They're not scalable. If they're running out of room, you're talking about adding a power generator, building an additional facility next door—a lot of money. We can just throw up some walls and add a room. We're built from the inside out. We laid the cables and designed the center first, and we can grow as demand arrives."

Actually, there's a little more to it than that. First, USDCO created the data center space by pouring concrete on top of the solid rock floor. Next, simple metal walls are erected, creating a room (right) with an exterior that is adjacent to the rock walls of the mine (below).

The gypsum mine is level, rather than vertical. Hidden 85 feet below the earth's surface, the mine is roughly oval in shape, and it has a virtually unlimited supply of free, humid, 50-degree Fahrenheit air. USDCO simply hooks up two large fans in each room—one to push air in, the other to pull air through—and, presto! It has a cooling system that requires very little maintenance or power. Since the data center is underground, it is also not subjected to storms, fires, or other natural disasters. In theory, mines might be vulnerable to flooding or earthquakes, but these are geological rarities for inland Michigan.

Additionally, subterranean security is a breeze—there just aren't that many doors and windows in a cavern. What systems could be knocked out by Mother Nature or ill-intended intruders are readily righted by redundancy.

USDCO operates its data plant with a fully redundant power plus backup generators and two upstream providers. It would take a cataclysmic event to to put data stored at USDCO in harm's way. Even if power is somehow interrupted, the data storage facility would be one of the first locations brought back on-grid because its food storage capabilities on the other side of the servers.

It also has redundant access to upstream providers, USDCO has an internal OC-12 SONET ring connected to Sprint and Cable & Wireless through redundant fiber cables—one connection made out of each end of the mine—through a DS3 pipe from Ameritech. Savage says that the company also has dark fiber ready, if necessary, "up to OC-192 and beyond if a customer requires it."

Data treasure trove
Is USDCO buying other mines? "We have options on other sites," said Wolfson, "but we want to be self-financed. We've had VC offers because our business plan is obviously good and obviously different, but we want to grow organically. Also—it may be a Western Michigan thing—but we believe in something called 'service.' We don't want to expand too fast."

USDCO might have financed the operation alone, but it did not go solo when it came to powering up the facility. Michigan Natural Storage, USDCO partner and the mine's owner, played an important role in bringing power to the data center and helped the fledgling business hookup with potential clients, too.

USDCO, through its partners, can provide tape rotation, server monitoring, and database services for any size and type of businesses. Partners are welcome to provide more lucrative services like consulting and equipment sales, too. One partner, SequoiaNet provides a wide variety of Web-based services and is licensed to sell Dell, HP, IBM, and Compaq products. But Wolfson says that USDCO serves small- and medium-size businesses with gold-standard storage solutions.

"We're a new company. For a facility of this size, we're unusual because we also work with small companies that have annual business of less than $10,000," Wolfson said. "With power included, the monthly price of a collocated server is about $100 for 1U, plus $80 per additional 1U, with 10 GB of monthly throughput included."

USDCO can afford to offer low rates for its data services. With low rent and minimal property taxes, as well as curtailed cooling costs and easy expansion capabilities, USDCO is sitting pretty in the bowels of the earth. And with 750,000 square feet of data storage space available, USDCO just may turn this depleted gypsum hollow into a real gold mine. 09-16-2003
Tina
I've heard that part of the problem is the city wanted them to be completely 'up to code'. As in, running sprinkler systems, bathrooms, fire exits, etc. down there.

ScottD 01-29-2004

USDCO was bought by CPR MicroAge. From what I understand, the transition for those customers who stuck it out didn't go very well.

I loved that place. But I don't have the stomach for that kind of uncertainty and pulled out a short while before they closed up.
Hello??? Its a freakin' MINE!!!!

Disaster-Proof Data Centers

2010-02-04T15:19:00.006-10:00

Disaster-Proof Data Centers
Companies Look To Bunker-Style Hosting Sites For Protection

CIOs who worry about what a bad storm, flood, or fire could do to their corporate data center might consider the ultimate in disaster recovery sites—the bomb shelter. There are a handful of underground data center hosting sites, built in old bomb shelters or mines, and their popularity with private businesses is on the rise. “We will see a lot more [bunker-style data centers] coming up,”

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 underground 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.

Key Points

Underground data centers offer ultimate protection against natural disasters and terrorist attacks.
Hosting companies are taking over old military bunkers or abandoned mines to create data centers.
Bunkers offer lower cooling costs plus extra security services such as biometric readers and armed guards.
A subterranean data center will be easier to secure against unauthorized entry and terrorist attacks.

The NBC Nightly News team travelled to one of Iron Mountain’s underground data centers to discover some of the treasures that are protected in this super-secure location. This is the same location where they protect thousands of our customers’ server and PC data.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Swiss Fort Knox

2010-02-02T19:37:00.006-10:00

Swiss Fort Knox
http://www.swissfortknox.ch/swissfortknox-english/
The two large, high secure data centers (Swiss Fort Knox®) inside the Swiss Alps are being operated by the company SIAG. The operation and its surveillance of the physical as well as logical infrastructure is coordinated by two security operation centers (SOC). SIAG’s headquarters is located in Zug, Switzerland. The company was founded in 1994. SIAG is a globally recognized specialist for the management and the reliable and high secure safekeeping and exchange of digital information during its entire life cycle. Experienced and professionally trained security experts advice the customer from the risk identification all the way to an efficient and effective risk minimization. Quality as well as an efficient and cost optimized overall solution of IT security problems represents the backbone of our service offering. SIAG does care for its demanding customer base all around the globe. SIAG solutions are always internationally applicable and ideally customized to match the specific demand of the customer. Our specialists are monitoring the predefined security objectives from the customer site all the way to the parallel datasets inside the high secure Swiss Fort Knox®. Only technologies matching up uncompromisingly with strict criterias of SIAG will be used for these innovative security services.

Data Center cooling

2010-01-10T11:52:00.001-10:00

Data center cooling is becoming a continually greater challenge as blade servers make it possible to pack more and more computing power into ever smaller spaces. A standard server cabinet dissipates on the order of 3 kilowatts of power, while partitioned blade servers can dissipate up to 5 times as much. While it is clear that many companies will need to make expensive expansions to their air conditioning systems to accommodate increases in power density, simply increasing air conditioning capacity is not the most efficient way to address this problem.

Air conditioning must be provided where it is needed and the ideal cooling arrangement usually involves the careful management of cool and warm air flows. “Enterprises must … carefully factor in the power and cooling demands of these blades,” says a recent Gartner Group report. “Many organizations will not be able to achieve optimum density because of environmental limitations.” ASHRAE’s Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments (2004) says that temperatures should be maintained between 20 degrees Celsius and 25 degrees Celsius in the server room. As temperatures rise, failure becomes a real possibility, which can lead to downtime and even data loss.

The challenge was especially great in a recent project where the computer room air conditioner (CRAC) units were located in mechanical rooms on either side of the server area. This approach makes it possible to keep the server area locked and sealed even while the CRAC units are being serviced. The room was originally designed so that cold air would flow out of the CRAC units, under the raised floor, and up through perforated tiles into the server area, forming cold aisles between racks of servers. The cold air would then be drawn into the air intakes of the server racks, where it would take on heat from the equipment. The hot air would then exit from the backs of the servers into hot aisles, where it would be drawn up to the ceiling and through perforated panels for return to the CRACs.

One approach to estimating cooling requirements for data centers involves the use of hand calculations to estimate the performance of various alternatives. The problem with these calculations is that they require many simplifying assumptions, thus limiting their accuracy in practical applications. Another approach is the use of energy analysis programs that accept as input a description of the building layout, systems, construction, usage, and utility rates, along with weather data. The limitation of this type of program is that is primarily intended to evaluate energy usage and cost and thus can only predict average temperatures for a particular space. Of course, knowing that the average temperature in the data center is 22 degrees Celsius would be small comfort if the air temperature near one critical server is 29 degrees Celsius.

In the past, about all that engineers could do was to make sure the average temperatures were right and hope that there wasn’t too much variation in the data center. In this building, because of the unique design, there was a real risk that after the building was finished temperatures in the data center would be too high. It would then be necessary to go through a lengthy and expensive trial and error process in order to remedy the problem.

Facilities Engineering Associates (FEA) felt that computer simulation was essential to resolve the unique nature of the cooling problems in this application. CFD can provide enormous assistance by calculating and graphically illustrating the complete airflow patterns, including velocities and distributions of variables such as pressure and temperature. They selected Fluent Incorporated, Lebanon, NH, as consultants to perform the analysis because of Fluent’s leading position in the CFD industry and its experience in addressing heating, ventilation, and air conditioning applications. Their goal was to identify potential problems in the room prior to construction, in order to prevent them from occurring later on, which would require costly downtime for after-the-fact modifications. The process of simulating airflow in a data center has been greatly simplified by the development of Airpak CFD software from Fluent Inc., because it is designed specifically for modeling internal building flows.

Pathlines colored by temperature for the perpendicular rack case, simulated as part of the proof-of-concept phase of the project

Pathlines colored by temperature for the parallel rack proof-of-concept case

Simulating the proof-of-concept designs

The Fluent consultant assigned to the project began by modeling the geometry of the two proposed proof-of-concept designs. The main goal of this analysis was to evaluate the placement of the high density rack relative to the position of the CRAC units in the data center room. In one proposed layout, the CRAC units are parallel to the server racks and in the other design, they are perpendicular. The server and mechanical rooms were defined as boxes, and the raised floor, physical rack locations, CRAC units, suspended ceilings, beams, and tiles were created for each case. One server rack was assigned a higher power density than the others, and the impact of its presence and location in the room for each case was studied. The simulation results provided the air velocities, pressures, and temperatures throughout the server room and lower plenum, and were used to illustrate the resulting air flow patterns for each layout. The global air flow patterns showed that the design worked as intended, with the air rising through the perforated sections of the floor, flowing through the racks, and exiting through the returns in the ceiling.

Zoomed view of pathlines in the vicinity of high-density rack for the perpendicular proof-of-concept case

While the design seemed to be working well at first glance, closer examination showed several serious problems. The figure above shows the flow in the area of the high-density rack, which is positioned next to the wall in the perpendicular orientation case. Cooling air is drawn into the cold aisle between this rack and the adjacent low-density rack through the perforated floor tiles. Following the temperature-coded pathlines, it can be seen that the hot air exiting from the high-density rack circles over the top of the rack and re-enters the cold aisle, where it is drawn into the upper intake portion of the neighboring low-density rack. The lower portion of the low-density rack is not affected. It continues to be properly cooled by air entering through the floor tiles. Temperature contours on the rack intakes (see figure below) further illustrate the problem. A similar problem occurs for the parallel orientation case, where the high density rack is positioned between two normal density racks. Hot air exiting from the high-density rack circles above and around the sides of the rack and re-enters the cold aisle, compromising the cooling air that is delivered through the floor.

Surface temperatures on the rack inlets in the cold aisles for the perpendicular proof-of-concept case

Evening out the heat load

The proof-of-concept simulations demonstrated that the root cause of the problem was with the layout of the high-density racks. It was apparent that the original design concentrated the high load racks in a single row, which created a hot spot in that area. Working within the constraints provided by the client, engineers repositioned the servers to even out the heat load throughout the room. The engineers also addressed the fact that the heat load of the different racks varies widely, from 1 to 7 kilowatts. The original model used the power ratings provided by the blade manufacturers, but the engineers recognized that deviations from the rated values could greatly impact the accuracy of the simulations. They therefore measured the power draw of each unit and discovered that the actual values were considerably less than the rated ones. Using this information, along with information from the simulations, the engineers were able to determine the air conditioning capacity required to cool the room. The calculation was based on the requirement that the failure of any single CRAC unit would not cause the temperature to rise to dangerous levels. Finally, they examined the predicted pressure losses throughout the room and lower plenum to determine the requirements of the fans used to drive the system.

FEA and Fluent engineers also evaluated the effect of the plenum height on the flow patterns in this region. The results showed that a jet of air traveled through the 10.5 inch high plenum and struck the opposing wall, causing a recirculation pattern with nonuniform flow conditions and localized high pressure zones. Assuming that the height of the plenum was the cause of the problem, engineers generated several different models with a plenum of various heights. They discovered that a plenum height of approximately 16.5 inches was the smallest that would promote smooth air flow into the server room. In order to straighten out the airflow through the perforated floor tiles, engineers specified ductwork with an aerodynamic shape that creates a uniform static pressure across the entire space and also absorbs noise.

This application demonstrates that CFD can be used to resolve problematic areas within existing or planned data centers. By using CFD in the design process, potential cooling problems, such as those illustrated in this example, can be identified before they occur, saving the time and expense required for repairs and retrofitting, once the center is on-line.

Data-center power glossary

2010-01-10T11:27:00.003-10:00

The EPA energy efficiency report

Servers and data centers make up a significant portion of the nation’s energy consumers, and a substantial share of this consumption is due to federal data centers. Therefore, the government is taking steps to analyze and better manage the electricity use of its data centers. In 2007, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a study examining the energy use of data centers in the United States (EPA Report 109-431). It found that:

•	Server rooms/data centers consumed about 1.5% of all electricity (or about 61 billion kWh) in the U.S. in 2006, at a cost of around $4.5 billion.
•	Federal server rooms/data centers accounted for 10% (or 6 billion kWh) of this electricity at a cost of $450 million annually.
•	Blade servers consumed 68% of the electricity used for IT equipment in data centers in 2006.
•	The amount of energy Blade servers use more than doubled between 2000 and 2006.
•	About 38% of electricity use is due to enterprise-class data centers and those growing most rapidly.

The EPA’s analysis shows that the energy costs in data centers arise not only from energy-hungry servers, but also from the cooling infrastructure necessary to support IT equipment.

Illustration 1: Data Center Power Draws

Data centers today are forced to redefine capacity from terms of space to terms of cooling and power. While efficient blade servers solve issues of space, they raise issues of cooling (by creating intense hot spots) and even the most power-efficient server can strain the electricity bill due to increased cooling demands (see also Energy Efficient Equipment in the Data Center in this issue).

Compared to 2000, the overall use of energy by U.S. servers and data centers more than doubled in 2006. If efficiency standards remain unchanged, the EPA report projects that national energy use by data centers could double again in the next five years. Combined with climbing energy prices, this means that energy needs will claim ever larger shares of data centers’ budgets, leaving less money for other areas such as expansion, new equipment, or general improvements.

Energy efficiency is a budget mandate as much as it is an environmental issue.

If you thought IT acronyms were hard to remember, wait until you sit down with your facilities team to discuss your data center's electric bill. You need to learn a whole new vocabulary when you start talking about lowering the building's energy use.

Here's a crib sheet of a dozen of the most commonly used energy terms and acronyms so you can learn the jargon for going green.

1. AC/DC

Yes, this is the name of Australia's greatest rock band, but it's also a key trend in data-center design. AC stands for alternating current, and DC stands for direct current. Leading-edge data-center designers are looking at power supplies based on DC power -- rather than today's AC power -- because DC power promises to be more energy efficient.

2. Carbon footprint

No relation to Sasquatch, although to corporate executives it can be an equally large and scary beast. A company's carbon footprint is the amount of CO2 emissions its operations produce. In setting goals to reduce their carbon footprint, many companies target their data centers because they consume 25% or more of the electric bill.

3. CFD

It sounds like the acronym for the Chicago Fire Department, but this version stands for computational fluid dynamics. CFD high-performance-computing modeling has been used for a long time in the design of airplanes and weapon systems. Now it's being applied to air flow in data centers for optimal air-conditioning design.

4. Chiller

This isn't what you drink at the beach on a hot day. Rather, it's a machine that uses chilled water to cool and dehumidify air in a data center. Of all the components of a data center's air conditioning system, this is the one that consumes the most amount of electricity -- as much as 33% of a data center's power.

5. Close-coupled cooling

This sounds like a technique that would come in handy on Valentine's Day. In fact, it's a type of data-center air-conditioning system that brings the cooling source as close as possible to the high-density computing systems that generate the most heat. Instead of cooling down the entire room, close-coupled cooling systems located in a rack cool the hot air generated by the servers in just that rack.

6. CRAC

This is not what you sometimes see when a plumber bends over, although it's pronounced the same way. We're talking about a computer-room air-conditioning system. CRAC units monitor a data center's temperature, humidity and air flow. They consume around 10% of a data center's power.

7. DCiE

This acronym has nothing to do with the nation's capital, although its pronunciation is similar. DCiE is the Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency metric (also called DCE for Data Center Efficiency). DCiE is one of two reciprocal metrics embraced by The Green Grid industry consortium; the other is Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE, below).(See "Two ways to measure power consumption.") DCiE shows the power used by a data center's IT equipment as a percentage of the total power going into the data center. A DCiE of 50% means that 50% of the total power used by a data center goes to the IT equipment, and the other 50% goes to power and cooling overhead. The larger the DCiE, the better. 8. kWh

Electric power is sold in units called kilowatt hours, 1 kWh is the amount of energy delivered in one hour at a power level of 1000 watts. This abbreviation for "kilowatt hour" is mostly used in writing rather than conversation.

9. PDU

The acronym PDU stands for power distribution unit, a device that distributes electric power. PDUs function as power strips for a data center and consume around 5% of the power in a typical center.

10. PUE

Not pronounced like the reaction to a bad odor, but one letter at a time. Power Usage Effectiveness is one of two reciprocal metrics embraced by The Green Grid industry consortium; the other is Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE, above). PUE is the ratio of the total power going into a data center to the power used by the center's IT equipment. For example, a PUE of 2 means that half of the power used by the data center is going to the IT equipment and the other half is going to the center's power and cooling infrastructure. Experts recommend a PUE of less than 2. The closer a PUE is to 1, the better.

11. RECs

Pronounced like the short version of the word recreation, this acronym means renewable energy certificates or renewable energy credits. RECs are tradable commodities that show that 1 megawatt-hour of electricity was purchased from a renewable source, such as solar, wind, biomass or geothermal. An increasing number of companies are buying RECs to offset the amount of electricity generated from fossil fuels that their data centers consume.

12. UPS

We're not talking about the boys in brown, although the acronym is pronounced the same way. We're talking about uninterruptible power supply, which provides battery backup if a data center's power fails. It's essential that UPS equipment be energy efficient, because it consumes as much as 18% of the power in a typical data center.

Underground Data Centers: Keeping cool in the data center

2010-01-09T13:16:00.003-10:00

Keeping cool in the data center: its easy to see room for improvement when you know that close to half of the energy consumed within a data center is used just to maintain the server equipment at the required operating environment. The Modular Cooling solution provided by Alcatel-Lucent gives a path towards eco-sustainability with up to 90% more efficiency than conventional methods. Watch how in this video.

Data Center Container Solutions

2010-01-09T11:31:00.005-10:00

It was a showdown in Las Vegas as the data center container solutions from three leading server vendors – the HP POD, IBM’s Portable Modular Data Center and the ICE Cube from SGI/Rackable – were all on display at the Gartner Data Center Conference at Caesar’s Palace. Here’s a brief look at the three 40-foot containers showcased at the event.

Microsoft has published a video outlining key concepts for its Generation 4 Modular Data Center , which it unveiled in Dec 2008. Heres a look at the details of the new design, which relies on data center containers, modular pre-fabriacted electrical and mechanical infrastructure, and no chillers.

Cloud of massive servers located in huge underground data centers.

2010-01-07T14:09:00.004-10:00

The Big Switch

The Big Switch

In an interview with Nicholas Carr , author of The Big Switch he talks about the idea of computing becoming a utility. I think the idea of this becoming a reality is a very good thing. The idea of giving the user the ability to not just accesses their data, but their entire set up, there programs setting book marks on any computer at any time is the future. People will no longer be forced to carry all of their data around with them on laptops with huge hard drives. All data will be stored in the cloud of massive servers located in huge underground data centers.

This could completely change the game when it came to buying a computer. People will no longer need that 2.9GHz Core 2 Duo processor. The speed of your processor would mean nothing because all of the large amounts of computing that eat up the processor on a current computer, will be handled back at the server end. The hard drive space on a new computer can be much smaller then they are today and the user would only need enough space to hold a OS and a browser. This will completely change the way we buy computers today. Computers can become much smaller and lighter as can be seen with today’s netbooks.

The huge battle over operating systems could ended forever because if everything is stored on the cloud the user is no longer constrained by there OS. I am not running that program locally on my computer it is running in some data center. So why would it matter what OS I would use?

The idea of cloud computing could change the world and they way we use computers and I hope that one day it does.

Data Centers have a appetite for energy

2010-01-07T13:57:00.003-10:00

By REBECCA SMITH And JESSICA E. VASCELLARO

As Google Inc. grows, so does its appetite for energy.

The Internet giant has taken the unusual step of applying for approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to become an electricity marketer, essentially giving it the authority to buy and sell bulk power at market prices, just the way large utilities and energy traders do.

The company, which made the application last month through its Google Energy LLC subsidiary, says the change will help it better manage supplies for its own operations and give it greater access to renewable energy sources. The move offers an indication of just how much electricity large tech firms now consume in order to run their sprawling networks of servers and mainframes.

Although more than 1,500 companies currently have status as energy marketers, the vast majority are utilities or power generators. The move is unusual for a tech company, though some industrial concerns that operate stores or factories, such as fixture-maker Kohler Co., smelter Alcoa Inc. and grocer Safeway Inc, have approval from FERC.

Google's power usage is unclear; it doesn't disclose how many data centers it operates or where they are located. Last April, it said its data centers were the most efficient in the world, so far as it was able to determine, but declined to say how much power it actually uses.

Rich Miller, editor of Data Center Knowledge, an online publication that tracks the data center industry, says he has identified about 24 Google data centers and calculates the company's energy consumption is roughly equivalent to two large conventional power plants.

Mr. Miller says it is common for large operations run by Internet companies to have capacity of 30 to 50 megawatts of power.

Google's largest data centers could use even more. A data center consuming 10 megawatts is about what a large retail store or a subdivision of single-family homes consumes.

Google doesn't disclose how many data centers it operates or where they are located, but Mr. Miller noted that Google is focused on improving its energy efficiency at its data centers, 24 of which have been identified globally, including seven or eight large ones in the U.S. That would make its total energy consumption roughly equivalent to two large conventional power plants.

In 2007, Google announced its intention to become "carbon neutral," meaning it would take actions to neutralize the effects of carbon dioxide produced in the course of furnishing its buildings and data centers with electricity. It installed a 1.6-megawatt solar array on its headquarters building and has been trying to obtain green power, when available.

If its FERC request is granted, "we could go directly to a renewable energy project and buy power for our operations," says Google spokeswoman Niki Fenwick. The company also wants the ability to enter into contracts for carbon offsets.

Google's FERC application could also potentially allow the company to play a much larger role in energy markets, even becoming a wholesaler of electricity to other big buyers.

In its application, the company said it was reserving for itself the right to "act as a power marketer, purchasing electricity and reselling it to wholesale customers," and trading "in the bulk power markets, such as arranging...transmission and fuel supplies."

Ms. Fenwick says the company has "no plans" to sell its energy management services to others or to become a speculative energy trader, but she acknowledged the "green team" it has formed "is not sure what we're going to do."

A FERC spokeswoman says the commission's primary concern is market dominance and since Google doesn't own power plants or utilities, that's not likely to be an issue. But the commission could ask for clarity on Google's plans, since it's an unusual applicant, she added.

Google has a long history of downplaying forays into new areas, only to later surprise competitors with new products and services. When the company announced its mobile operating system, Android, in 2007, it tried to dampen speculation that it would build a Google-branded cellphone, calling the announcement "more ambitious than any single Google phone." This week it began selling a Google-branded, Android-powered phone which it designed, called Nexus One, exclusively through a new Google online phone store.

In 2008, the company made an unsuccessful bid for wireless spectrum, fueling speculation that it would start selling phone services to consumers. Google didn't elaborate on what it planned to do with the spectrum, but said it entered the auction to force the winner of the spectrum to open up it to a range of devices. Since then, the company has begun to offer different types of phone service, including Google Voice, an Internet-based call-routing service.

Google has been focusing more attention on energy markets lately. It is partnering with several utilities, including TXU Energy and Sempra Energy, to offer consumers a free energy-use monitoring tool, called Google's PowerMeter, that takes readings from digital "smart" meters and other devices to show a household's energy consumption to help consumers make choices that can save money and cut power industry emissions. That doesn't require permission from FERC.

Appliance maker Whirlpool Corp. has looked at the software since it's keen on developing tools to help consumers maximize the benefits offor "smart" appliances it intends to market. Warwick Stirling, Whirlpool's global director of energy and sustainability, said Thursday the tool is "a good first step," but isn't simple enough to satisfy the needs of the appliance industry.

Other technology companies that aren't conventional energy players, like Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp., also are studying energy markets for opportunities to make money by helping the nation improve the efficiency of the electricity business.

Data Center Site selection

2010-01-07T11:18:00.004-10:00

Mike Manos discusses data center site selection, you need to “kick the dirt” to find what is real

At Gartner’s Data Center Conference, Mike Manos made an excellent point that “75% of the data center costs are effected by site selection.” Great architecture is designed to a site characteristics. But, the status quo is to design data centers that are built based on past experiences. Green data centers need to be designed to fit with site characteristics.

Kickin’ Dirt
by Mike Manos
I recently got an interesting note from Joel Stone, the Global Operations Chief at Global Switch. As some of you might know Joel used to run North American Operations for me at Microsoft. I guess he was digging through some old pictures and found this old photo of our initial site selection trip to Quincy, Washington.

As you can see, the open expanse of farmland behind me, ultimately became Microsoft’s showcase facilities in the Northwest. In fact you can even see some farm equipment just behind me. It got me reminiscing about that time and how exciting and horrifying that experience can be.

Kicking the Dirt.

Many people I speak to at conferences generally think that the site selection process is largely academic. Find the right intersection of a few key criteria and locate areas on a map that seem to fit those requirements. In fact, the site selection strategy that we employed took many different factors into consideration each with its own weight leading ultimately to a ‘heat map’ in which to investigate possible locations.

Even with some of the brightest minds, and substantial research being done, its interesting to me that ultimately the process breaks down into something I call ‘Kickin Dirt’. Those ivory tower exercises ultimately help you narrow down your decisions to a few locations, but the true value of the process is when you get out to the location itself and ‘kick the dirt around’. You get a feel for the infrastructure, local culture, and those hard to quantify factors that no modeling software can tell you.

Mike makes an excellent point for the decision on site selection.

Once you have gone out and kicked the dirt, its decision time. The decision you make, backed by all the data and process in the world, backed by personal experience of the locations in question, ultimately nets out to someone making a decision. My experience is that this is something that rarely works well if left up to committee. At some point someone needs the courage and conviction, and in some cases outright insanity to make the call.

Are you willing to take a risk in site selection? Most aren’t. But, the leaders are, and they are the ones who are first to go where others haven’t and have lower costs. Mike has said the cost of the land was a great deal as no one thought of the land as a data center site. Google are the others who have this down.

Google and Yahoo as the industry leaders, as they have both "kicked the dirt" in far better places. Google has sited in Oregon (excellent tax incentives + cheap energy + green power), North Carolina (best of breed incentive package + reasonable power) and Finland (great existing asset + tax incentives + green power). Yahoo has built in Quincy (yes, they started first), Omaha (special tax incentives + cheap energy), Switzerland (green energy + tax holidays) and Buffalo (same).

Data Center Solutions

2010-01-03T18:06:00.002-10:00

Dell Sees Double With Data Center in a Container

By ASHLEE VANCE

Ty Schmitt, principal thermal and mechanical architect for Dell’s Data Center Solutions group, outside of Dell’s double-stacked data center in Round Rock, Tex. (Credit: Erich Schlegel for The New York Times)

The old Dell tended to let the other guys spend their time and money building big new markets. Then Dell would jump in with its vaunted low-cost model and begin taking market share.

The new Dell is proving to be edgier. In some cases, it’s willing to go after fresh product areas before there’s a market at all, and it’s prepared to chase sales in the dozens rather than thousands of units, if it means keeping demanding customers happy.

Albert Esser, vice president of data center infrastructure at Dell, pulls out a server inside of Dell’s new data center that comes in two shipping containers. (Credit: Erich Schlegel for The New York Times)

As a case in point, Dell has entered the fledgling market for data centers packaged inside shipping containers with a unique, double-decker design that is code-named Humidor. The company showed off its data-center-in-a-box for the first time during my visit last week to its headquarters in Round Rock, Tex.

Sun Microsystems and Rackable Systems were the first large hardware makers to embrace the idea of taking all of the servers, storage systems, networking gear and cooling and power units that make up a data center and packing them into a shipping container. Their rivals largely ridiculed the idea a couple of years ago but have all come out with similar products since then.

These types of systems could appeal to companies that have lost their will to build big new data centers. Rather than paying for a massive, expensive building, a company can order a data-center-in-a-container and plant it in the parking lot. Just add power, water and a network connection, and off you go.

Along similar lines, organizations like the military that need lots of horsepower quickly and in unusual places might adopt the container approach.

To date, however, the containers have been slow sellers. Sun has mentioned a couple of customers, while Rackable has struggled to move the systems, shipping none last quarter.

So why would a company like Dell, which prides itself on using volume to lower costs, get into the container game?

That’s easy: Microsoft.

Microsoft has been the main advocate of containers, saying they will form the basis of its future data center designs. Some of Dell’s first containers will go to a new Microsoft data center near Chicago, according to Forrest Norrod, the vice president in charge of Dell’s Data Center Solutions business.

And Microsoft’s interest in the container idea should inspire others to take a look at the technology.

“I think next year will be the year for this,” Mr. Norrod said.

Whereas competitors have put all of the requisite technology components into a single container, Dell has gone with the double-decker idea. One container is full of server, storage and networking systems, while another container handles power and cooling. By using this design, Dell claims it can stick with standard equipment across the board, saving customers money and making it easier to upgrade the units.

Each set of containers holds about 1,300 servers and consumes about as much power as the homes making up a suburban subdivision. The cost can easily top $500,000.

The container notion takes some getting used to for customers accustomed to housing their computing gear in a shimmering new facility. But those traditional data center concepts are starting to give way to practicality.

“The general perception of data centers as these pristine environments has been broken down,” said Drew Schulke, a product manager in Dell’s Data Center Solutions group. “These approaches are getting more credibility, especially with capital markets being where they are.”

The container work comes out of an unusual group at Dell that customizes server and storage systems for large customers.

The Data Center Solutions unit started in mid-2006 when Mr. Norrod presented Michael Dell, the company’s founder and chief executive, with a plan to create a kind of start-up within Dell.

The large server makers had failed to come up with systems that were compact, cheap and power-efficient enough to meet the needs of customers like Microsoft and Google. So Dell set to work tailoring products for customers who would purchase about 5,000 to 10,000 servers a quarter.

“Michael was a very active sponsor, to put it mildly, about going after this,” Mr. Norrod said.

According to Dell, the Data Center Solutions business would be the fifth-largest server maker in the world if its revenue was broken out, placing it behind Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Dell, Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu.

Underground Data Centers

2010-01-03T15:15:00.005-10:00

The Underground Data Centers & Bunker Boom

Rich Miller

The expansion by The Bunker reflects the growing niche for underground “nuke-proof” data storage facilities housed in former military facilities, mines or limestone caves. These subterranean fortresses have strong appeal for tenants seeking ultra-secure hosting that will survive any eventuality – including a nuclear blast.This trend has given new life to aging military bunkers in the US, UK and Canada. Although security is usually the primary motivation for customers, underground facilities offer advantages to the data center operator. Chief among them is cooling, as these subterranean facilities typically have a natural temperature of 60 degrees or lower.

There are challenges as well, especially managing humidity that can be harmful to servers. Underground data centers also can’t receive certification under the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program for energy efficient buildings because the U.S. Green Buildings Council’s standards has no provision for subterranean facilities.

Here’s a list of all the underground data bunker projects we’ve been tracking at Data Center Knowledge:

Bahnhof Pionen: Better known as the “James Bond Villain” data center, this former military bunker is 100 feet underneath Stockholm, Sweden and features waterfalls, greenhouse-style NOC, glass-enclosed conference room “floating” above the colocation floor, and blue-lit diesel engines.
SmartBunker is an ultra-secure data center located in a former NATO command bunker in Lincolnshire, UK. The power used within the 30,000 square feet data centre is generated entirely from wind energy. SmartBunker says it is the first UK facility with no carbon emissions.
The U.S. Secure Hosting Center is an underground colocation center in Iowa that hosts the web infrastrucutre for Wikia, one of the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation.
Iron Mountain hosts data center operations for Marriott Corp. and other customers in its huge data storage facility located 220 feet underground in a limestone cave outside Pittsburgh. The 145-acre facility has its own fire company, water treatment plant and 24-hour security and maintenance force.
Montgomery Westland, previously known as the Westlin Bunker, operates 40,000 square feet of underground data center and office space in Montgomery, Texas. The facility was initially built by Ling-Chieh Kung, a nephew of Chiang Kai-shek and founder of Westlin Oil. Fearing a nuclear war, the reclusive Kung built a nuke-proof survival shelter.
The Mountain Complex is a disaster recovery data center in a former mine built into the side of a dolomite mountain in the Ozarks near Branson, Missouri. The facility houses backup data for thousands of financial institutions.

The SpringNet Underground is a 56,000 square foot data center located 85 feet underground in a limestone cave near Springfield, Missouri. The site hosts mission-critical patient data for a network of hospitals.
The Bunker is a 10-year old ultra-secure colo facility built in former nuclear bunkers in Newbury and Kent in the UK. The company, which houses many financial services clients, recently announced expansion plans.
The InfoBunker is a 65,000 square foot ultra-secure underground data center in Iowa, built in a decommissioned Air Force bunker designed to survive a 20-megaton nuclear explosion. It features three-foot thick cement walls and shielding to protect equipment from an electromagentic pulse (EMP).
Cavern Technologies operates a 200,000 square foot facility near Kansas City that is 125 feet underground.
Sun Microsystems is among the participants in an underground data centers in Japan’s Chubu region in which 30 Blackbox (Sun MD) data center container units will be installed in a a former coal mine located 100 meters under the ground.
BastionHost has purchased an former government continuity bunker in Nova Scotia as part of its plan to build a “Dataville” of data centers in the province.
StrataSpace, a 500,000 square foot underground data center under development outside Louisville
PrairieBunkers is planning to convert up to 184 World War II ammunition bunkers in central Nebraska into data centers.
Mountains West Exploration plans to develop former military ammunition bunkers as ultra-secure storage.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/07/14/the-data-bunker-boomlet/

Predictions for 2010 Political/Technology

2010-01-03T14:58:00.003-10:00

Four Political/Technology Predictions for 2010
Steve Rosenbaum
Founder and CEO, Magnify.net

As we enter 2010, the impact that government is going to have on technology starts to come into focus. Two unlikely allies are driving one of the most significant changes in the way the public engages in public policy: Barack Obama and Michael Bloomberg.

Prediction #1: The Obama administration's Year Two initiatives will increasingly focus on digital technology and broadband.

Obama, as the first president of either party to have a computer on his desk in the Oval Office, has been driving hard to put government data in the public sphere. The first Federal CTO, Aneesh Chopra, has been pushing government agencies to open their data streams to developers and the general public.

The impact of shifting from paper to bits is likely to expose some uncomfortable truth's about the effectiveness of government, and the way that Federal dollars are allocated. Already an eighteen million dollar effort to share the positive impact of the government recovery efforts, Recovery.org, was shown to be full of errors and false data as the public got to take a peek at how government sausages are made. But it doesn't appear that early missteps have discouraged the data transparency efforts.

Prediction #2: Government Data Transparency will open new private/public sector opportunities in New York in 2010.

Meanwhile, on the heals of the success of New York's 311, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is zooming ahead to put city data in the hands of developers. The Mayor launched the NYC BigApps Competition, a contest for software developers and members of the public to create web or mobile applications using city data. The city opened 170 data sets to allow developers to build applications that will serve residents, visitors, businesses, and the public sector.

Already NYC Big Apps is turning up new ways to parse and present NYC data:

Apps like Make My Day expose NYC Free events.
Finding a school in New York is now easier with city school data presented like this.
And dog owners have access to city dog data (yes, there is dog data!) with the Big App nominee known as Hey Walkies.

Now, not all of the apps may be what the Mayor initially anticipated. For example, NYC Broken Meters helps drivers beat the city's revenue-generating parking meters by giving drivers GPS coordinates on a Google Map of all broken meters. Sweet. The folks at Gothamist crowed: "Of all the NYC Big Apps contenders, we think the NYC Broken Meters will be the most used and abused. The app uses the city's own data to locate broken meters, allowing users to score free parking!"

You can see all the applications, and vote for your favorite here.

Predication #3 Net neutrality will move to center stage

While government transparency is a good thing, and a game changer, that's not the only 2010 shift that's likely to impact the year ahead. Julius Genachowski is the newly confirmed FCC chairmen. And Genachowski is focused on a critical piece of the future of the web: openness.

Through the site Open Internet, Genachowski is looking hard at the Internet as a critical piece of both communications policy and democracy. And unlike other FCC chairs, Genachowski arrives in the gig as a carefully considered choice of a President who is an advocate of key elements of the web economy. So rather than protect fiefdoms, it's likely the FCC will lean hard toward open access -- and keep a close eye on any pricing schemes that choke bandwidth.

Prediction #4: FTC and FCC will let Comcast/NBC deal breeze through review process, M&A to pick up in 2010.

The corollary to this is that I'd put money down that the NBC/Comcast deal with sail through approvals at both the FTC and FCC. Why? Because it's hard to imagine who would oppose it, after all the other competitors are all looking at big deals of their own in the next 12 to 24 months -- so throwing up a roadblock on this deal won't help their cause. And for the FCC, having Comcast on both the pipe and the content side of the world makes it far harder for Comcast to look to restrict access to other content makers to their network.

Government is going digital, and 2010 will be a year where the bandwidth, software, and display technology provide for the first time a widely distributed opportunity to see eGovernement begin to take hold

Open data. Open government. Open Internet. 2010 is going to be a big year.

2010 Bandwidth Explosion

2010-01-02T14:18:00.001-10:00

2010 Bandwidth Explosion Expected, Demand for fiber will skyrocket

As bandwidth consumption continues to grow, TelecomSupportDesk.com - a telecom master agent specializing in high bandwidth circuits and customized network designs - is seeing an increased demand for bigger bandwidth pipes. 2010 will be the year of a huge explosion in the demand for bigger bandwidth pipes. Growing trends in shared cloud computing & centralized private clouds as well as the increase in the consumer demand for bandwidth seem major driving factors.

As an authorized AboveNet agent, TelecomSupportDesk often relies on their fiber optic network. “When a business comes to us looking for high bandwidth from 100Mbps, 1Gpbs even to 10Gbps metro Ethernet solutions, chances are high that AboveNet is the right solution for them,” Mr. Wind (VP of Sales at TelecomSupportdesk.com) comments. “Especially the extreme low latency fiber optics (as low as 1 ms both ways) between two locations is why AboveNet often wins the deal. A low latency route can be extremely crucial for financial institutions as a change in milliseconds can often mean losses of millions in financial trades or transactions.”

In a recent interview with TelecomSupportDesk.com Michael Brown, AboveNet’s VP of Indirect and Carrier Sales, explains how AboveNet has been able to build such an extensive, national fiber network and what differentiates them from other fiber connectivity providers. He also discusses the importance of disaster recovery and business continuity, as well as the importance that low latency can play in a network.

“AboveNet was founded over 15 years ago and started out by an electrical contractor. They had to fight the City of New York to get a franchise agreement to put fiber optic cabling in the ground in order to compete with the ILECs. This is a very capital intensive business and required additional funding. The Metromedia Group decided to invest in the company and changed the name to Metromedia Fiber Network.”

Metromedia Fiber Network had quite an explosive growth in the late ‘90s which occurred as a lot of the telecom companies of the ‘90s were restructuring. They reorganized as AboveNet, Inc. in 2003 and today they are listed on the New York Stock Exchange (ABVT).

“By having gone through this reorganization we have developed a financial discipline and a success-based model,” Michael Brown continues. “We were one of the early companies that got into building metro fiber networks. We used to own datacenters, managed service providers within datacenters and carrier neutral peering which we sold years ago. And with that we went back to our roots, which is being a metro access connectivity provider enabled by dark fiber.”

For those unfamiliar with it, could you please explain the term Dark Fiber?

Dark fiber is a strand of optical fiber with no electronics or optical gear at either end, hence it is dark and not lit up with a laser.

What is the biggest differentiator between AboveNet and other carriers offering fiber routes?

AboveNet has spent considerable time and money building fiber routes in about 15 metros in the US and London. No company is going to spend that much today to build these ubiquitous fiber rich routes nor is anyone going to lend the money to do so. We may have a few competitors in a market here and there, but they are typically local players. Often these competitors are a utility company that has some utility right-of- way, and even though it is not their market, they figured they would put some fiber in the ground. But at the end of the day – whether it is a water utility or a power utility company – if there is a water break or if a power line goes down because of an ice storm, they are likely to be focused on restoring the electricity or water, and after that they are going to look at restoring the fiber. Remember, their main business and responsibility is being a utilities company. So we (AboveNet) may have some competitors in markets, but they are not in all our markets and typically it is not their primary business but just an additional revenue stream for the company.

Beyond that, what also differentiates us is the way we have constructed. Where we could, we have put in multiple conduits. These are 4 inch PVC ducts with three 1.25 inch innerducts where we could put large count fiber cables in, 432 or 864 counts of fiber strands. And when we exhaust the 432 or 864 fiber cable, we still have two more innerducts or another duct itself to pull our fiber through. By having constructed like this we have really made it easy and cost effective for AboveNet to expand. The big cost in building a fiber network is the construction, so if all you have to do to expand a route is pull more fiber through an innerduct, it is infinitely cheaper than having to dig up the ground. Most of our competitors never built with that design philosophy. They put one 96 count cable in the ground and that was it. They have no way of adding to it. Or because they were trying to squeeze it in near a utility line, they couldn’t put in a large conduit system and had to squeeze in a single fiber run with limited amounts of fiber.

So that would mean that AboveNet can expand more easily?

Correct. We are in more markets, we can expand more easily, and we have higher count fiber cables. But at least as important is that we have put in the latest generation fiber types in the ground. There is something called non-zero dispersion shifted fiber. This type of fiber has been designed for dense wave division multiplexing and works at the 1550 nanometer wavelength range. Most fiber that is in the ground is called SMF-28 or just standard single mode fiber and is optimized for 1310 nanometers, which is where SONET gear operates. AboveNet has composite cables that have a combination of both the standard single mode (SMF-28) and the non-zero dispersion shifted. Whether it is Lucent TrueWave or Corning LEAF, we have those fiber types in the ground. And they are optimized to support dense wave division multiplexing, which is what most carriers and enterprises are looking at to deploy. They want a dense wave network supporting all their applications, and not a SONET based TDM network.

When we built the routes we really tried to honeycomb the central business districts, and we built quite extensive backbones in the cities we are in. And we would build these backbones along right-of-ways that our competitors don’t have and where we could we would bury our fiber. For example, our network in Chicago, which is a HUGE network that goes all the way from Lake Michigan to Hoffman Estates in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, and to Lisle in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, it is nearly all under ground. Some of it is built along the Illinois DOT system and in many segments no one else is along many of those right-of-ways. So we have built an extensive system, we built it underground where we could, and we built it along right-of-ways that are unique to AboveNet.

So to sum up what differentiates AboveNet is we:

* Are in more markets
* Can easily add more fiber
* Have a better type of fiber
* Have an excellent presence in central business districts out to the far suburbs
* Are in 15 metro markets
* Are focused primarily on fiber optical networks
* Have unique rights of way
* Have buried the vast majority of our fiber for safety

No one else can really talk to that; it’s a unique value proposition. That’s really why we think we have a huge differentiation between our fiber and other carriers offering fiber.

Since we are not a retail provider we’re not offering dial tone, we don’t offer frame relay. Our fiber doesn’t have to go to every CO (Central Office). In fact, our fiber even avoids COs. The ILEC goes to EVERY CO.

What about CLECS?

Well guess what? They have got to pick up their UNEs (unbundled network elements), their copper loops at a specific CO. We avoid that. So we will typically have the shortest path between point A and point B. That means we can offer low latency and that is extremely important in so many industries today.

Yes, didn’t AboveNet recently win a big deal from the NYSE because of the low latency network? MB: Yes we did. We’re there – http://abovenet.com/newsandevents/pressreleases/pr090721.php They’r one of many financial customers and exchanges that use AboveNet because our fiber optic network can support the highest capacity and the lowest latency.

Aside from financial institutions are there other industries that have such high requirements?

Oh yes, there really are many markets that have such requirements. Media and entertainment where production, post-production, and editing collaborate and send huge digital files back and forth. But also social networking, we count almost every social network as our customer. I don’t know if you have any children but mine are on the bigger social networking sites and they definitely notice when there is any lag in the network. So they do not just need a network that can transport a lot of data; they need a network that can support that traffic with a low latency. That also goes for online gaming. My children are on Xbox live and heaven forbids if the gaming network is lagging, they will notice instantly. So many different industries require low latency; it’s really not just financial services anymore.

One of the most important applications for low latency, which really is applicable to every single industry, is disaster recovery and business continuity. If you are doing disc replication, especially synchronous disc replication (which is also known as disc mirroring or disc shadowing), where you are writing simultaneously to two different disc drives at two different locations, you HAVE to have a low latency network. It won’t work above particular latency or attenuation numbers. A low latency network is the number one determining factor that people are going to look at when deciding how they are going to deploy their disaster recovery and business continuity strategy.

How important would you say a disaster recovery and business continuity plan is?

Oh extremely important! There are many studies that have shown that most companies that do not have such a business continuity and disaster recovery strategy and network in place are in big trouble when they lose critical customer data. In fact, studies have shown that many firms do not survive the following year after a disaster if they did not have a recovery plan in place. It can cripple their business.

We at TelecomSupportDesk.com found many clients with a great interest in your DS3-Killer (aka Terminator) promotion. Why do you think that companies should drop their DS3’s for AboveNet’s fiber metro Ethernet?

The first reason is that a DS3 can’t provide you with more than 45Mbps. We can start you on a 100 megs and take you up to a 10 gig port. Most companies I know require more and more scalable bandwidth, well above DS3. Or they want to be able to burst.

Additionally, with a DS3 you’re probably still using copper technology, likely from the LEC or what the CLEC is providing. For disaster recovery, anyone selling a DS3 circuit probably comes to the building on the same pathway. That’s not much diversity. AboveNet typically comes in with our own infrastructure, as diverse as possible from the ILEC.

Therefore not only can we offer expandability above DS3 speeds, we can do it on our own infrastructure, diverse from the ILEC and we can provide you with native Ethernet. So you won’t be going on DS3 technology, you won’t be going on a SONET ring. Instead of packets over SONET, we offer native Ethernet which is what most companies like. They understand Ethernet, have it in their Local Area Network (LAN), and now they want it in their Wide Area Network (WAN). With our technology, we can converge your Ethernet and IP traffic.

Could you give an example of that?

Let’s say you want to go from your location to a datacenter and you also want to get IP at that datacenter. Perhaps you want to do server virtualization, disc mirroring, or you have signed up for cloud computing for enhanced CPU cycles and disc storing done remotely. In such a scenario you would want to get a low latency fiber tail from us, with whatever port speed and burst ability you need.

Data Center Powered Entirely by Wind

2010-01-02T12:59:00.004-10:00

Data Center Powered Entirely by Wind
By Philip Proefrock
In Woodstock, Illinois, Other World Computing’s laboratory has managed to get 100% of its needed power through wind turbines placed on-site. The turbines used are 39 meters in diameter, with a capacity of 500 kilowatts. The estimated output is around 1,250,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) annually. OWC are running other operations as well, but this one uses about twice as much as any of the previous ones.

The data center’s power system is tied to the city’s, so it can provide its excess power to it. Likewise, in times of slow winds, the data center will be able to use the grid as a backup. The facility is currently generating power well in excess of its needs, and in addition to that, it’s about to receive a LEED Platinum certification.

The wind turbines aren’t the only green thing about the lab, as it also has ground-source heat pump systems to provide the cooling of the computers, lighting is provided through fiber-optic systems on the roof, and the building is full of occupancy sensors. Every water-related facility is designed in an efficient way, and the company has an internal recycling program as well.

We've heard of data centers that are running on green power, though these are often mostly done through buying energy credits for distant generating facilities. But Woodstock, IL-based Other World Computing is the first to have 100% on-site wind power to run its operations. The 39 meter (128 foot) diameter, 500 kW turbine is expected to generate an estimated 1,250,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) per year. This is more than twice as much electricity as is used by all of OWC's operations. The facility is grid-tied, and will sell the excess power back to the local utility, as well as being able to utilize grid power as backup during slack wind periods.

Not only is this facility generating more electricity than it needs, the building that houses OWC is also anticipating LEED Platinum certification. A few of the features of the building include energy efficient ground-source heat pump systems for heating and cooling, rooftop fiber-optic light harvesting for lighting, occupancy sensors, water efficient fixtures throughout, and a company-wide recycling program. An interactive map gives more detail about all of the various ways they have optimized the facility to reduce resource use and improve energy efficiency.

Some purists might complain that OWC's operations are not exclusively wind powered because of the grid connection and its use as a backup system. However, grid distribution of the excess power produced by the turbine, and the occasional reliance on the grid for backup power are far better use of materials and resources than what would be required in order to have on-site storage needed to operate entirely off the grid.

"World's Greenest" Data Center

2009-12-18T17:09:00.002-10:00

IBM Completes "World's Greenest" Data Center, Aims for World's Fastest Supercomputer
BY Ariel SchwartzFri Dec 4, 2009 at 2:41 PM

datacenter

This past May, we reported that IBM broke ground on what was supposed to be the world's most efficient data center--a $12.4 million, 6,000-square-foot facility at Syracuse University that uses 50% less energy than typical data centers. And now, six months later, the data center is ready for action--just as the company also announced a new chip that will help power its Blue Waters supercomputer next year. It could become the world's fastest and would be housed in what will likely be a considerably less green building at the University of Illinois.

But back to that Syracuse data center. Is it really the world's greenest?

According to IBM, the data center differentiates itself by focusing on energy-efficient construction in addition to hardware and software. So instead of just paying attention to server efficiency, IBM also uses an on-site co-generation system with gas-fueled microturbine engines that generates electricity and also water-cools server racks. At the same time, heat from the engines cools data center hardware and uses extra heat to warm up campus buildings.

It's hard to say if these features come together to make IBM's data center the world's most efficient. The data center is at the very least being given a run for its money by Helsinki's new underground data center that also pipes heat to area homes. But it's still a model for future corporate and university data centers. Check out a video of the facility below.

Underground data center to help heat Helsinki

2009-12-18T16:09:00.002-10:00

In the chill of a massive cave beneath an orthodox Christian cathedral in Helsinki, Finland, a city power firm is preparing what it thinks will be the greenest data center on the planet.

Excess heat from hundreds of computer servers to be located in the bedrock beneath Uspenski Cathedral, one of Helsinki's most popular tourist sites, will be captured and channeled into the district heating network, a system of water-heated pipes used to warm homes in the Finnish capital.

"It is perfectly feasible that a quite considerable proportion of the heating in the capital city could be produced from thermal energy generated by computer halls," said Juha Sipila, project manager at Helsingin Energia.

Beneath Helsinki's Uspenski Cathedral a new data center is being built whose heat will help warm homes in the Finnish capital.

Finland and other north European countries are using their water-powered networks as a conduit for renewable energy sources: capturing waste to heat the water that is pumped through the system.

Due online in January, the new data center for local information technology services firm Academica is one way of addressing environmental concerns around the rise of the Internet as a central repository for the world's data and processing--known as "cloud computing."

Companies seeking large-scale, long-term cuts in information technology spending are concentrating on data centers, which account for up to 30 percent of many corporations' energy bills.

Data centers such as those run by Google already use around 1 percent of the world's energy, and their demand for power is rising fast with the trend to outsource computing.

One major problem is that in a typical data center only 40-45 percent of energy use is for the actual computing--the rest is used mostly for cooling down the servers.

"It is a pressing issue for IT vendors since the rise in energy costs to power and cool servers is estimated to be outpacing the demand for servers," said Steven Nathasingh, chief executive of research firm Vaxa.

"But IT companies cannot solve the challenge by themselves and must create new partnerships with experts in energy management like the utility companies and others," he said.

Data centers' emissions of carbon dioxide have been running at around one-third of those of airlines, but are growing 10 percent a year and now approach levels of entire countries such as Argentina or the Netherlands.

Energy savings
Besides providing heat to homes in the Finnish capital, the new Uspenski computer hall will use half the energy of a typical data center, Sipila said.

Its input into the district heating network will be comparable to one large wind turbine, or enough to heat 500 large private houses.

"Green is a great sales point, but equally important are cost savings," said Pietari Paivanen, sales head at Academica: the center, when expanded as planned, will trim 375,000 euros ($561,000) a year from the company's annual power bill. Academica's revenue in 2008 was 15 million euros.

"It's a win-win thing. We are offering the client cheap cooling as we can use the excess heat," Sipila said.

The center's location in the bowels of the cathedral has an added bonus: security. It is taking over a former bomb shelter carved into the rock by the fire brigade in World War II as a refuge for city officials from Russian air raids.

Iron Mountain's 22 stories experimental Room 48

2009-12-18T12:05:00.004-10:00

Underground Data Centers: Iron Mountain's 22 stories experimental Room 48

This data center is quiet, sans fans -- and energy efficient to the extreme

Lucas MearianDown a road that winds through the rolling hills of western Pennsylvania, just across from a cow pasture, the bucolic scenery of Butler County is interrupted by a high chain-link fence topped with razor wire.

Cars entering the compound are channeled into gated lanes before being searched by a guard. A short distance beyond the security point, the road disappears into a gaping hole in a cliff face. The hole is sealed off by the thick, steel bars of a tall sliding gate controlled by guards carrying semiautomatic pistols. They are protecting a 25-foot-high passage that leads 22 stories down to Iron Mountain's main archive facility, which takes up 145 acres of a 1,000-acre abandoned limestone mine.

Behind steel doors

Among dozens of red steel doors inserted in the rock face along corridors that create an elaborate subterranean honeycomb, you'll find Room 48, an experiment in data center energy efficiency. Open for just six months, the room is used by Iron Mountain to discover the best way to use geothermal conditions and engineering designs to establish the perfect environment for electronic documents.

Room 48 is also being used to devise a geothermal-based environment that can be tapped to create efficient, low-cost data centers. (For information on more companies using geothermal conditions to improve data center efficiency, see "Riding the geothermal wave.")

There is no raised floor in Room 48. Instead, networking wires are suspended above rows of server racks and cooled both by the limestone walls and vents attached to ceiling-mounted red spiral ducts 36 inches in diameter. The HVAC system uses the cool water of an underground lake hundreds of acres in size.

Massive limestone columns support Iron Mountain's man-made caverns
Click to view a slide show of The Underground

Outside light is beamed into the main aisle of the room through a long ceiling tube to reduce heat. Rows of server racks are encased in rectangular metal containers that trap electrical heat and force it up through perforated ceiling tiles, allowing the 55-degree limestone roof to absorb heat that otherwise would build up in the 4,100-square-foot room.

"Limestone can absorb 1.5 BTUs per square foot," Charles Doughty, the vice president of engineering at Iron Mountain, said during a recent tour of the facility by Computerworld. Facts on molecular chemistry and mineral properties roll off 61-year-old Doughty's tongue. He has worked as a technologist and archivist in the tunnels of the one-time mine for 37 years, studying thermodynamics in an ever-evolving effort to create the perfect environment for storing paper and electronic records.

An underground office

Doughty's underground office is adorned with dark wood furniture that's upholstered in the type of rich leather befitting his executive status. The furniture and carpeted floors contrast sharply with a rough-hewn wall of prehistoric rock. The office sits just off a larger room filled with cubicles that also butt up against rock walls, which are painted white to better reflect light and suppress any limestone dust.

Charles Doughty's underground office
Click to see larger view

The Underground, as the mine is called by employees, has its own cafe and a fire department with three engines. Like the other 2,700 workers here, Doughty traverses miles of roadways and tunnels in golf carts. Iron Mountain employs just 155 people in The Underground, the rest work for companies renting space in the facility.

An endurance kayaker who owns a working 30-acre farm and is training for an iron-man competition, Doughty is an idea man in a subterranean environment. He calls it "the best job in the world. I only get to create ideas. Other people do the work to make it happen. "

From mine to storage

Four hundred million years ago, a teeming ocean covered this area. And during a 100-million-year period, billions of tiny crustaceans died, their skeletons settling to the ocean floor, fossilizing and creating layer upon layer of limestone.

In 1902, U.S. Steel began blasting out that limestone for use in the production of metal for skyscrapers, railways and the rest of the nation's booming infrastructure. By 1950, U.S. Steel ceased mining operations and began using the man-made caverns to protect its corporate records from the Cold War-era threat of atomic bombs. The company quickly saw a business opportunity in renting out mine space to other companies and to the U.S. government for vital-records archiving. Thus was born in 1954 the National Storage Company.

More than four decades later, in 1998, it was bought by Iron Mountain, which had itself started under similar circumstances in an iron ore mine in upstate New York. There, in 1951, Herman Knaust opened the Iron Mountain Atomic Storage Corp.

While the Iron Mountain facility in Pennsylvania may best be known as the home to the photographic collection of Bill Gates' Corbis Corp. venture, it also houses the records of countless corporations and highly sensitive government agencies in its array of tunnels.

Doughty is focused on creating the most naturally efficient data center. One of his latest ideas is to drill a shaft from the hillside down to the mine's lake and allow winter air to turn it into a slushy mix that can be used during summer months to dissipate heat in the mine's data centers.

Light is beamed into Room 48 from outside
Click to see larger view

Unlike other limestone mines which are normally covered in layers of porous sandstone, The Underground was blessed with a roof of shale, which acts as natural umbrella. Water is absorbed into the ground around the mine, instead of through its ceiling. The subterranean lake is an anomaly created when rain or surface water percolates down and around the limestone outcropping through layers of porous soils and rock strata into caverns at the low point of the mine where, at depths of four to eight feet, it spans hundreds of acres. For now, Iron Mountain uses the lake water cooling incoming mine air but does not currently the HVAC systems. But Doughty believes the 50-degree water could eventually be circulated to the data center and back to the lake to naturally expel heat.

"We'd like to get to the point where we expend no energy for cooling," Doughty explained.

While there are four other data centers in the mine, the subterranean facility's dehumidified air and cooler temperatures were initially only seen as advantageous to storing paper, photos, film and microfiche, which under the right conditions could last 2,000 years, according to Doughty. The mine's natural environment wasn't used to disperse heat and reduce energy consumption in data centers -- until Room 48 opened.

Room 48

Room 48 is starkly quiet compared to typical data centers. It creates its own wind through the use of alternating hot-air and cold-air server rack aisles. The high static air pressure differential between the aisles separating rows of server racks naturally causes cold air to drop and hot air to rise through the perforated ceiling tiles and vents that run parallel along air ducts.

Iron Mountain also removed power distribution transformers and computer room air conditioning -- common in other data centers -- from inside the data center and located them outside to further reduce heat. That move also freed up about 30% more space, Doughty said.

By setting the room's return air temperature to 75 degrees, Iron Mountain cut energy consumption for cooling by between 10% and 15% compared with the company's traditional data centers. They operate between 70 and 72 degrees. The natural cooling also allowed Iron Mountain to boost power in the room to 200 watts per square foot, more than 50% above the 125 watts per square foot used in the other data centers located in the mine. Room 48 also cost about 30% less to build than they did because the design favored efficiency and cost reduction over specialty equipment.

For example, instead of buying expensive electrical equipment designed specifically for data centers, Iron Mountain went to the same electrical supply stores any electrician would frequent to purchase K-rated transformers or electrical load centers. "Anything you buy for a computer room is expensive," Doughty said.

Room 48's servers are not yet water cooled
Click to see larger view

Iron Mountain also installed low-energy T8 fluorescent lamps enclosed in tubes to reduce convection, although most of the time the room is dark because lights are controlled by motion sensors in each aisle.

While the mine's water isn't yet being used to directly cool server racks, Doughty said that will be incorporated into future design changes. He's convinced that all data centers will shift toward water-cooled racks. And he expects that geographical positioning using locations where natural cooling or energy resources can be exploited for efficiency will be the future of new data center construction.

Riding the geothermal wave

Iron Mountain is just one of several such experimental efforts under way using geothermal conditions to power or improve the cooling efficiency of data centers. In February 2008, American College Testing (ACT) in Iowa City, Iowa was the first data center in the U.S. to be awarded the Platinum certification in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, a voluntary rating system for energy efficient buildings overseen by the U.S. Green Building Council.

The Underground has three fire trucks on call
Click to see larger view

The ACT operation has a 4,000-square-foot raised-floor data center cooled by a geothermal "bore field." The bore field consists of holes drilled into the earth and a closed-loop piping system filled with water or coolant that uses the cool underground conditions to exchange heat.

ACT isn't alone; other companies approved for Platinum status include Citigroup data center in Germany and Advanced Data Centers in Sacramento.

Google is hot on the technology as well and has invested more than $10 million in three companies developing geothermal energy systems. The technology, called Enhanced Geothermal Systems, replicates naturally occurring pockets of subterranean steam and hot water by fracturing hot rock and using the resulting steam to produce electricity.

And in July, Microsoft opened a 700,000-square-foot data center in Northlake, Ill., that uses outside air as part of the cooling system.

Interest in geothermal technology isn't surprising, said Doughty. "Energy costs are increasing exponentially so that the cost to operate the data center is becoming the greatest cost. People who can leverage the geographic location or a subterranean location will achieve the greatest benefit."

In Emergency Situation

2009-11-24T13:50:00.001-10:00

What to do in an Emergency

Panic is your number one enemy when you are in any emergency situation, be it injured, lost, under fire or whatever the emergency is. These are the steps you need to follow.

STOP
Think
Sit
Think
Observe
Think
And Then Plan Your Next Move

Your best defense in any emergency is your ability to think and make good logically sound decisions.

Government site turned hardened data center

2009-10-21T16:45:00.001-10:00

InfoBunker extends 50 feet underground and contains two levels and a mezzanine. The tower handled telecommunications for the government. Rendering submitted.

Government site turned hardened data center BY SARAH BZDEGA

To get a tour of InfoBunker, I had to first agree not to disclose its exact location. I had to bring government-issued identification (a fancy name for a driver's license), leave all cameras and recording devices at home and promise not to bring any weapons (they already had an issue with a police officer who wanted to keep his gun).

I met Jeff Daniels, broker-associate for his father's company, Des Moines-based Buyers Realty Inc., and vice president of InfoBunker LLC, at the Kum & Go off Interstate 35 in Ames. From there, we traveled northwest to where paved roads T with gravel and you lose cellphone coverage as you dip into valleys.

Daniels eventually parked on an asphalt lot near a large microwave tower that used to handle telecommunications for the federal government during the Cold War. Next to us was a nondescript building. Though houses border the site, for the most part, Daniels said, the neighbors keep to themselves and they have made a point to keep the building looking its age.

The three-foot concrete walls below us extend two floors, 50 feet, underground and were built in 1968 to house one of the military's main communications hubs. The facility supposedly can withstand a 20-megaton nuclear blast 2.5 miles away, while homes in Ames would crumble. At one time, it had enough supplies and equipment for 150 people to maintain operations for four continuous months without venturing into the outside world.

Now the 65,000-square-foot building has been converted into a data center, and the owners boast that it can not only withstand a nuclear blast, but also tornadoes, floods and any other disaster a company might expect.

All systems are redundant to prevent an interruption in service, and Jason McGinnis, whose past experience includes consulting for organizations such as NASA and the Department of Defense, maintains the high level of security the government follows.

The security measures it goes through might be a bit "draconian," McGinnis said, "but it's not arbitrary." The goal is to figure out what could go wrong and find a way to prevent or deal with it - like an insurance policy.

They won't disclose the number of tenants or the cost to buy and convert the building, valued on the assessor's site at more than $800,000, but they say they have attracted clients from places such as the Netherlands and New York, though half come from Greater Des Moines.

Signing clients has been slower than McGinnis expected when they opened InfoBunker in 2006, but he said, "the business has proven viable."

The tour

A typical welcome area with a couch and coffee table with reading material greeted me as I walked into the building. "We try to make human comfort a factor as well," Daniels said. But from here on out, I would be followed by at least one of the cameras mounted on the walls, which record and store video up to 30 days; the video recordings have embedded code that prevents them from being altered.

To get inside the actual facility required several security measures, including using a card that reads a fingerprint - the owners say the finger has to be alive to make the card work - and punching a passcode into a system that changes the order of numbers each time. We had to go through these steps three times, at one point entering a small room and waiting for the door to close before Daniels could open the final steel door. The only thing keeping me from becoming claustrophobic was a touching sign that said, "Welcome Business Record" on the wall.

Throughout the building are remnants of the Cold War era: a decontamination shower, red tags on the door that read "Do not enter during fallout" and military "alert yellow" walls.

The first level contains a 20,000-square-foot room with columns staggered throughout. On one end is the start of enclosed walls that contain clients' private data centers. A company can rent a data storage rack in a main server area or have InfoBunker build a private room to its specifications. InfoBunker works with the client to provide the space and wiring it needs, then hands over the keys, not asking what it specifically will be used for, minus a few specifications that prohibit a client from using the space for storage and transmission of certain things, such as pornography or illegal material.

The entire system is built to handle any possible problem, with precautions such as putting all the wires below the floor rather than exposing them along the ceiling, encasing fiber-optic cables with a metal sheath and making each room fireproof and secure with a metal shield between the walls. Though these special features cost more - 50 cents per square foot of metal casing for fiber optics, for example - Daniels claims the cost to rent space at InfoBunker is comparable to or cheaper than the fees at other data centers in Greater Des Moines. Because the owners were able to buy the building at a discount from the government, Daniels said they could afford to invest in these other features without upping the cost.

The lower level is the command control center, much like an airport security system, Daniels said, where two employees are sitting in a dark room and staring at an eight-by-32-foot screen. From here they follow weather reports that could tip them off to a potential disaster, video from the cameras and network activity to make sure there are no problems. In about three years of operation, InfoBunker has logged six network problems (four of which weren't its fault), compared with an average of 30 logged problems per agent per day at the company McGinnis used to work for in California.

The rest of the floor is a stockpile of extra equipment. "Everything you see in this building, we probably have a spare," Daniels said.

In back of the building is an unloading area where servers, construction equipment and at one time, a 17,000-pound generator, can be lowered from the parking lot. At the bottom of the shaft is a 7.5-ton, eight-inch-thick steel blast door with no handles on the outside.

The mezzanine level between the two floors is where the luxury is. The walls are a bluish purple, a color that psychiatric tests have proved to produce a calming effect, Daniels said. There is a plush conference room with a high-end table and chairs. The break room has a full kitchen, a pool table and leather couches.

A "Cold War museum" on a table in the far corner contains artifacts such as military telephones with a button that would override all public communication systems if a message had to get out and large tin cans of food that contain prunes or ingredients for blueberry pancakes and eggs. Luckily, Daniels said, in case of a disaster, InfoBunker will cater in food.

Cold War mentality

Daniels admits he has always been interested in the Cold War, which may explain why he departed from his usual work in consulting with national retailers such as Best Buy Co. Inc. and PetSmart Inc. The first time he toured the building, "I was blown away," Daniels said. Now he has become something of a security expert, sitting on the board of the Iowa Contingency Planners and participating in state disaster-planning projects.

Buyers Realty provided much of the financial backing, an office address separate from the data center and connections with contractors and clients. McGinnis, CEO and "resident geek," who works out of a small mezzanine-level office decorated with Asian art, handles the network and security operations.

McGinnis knows of only a handful of government bunkers turned data centers of similar size, with many out-of-service government bunkers being flooded or overridden with mold. This center required two years of cleaning; the new owners went through piles of military junk and filled four trash bins. One positive find was a lot of scrap copper at a time when the price of that commodity was high.

The renovations InfoBunker made were somewhat difficult because of having to work around an existing floor plan. One contractor went through two core bits and spent two days drilling two three-inch holes into the walls for communications conduits. Though data centers are "energy-intensive places" already, Daniels also said InfoBunker has tried to take a "green" approach, putting in energy-saving systems where it could; it is striving for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating.

Selling companies on the space has taken some time, Daniels said, especially because the owners are new to the technology and data center business. "We had a credibility gap we had to get past," he said. But that could change now that InfoBunker has recorded nearly three years without service interruption.

The reliability of the network and cost are what attracted E-Markets Inc. to switch from using its own data centers to leasing space from InfoBunker, said David Bierce, administrator and operations lead for the Ames-based company.

"Their network's been down zero times, which is something I can't say for any of our other facilities," he said.

For Jon Bolen, executive vice president and chief technology officer of Westec Intelligent Surveillance, InfoBunker's level of security and its distance from Westec's West Des Moines operations (which would likely separate the two sites from the same disaster) are what led his company to use InfoBunker as its primary data center. Because his company provides audio and video surveillance for retailers, Bolen said an interruption in service would be "a huge liability for us and a safety issue for our customers."

In the year and a half Westec has used InfoBunker, it has had only one warning call when its main Internet service provider went down and Westec's system switched to a secondary source. The only challenge: finding a bandwidth provider that would extend a private line from Des Moines to the site.

Just being in the facility, Bolen said, "was very humbling, to see the level of investment that has been put into (it), going through the blast doors and realizing the amount of engineering that goes into that structure."

Secure Server Co-Location Solutions in Riga, Latvia

2009-10-19T12:20:00.005-10:00

Companies Require More Secure Server Co-Location Solutions
"Digital Economic Development Center DEAC Ltd.
Underground data center located Grīziņkalnā (1905th of park). Tas ir bijušais padomju armijas komandpunkts – bunkurs, kas būvēts kā īpaši droša celtne. It is a former Soviet army komandpunkts - bunker, built as a highly secure building. Datu centra izdevīgais izvietojums (tuvu Rīgas centram) ļauj izmantot visas neieciešamās mūsdienu komunikācijas. Data Center favorable location (near the center of Riga) allows the use of all needed in modern communications. Tas atrodas 9 metrus virs jūras līmeņa, bet tajā pašā laikā atrodas 12 metrus zem zemes. It is 9 meters above sea level, but at the same time, located 12 meters below ground. Šāds izvietojums ļauj izvairīties gan no plūdu bīstamības, gan arī no elektromagnētiskā starojuma. Such an arrangement avoids both the flood hazard, as well as of electromagnetic radiation.

Lūdzu, izmantojiet iespēju aplūkot datu centru no iekšienes, izmantojot zemāk pieejamo video ekskursiju. Please use the opportunity to look at the data center from the inside, using available video tour below.

Latest global trends prove that IT strategies of companies are changing towards raising of data and IT hardware security. In order to offer clients a more extensive range of super-secure services, the largest Baltic data center operator DEAC Ltd. launches a new service called "Maximum Data Security."

Companies Require More Secure Server Co-Location Solutions
Riga, Latvia, October 19, 2009 --www.deac.eu-- The "Maximum Data Security" service was created after a client survey with a purpose to explore the needs and satisfaction of the current and potential clients with respect to the services offered. It showed that companies are ready to rationalize their IT infrastructure, build a stronger business continuity plan and use secure data center services.

The "Maximum Data Security" service will offer five increased-security levels. Firstly, it includes ID access control to server racks, additional alarm system and notification. Secondly, racks can have video and micro-climate monitoring, and vibration sensors can be installed. Similarly, within this new service DEAC offers separate, dedicated and lockable server rack compartments. "Finally it is possible to provide those clients who require topmost security with a separate lockable room for hardware co-location," says Andris Gailītis, Chairmen of the Board, DEAC Ltd.

"Depending on the chosen security level, communication connection scheme and other security requirements, the service prices can differ. As an example, a solution that would satisfy requirements of any bank - Maximum Data Security 4KW TIER I/II server rack with ID, movement sensors, individual IP cameras, GSM Ethernet disconnecting switches and Internet connection, is available starting from 1000 EUR per month," the CEO describes the flexible pricing policy.

The new service could be successfully developed thanks to the opening of the 2nd DEAC's data center "Rīga" being the largest and most advanced data center in the Baltics, opened September this year. Current area of the data center is 600m2, up to 200 server racks can be rented there with a server capacity up to 8000 units.

In early 2011 it is planned to expand the center's area up to 1400m2 or up to 500 server racks with a server capacity up to 20 500. It must be noted that the data center "Rīga" conforms to the highest category in the "Uptime Institute" classification - TIER IV, being the highest data center infrastructure security and availability standard.

About DEAC:

DEAC is the largest data center operator in the Baltics. It owns an underground data center „Grīziņkalns” (TIER II infrastructure level), and data center "Rīga" (TIER IV infrastructure level).
DEAC's clients are from 20 different countries of the world, and the total number of them has almost reached 2 thousand, including Spanish telecommunications' giant Telefonica, National Bank of Latvia, Rietumu Bank, Danske Bank, inbox.lv, one.lv, Seesam Latvia, TV3 Latvia, The Baltic Times, etc.

DEAC is the official distributor of DELL solutions in Latvia, and the authorized partner of such IT companies as EMC, Microsoft, VMware and APC.

Contacts:
DEAC Ltd
Artis Babris
459 Maskavas street, Riga, Latvia, LV1063
Ph.: +371 6707 2100, Fax: +371 67072199
office@deac.eu, www.deac.eu

IBM Generator Failure Causes Airline Chaos

2009-10-17T13:30:00.001-10:00

IBM Generator Failure Causes Airline Chaos

October 12th, 2009 : Rich Miller

A generator failure Sunday at an IBM data center in Auckland, New Zealand crippled key services for Air New Zealand, prompting the airline’s CEO to publicly chastise Big Blue for the failure. The data center outage crashed airport check-in systems, as well as on-line bookings and call center systems Sunday morning, affecting more than 10,000 passengers and throwing airports into disarray.

The problem occurred during planned maintenance at IBM’s Newton data center in Auckland. A generator failed during the maintenance window, dropping power to parts of the data center, including the mainframe operations supporting Air New Zealand’s ticketing. IBM says service was restored to most clients within an hour, but local media reports say Air New Zealand’s ticketing kiosks were offline for up to six hours.

Air New Zealand chief executive Rob Fyfe is not happy.

“In my 30-year working career, I am struggling to recall a time where I have seen a supplier so slow to react to a catastrophic system failure such as this and so unwilling to accept responsibility and apologise to its client and its client’s customers,” Fyfe wrote in an email to IBM, which then became public.

“We were left high and dry and this is simply unacceptable,” Fyfe added. “My expectations of IBM were far higher than the amateur results that were delivered yesterday, and I have been left with no option but to ask the IT team to review the full range of options available to us to ensure we have an IT supplier whom we have confidence in and one who understands and is fully committed to our business and the needs of our customers.”

DHS awards contract to outsource data center to CSC

2009-10-17T12:19:00.005-10:00

DHS awards contract to outsource data center to CSC

BY JILL R. AITORO, JAITORO@GOVEXEC.COM 07/02/2008

The Homeland Security Department awarded a $390 million contract to government systems integrator Computer Sciences Corp. to outsource its data center services, the department confirmed on Wednesday.The contract will help DHS complete consolidating its 18 data centers into two megacenters. The department first transitioned systems to a primary data center, the National Center for Critical Information Processing and Storage, which is based at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Prime contractor Science Applications International Corp. manages the center under an award it received through the Millennia Lite program, a General Services Administration governmentwide acquisition contract, which was scheduled to expire in this spring. The Navy has acted as co-contractor and program manager for the center.

In December, Government Executive reported that DHS planned to outsource the center's entire operations to the private sector under its Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions contract, which was created to purchase IT services and equipment for Homeland Security. SAIC, which also bid on the data center contract, has until September to transition all related activities to CSC, said DHS spokesperson Larry Orluskie. The contract, which extends until Dec. 31, 2016, includes an initial award of $17 million and a ceiling price of $390 million.

The second megacenter is being built under an $800 million contract DHS awarded to EDS earlier this year. Under the eight-year pact, EDS will operate the center as a backup for the primary center if it becomes inoperable due to a natural disaster or cyberattack. The center also will provide data services when the primary center cannot fully manage workloads.

DHS will transition over five years the data center's equipment and managed services from a government-furnished model to a contractor-furnished model, and CSC will charge DHS for the use of the data center using a utility pay-per-use model.

A spokesperson for CSC said the company did not have comment at this time.

Market analysis firm Federal Sources estimates the steady-state contract costs of running the main data center to be between $45 million and $65 million annually.

DHS readies contract to outsource data center services

By Jill R. Aitorojaitoro@govexec.comDecember 20, 2007

The Homeland Security Department is expected to award a contract in the next couple of months to outsource its data center services with the expectation that it will receive up-to-date applications and services faster than if it owned the data center.

Last year, DHS began consolidating its 18 data centers into two megacenters. The department first transitioned systems to a primary data center called the National Center for Critical Information Processing and Storage, which is based at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

The Navy acts as co-contractor and program manager for the center with prime contractor Science Applications International Corp. managing the center under an award it received through the Millennia Lite program, a General Services Administration governmentwide acquisition contract. That contract is scheduled to expire in the spring.

DHS eventually wants to outsource the center's entire operations to the private sector. According to a source currently bidding on the opportunity as a subcontractor who asked to not be identified, DHS has issued a solicitation under its own Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions contract, which was created to purchase IT services and equipment. The contract, which has a term of seven-and-half years, calls for DHS to transition over five years the data center's equipment and managed services from a government-furnished model to a contractor-furnished model. The winner will charge DHS for the use of the data center using a utility pay-per-use model.

SAIC and Computer Sciences Corp. are competing for the contract, according to the source. Officials with the two systems integrators could not be reached for comment.

Earlier this year, EDS won an eight-year $800 million contract to run the secondary data center, which will act as a backup in case the primary center is inoperable due to a disaster or attack and during times when the primary center cannot fully handle DHS' loads.

DHS "is keeping the option to have equipment and managed services go from" a government furnished model to a contractor-furnished model, "but not necessarily all equipment and services," said DHS spokesperson Larry Orluskie.

Consolidating data centers will give DHS a common computer platform that should allow its individual offices and agencies use of more advanced software applications and the ability to better share information, Orluskie said. A collection of computer networks that could not easily share information, the result of merging 22 disparate agencies into one department as DHS did, has been one of the primary obstacles to its ability to work seamlessly and effectively as one since it was formed in 2002.

Purchasing data center services on a utility-style model is a good approach for DHS "if the requirements can be satisfied at acceptable risk," said Lee Holcomb, vice president of advanced solutions in Lockheed Martin's Business Process Solutions group and former DHS chief technology officer. The utility-model shifts much of the risk of providing the services to a contractor, which must maintain the applications and meet stringent parameters such as continuing services when usage spikes. The contractor also must provide services through a defined infrastructure as outlined in DHS' enterprise architecture and common operating environment framework.

"I know that the DHS [Office of the Chief Information Officer] management was inclined to move toward this model in the future, and I am pleased to see they are [doing so]," Holcomb said.

How fast the initiative rolls out will depend in part on funding. The fiscal 2008 DHS appropriations bill, which was rolled into the omnibus spending measure passed By Congress this week, includes $72.3 million for expanding data storage capabilities at the Navy data center, according to the document.

"At the end of the day it's all about funding," said an IT expert familiar with the project. Gaining support for "a program like this is always a battle, but it's vital. To successfully create one information-sharing department out of a collection of former standalone agencies, there needs to be a common infrastructure."

Homeland Security's data center

2009-10-17T12:07:00.000-10:00

Congress requires Homeland Security's data center to go green

BY JILL R. AITORO 10/16/2009

In the funding bill for the Homeland Security Department that it passed on Thursday, the House restricted more than half of the nearly $83 million budget for a massive data center until DHS develops ways ensure there is enough power to sustain operations.

The fiscal 2010 Homeland Security appropriations bill requires the department to spend $38.5 million to upgrade the power capabilities at the National Center for Critical Information Processing and Storage, known as Data Center One and based at NASA's Stennis Space Center, near the Gulf Coast in Mississippi. Homeland Security cannot spend the remaining $45 million on building out the data center, which will provide information processing for the entire department, until DHS officials can make certain the data center has enough power and uses green technologies to reduce demand.

"None of the funds provided . . . shall be used for data center development other than for Data Center One until the chief information officer certifies that Data Center One is fully utilized as the department's primary data storage center at the highest capacity throughout the fiscal year," according to the conference report that accompanies the bill.

The Senate has yet to vote on the conference appropriations bill.

The Navy is acting as a co-contractor and program manager for the data center, which will create unusually high demands on the electrical power supply for the facility. "One of the challenges of the [Stennis data center] is the amount of power coming into the facility combined with the amount of power coming into the Navy base," said Pat Schambach, general manager of homeland security programs at Computer Sciences Corp., the prime contractor that operates Data Center One for DHS. "The facilities were never designed to have the power that data centers require."

In July 2008, DHS awarded a $390 million contract to CSC to operate the center and the contractor officially took over operation three months later.

Data Center One is partially filled, with five of the department's 24 data centers having been migrated to Stennis. The appropriations bill requires DHS to figure out how to improve power efficiency before it migrates any other data centers.

"As it gets more filled, the power requirement will climb," Schambach said. "Someone on the Hill is smartly trying to say, 'Let's not have the lack of power at the building be a roadblock to getting more capacity into that building.' The recommendations are exactly what needs to be done, [and] as a former CIO [at the Transportation Security Administration] and as a taxpayer, I'm happy with that direction."

DHS will spend the $38.5 million appropriated for the power upgrades in four phases on electrical service and equipment, generators and chilling mechanisms, and information technology, according to FedSources, a consulting firm based in McLean, Va.

The department also is considering strategies to better leverage power, including cloud computing, which would allow e-mail, collaboration and content management software, and other applications to be offered as a service departmentwide.

"The idea is to not only fill up the data center, but to do it in a smart way by leveraging the gear as much as we can to control demand," Schambach said. "The $38 million is to make sure there's enough power supply coming in, and we're trying to help DHS use that power smartly."

Schambach credits Richard Spires, recently appointed as Homeland Security CIO, for supporting such enterprisewide initiatives. "The question is, what are his priorities and is the whole data center strategy part of what he wants to push?" he asked. "So far his answer has been yes."

Electronic Data Systems, which Hewlett-Packard purchased last year, owns and manages a second data center for DHS that mirrors the one at Stennis. Data Center Two, as it's called, "has all the power it needs," Schambach said, with two power supplies coming into the facility from two providers, as well as a power plant across a river that acts as a third source.

The ultimate goal for DHS is to consolidate all 24 data centers into the two locations by 2013.

"As we build out, we have to ensure that the building itself has the power requirements, the rack space, the proper servers," said DHS spokesman Larry Orluskie. "This is a gradual process."

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2009-10-12T12:06:00.004-10:00

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