DataCentersBlog

Following on from their work on this cloud computing survey a few months ago, Interxion have carried out some more research into how Britain uses the internet compared to the rest of Europe.  They have published the results in the form of an infographic here which visualises the results nicely.

Some of the key interesting points are that despite British consumers leading the way in terms of buying online, British businesses are lagging behind the rest of Europe in terms of selling their services online.

Another surprising statistic is the growth of British broadband which has made big strides forward in terms of the overall speed of connections.  It has been a target for the UK government to move towards faster internet for everyone and private companies such as Virgin Media are putting big resources into speeding up their network.

You may have seen our blog post last year from Interxion on What the Cloud Looks Like which gave us a peek into their London data centre.  They have also carried out a survey amongst European businesses to find out what their opinions and intentions are in relation to cloud computing.

The Interxion Cloud Insight Survey results are visualised in the graphic below.  With cloud being such a hot topic right now, it is interesting to get some insight into what businesses really think about it.  We all hear lots about the benefits of the cloud, but how much do businesses actually care and what are they planning to do about it?

Interestingly, quite a few of the large businesses surveyed (71%) did see cloud as a priority.  The figure was slightly lower for medium and small businesses, 67% and 68% respectively.  The survey also showed that the main security concern was preventing data loss, which can obviously be understood.

In terms of commonly used applications, email, calendars, backup and recovery were listed amongst the most popular.  Given the growth of mobile applications and syncing across multiple devices, this isn’t really surprising as email and calendars are often needed on the move.

Take a look at the rest of the results and feel free to comment and let us know what you think of the results.

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What Does the Cloud Look Like?

Ever wondered what “the cloud” really looks like?  It can conjure up all sorts of images, but now Interxion, a European provider of data centre services, have released a gallery of photos which give us a peak inside their facilities.

Security

Normally, these images are behind levels of security that rivals some of the world’s most secure buildings.  We can’t reveal all security measures, but they include things such as 24/7 security guards, biometric scanning and advanced CCTV equipment.  Probably most  interesting of all though are the mantraps that will greet you as you enter an Interxion data centre:

The images released by Interxion demonstrate various aspects of the infrastructure of a high-availability data centre.  These aspects include security which we have already shown above, as well as cooling, power and connectivity.  Below we have shown some images from Interxion on each of these aspects.

Cooling

Here we have cooling fans on the roof of the Interxion data centre in the heart of London.

Note the proximity to the City of London and the financial district.  This close proximity means a much faster service for Interxion’s finance customers, these customers are doing financial trading where a split second delay can make the difference between a profit and a loss.

In comparison, the next image shows the cooling units on the roof of the Interxion facility in the Netherlands:

With the amount of power and heat generated by the data centre, cooling is a vital part of the successful running of the centre.  Without it, the countless pieces of equipment inside the data centre would simply overheat.

Power

It goes without saying, power is incredibly  important to a data centre.  The amount of power required to run a data centre is hard to comprehend.  The importance of power can be demonstrated by just looking at the backup resources which are put in place. Here is an image of a typical backup diesel generator:

Connectivity

As with power, connectivity is paramount to a data centre, whether it be external connectivity provided by the carrier community or internal cross connects between  customers within the data centre .

The combination of these four aspects allow Interxion to provide data centre services across a range of Hubs including financial, digital media, gaming and cloud.

The PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) is a fundamental and traditional metric for calculating how much additional power a Data Center needs, to effectively operate the IT equipment. The greater the figure the higher is the energy consumption. A similar metric is the CUE (Carbon Usage Effectiveness), as it calculates how much carbon is emitted from the Servers and the peripherals. Again, the higher the metric the higher impact to the environment. Furthermore, as the new regulation for Carbon emissions arrives, then it will be very difficult to emit more than it is allowed.

But these metrics start and arrive to the same point, which is the electrical energy and efficiency. If you decide to adopt a Green Strategy, then your task is very easy, as you invest much money and your systems have a smaller energy consumption, thus lower power and carbons emissions. It is like the energy bulbs we select in our home, we invest on a double valued appliance to benefit long term from the lower consumption. in this case, although we reduced the energy consumption, we did not reduce the room’s space.

In IT Infrastructure, the power consumption is critical but the space usage effectiveness is also very important, as many operators calculate the spaces’ costs, since they are not the same all over the world. How much it costs a square meter in London? And, how much in Dublin? And how many Servers can we deploy with High Density Racks and Virtualization and how many with Low Density Racks and without Virtualization?

In this sense, prior to any investment we should calculate not only the PUE or CUE but also the SUE, Space Usage Effectiveness as it will signify how many IT resources we could deploy in a significant area. It is like the home’s bulbs example, similarly you can exchange the chiller or a legendary UPS with a free cooling type or a Modular Type High Efficiency UPS, you can Virtualize your servers and reduce the consumption but you cannot minimise or extend you White Space area.

The Cloud Computing is actually a new Trend which invaded in the IT industry. According to Businesscloudnews 138m employees will adopt Cloud Computing until the end of this year. The figures are really amazing as we are discussing for a booming industry in an already mature environment. Indeed the pros are more than the cons, as the Cloud Computing creating a new era for the IT Industry. However, it creates some questions for the future.

The major issue for the Cloud Computing is the security and the availability. Do you feel confident that your data will not be hacked and distributed worldwide? The last Amazon or Dropbox Case Studies, answer NO. So, are the systems vulnerable to any cyber attacks? Or, put it on another way, can the Cloud providers assure that our data are secure?

And what happens with the availability? A few months ago Skype shut down for some hours letting the subscribers without Services. Could we imagine if this was happened to a Cloud Services Provider? What it will be the impact if in the place of Skype was a Bank or a Stocks broker? Or a hospital?

So, the Cloud is really a tool which will help to us to go beyond and be more productive and effective, however it will be used in a proper way in order to avoid transforming it to a Thunderstorm.

Every Datacenter use a basic setup of UPSs and Generators for Back Up support in case the grid fails. Conceptually, every single UPS – no matter the manufacturer – is utilising a Battery as the backup source for feeding the UPSs. The battery transforms their chemical energy to electrical energy to the UPSs.

But, is this technique still effective? And, what is a Flywheel system and which are its principal trade-offs to Batteries systems?

The Flywheel is a mechanical charged system which releases for a short time its energy to a UPS, when the grid fails.

Indeed, the flywheel technique is not a much more newer technology than the Batteries. Many applications are using the flywheel technique for supporting critical facilities. For example, many Military Radars are using the flywheels to cover grid’s fluctuations and anomalies. Conversely, the traditional Datacenters are utilising UPSs with Batteries

But, which are the Trade-offs of these systems?

The Batteries’ replacement happens ever 3-5 years compared to 10-15 years of a flywheel.

The Batteries require an air-conditioning system , for regulating the temperature, thus higher energy consumption however the flywheels can survive in hard ambient conditions.

The Batteries demand a bigger footprint and a more robust building infrastructure as they have bigger frame and are heavier than the flywheels.

The Batteries requires less maintenance as most of them are maintenance free, however the flywheels require mechanical maintenance to support their functionality.

The Flywheels have a higher MTBF factor contrary to the Batteries.

The Batteries can provide higher runtime to Flywheels.

The Batteries require a charger causing a higher consumption and an additional point of a possible failure.

The Batteries are less reliable as they are utilising the Christmas Tree’s Lamps technique, if the one fails then the whole row is dead, and in most of the cases the user is not aware.

These are the Tradeoffs that every CIO should consider, before make the final selection.

In general terms, the Batteries is the most straight forward approach, however we see that more and more new Datacenters are selecting Flywheels as they reduce their costs and increase their reliability.

The Software giant Microsoft decided to buy the VoIP and Mobile VoIP operator Skype for $8.5 billion. The specific decision creates a new era in the VoIP industry and will significantly boost changes. Microsoft is entering in the area of Telecommunications, a new area in which Sprint and Google Voice has already created a Strategic Alliance. As it seems, the VoIP and Mobile Services will be again a new battlefield for both Giants, Microsoft and Google.

But something similar will also happen in Enterprise Video Communication. Microsoft will utilize Skype, to provide Enterprise Teleconference Services through Microsoft Outlook. But how Cisco will see such a movement, as they invested much on this area?

The Skype will definitely be integrated in the Windows CE mobiles and the Gaming console XBox, to deliver Voice services. But Facebook is already planning something similar, specifically voice transmission through it’s network. Furthermore, some rumors describe that the voice communication will be also extended in the online games, running through Facebook.

After several years, Microsoft strategically decided to diversify itself and acquire Skype. In general terms, the decision looks reasonable as some investors believe that the company’s positioning was stagnant and it was needed immediately a diversification to differentiate. However, the specific decision hides some dangers, as it seems that everybody will be against Microsoft. Everybody will be against the giant, as it will not be anymore a partner for Software but a competitor for Services.

Today Hewlett-Packard accidentally announced more details of its cloud computing plans today when an exec updated his LinkedIn profile. Specifically, Hewlett-Packard CEO Leo Apotheker announced that HP is making a penetration into cloud computing by not giving much of details. Today Scott McClellan , the VP of cloud services, posted it in his LinkedIn profile a couple of details on exactly what HP is cooking.

Here’s what HP is building. “Object storage” service “built from scratch.” HP “compute,” “networking” and “block storage” services. Shared services for nuts-and-bolts functions like user authentication and authorization, billing and metering, and analytics. A developer experience that will include Java and Ruby, as well as “other open-source languages.”

The official announcement say that McClellan published it before not having a chance to pull it back. But actually who believes it? The Cloud Services VP of a conglomerate like HP cannot accidentally announces such critical information, especially through Social media. Everything was made on purpose.

But, what HP is actually doing? Do they measure the influence of Linkedin?

Or is it a just new trend for distributing Industry news?

The history will show us…

As the trend for Green IT is incrementally increasing and for  ”Energy Efficient Data Center”, who is actual aware for the EU Code of Conduct for the Data Centers?

The paper is attached and further information can be found in the below mentioned link.

Best Practices v2.0.0 – Release

http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/energyefficiency/html/standby_initiative_data_centers.htm