What with the EPA’s recent release of their Energy Star certification for data centers, it seems like a good time to keep regularizing the industry, so the Uptime Institute’s standard for Operational Sustainability is very aptly timed.
The Institute’s Tier system has long been influential where enterprise data centers are concerned, and releasing new standards and continuing to call facilities to task is definitely helpful. Operational Sustainability mostly refers to performance in the three areas of management and operations, building characteristics, and site location.
Usually the word “sustainability” brings an environmental connotation, but that’s not the point of this new standard. It’s more to do with redundancy and maintaining the ongoing sharpness of a facility’s standards. Of course the Institute’s own site will have more, but those three categories are pretty much what you would expect - management and operations is exactly what it sounds like, likewise with building characteristics, and site location is mostly related to natural disasters. It looks like they’re leaving environmental concerns to the EPA, which seems very rational.
The three categories are prioritized in the order I’ve listed them, and weighted according to abnormal incident reports which the Institute has catalogued. An example of the weighting: these “AIRs” show that 70% of outages the Institute hears about are because a person somewhere screwed something up, which falls under management and operations - hence its #1 status on the list of elements making up the new standard.
See Data Center Knowledge’s article or ZDnet’s for more. Reliability and standardization between facilities is a noble goal, and it’s encouraging to see it becoming more of a reality lately.
As long as I’ve had an iPhone, I’ve been complaining about its service. So has almost everyone else I know who has one, except perhaps a couple brainwashed employees and otherwise fanatical individuals. Lately on a data center migration trip on the East Coast, some of us Silverback employees have had even more cause to complain than ever as we move from county to county and lose service what seems like every few miles.
It’s an amazing piece of technology, no question about it... I can work from anywhere, be addicted to facebook comfortably from my commute to class (or in class, shhh), and the mail and texting interfaces are great. Plus apps. Overall, I love my iPhone to bits, but the calling part is horrible. I’ve never liked phone calls, but trying to make a call from an iPhone is a special kind of torture. I feel like this article sheds a little light on why. Turns out, according to Apple, they’ve been using a completely ineffective formula to calculate the amount of bars to accurately represent signal strength. There are some confusing parts to this newsflash, though. I can’t say I completely see how it relates to the grip problem on the iPhone 4, and I’m not sure what it means exactly for AT&T. AT&T is consistently annoying to deal with, and I’m more inclined to blame them for having horrible service nearly everywhere than I am to blame Apple for miscalculating that foul service. Apparently AT&T is working on upgrading its network capacity, and hopefully that will help, because as things are I’m just yearning for the day someone else supports the iPhone.
Elizabeth English
Photo by Yutaka Tsutano under flickr creative commons license
Let's open with a question: what are readers' opinions on data center consolidation? Obviously it makes a lot of sense, but how about the drive for it lately? What are some of the key challenges that come up, and also reasons that it's worth the effort?
In any case the federal government is getting in on the push for consolidation of data center facilities, and as with anything the government does (and rightly so), it's causing controversy. It sounds like government workers have doubts about the time frame involved, and like there's a lot of concern over consolidation resulting in jobs getting cut. That's an important point, too - sure it's great for technology to advance, but how do we justify the jobs that are cut? Ideas, anyone?
This article from MCP Magazine online is what inspired some of my concerns and it offers some interesting statistics. Check it out and let us know what you think about consolidation in the climate of today's data center industry and the way the current economy affects the situation.
Iceland's future as a location for data centers is a topic I've addressed before, just after their volcanic disaster. At that time it was concerning because the threat of natural disaster looked like it might eclipse the ways Iceland is appealing as a data center hotspot. As it turns out though, they are recovering completely and getting a lot of attention in the industry.
This article from Earth2tech covers the latest on Iceland's data center prospects - apparently the attitude towards it has reached the point that it's being called a gold rush mentality. Here at Silverback we've been interested in Icelandic facilities because of the amazingly clean energy available there. They offer completely green energy at extremely reasonable prices.
Another important factor in choosing Iceland is its location between the US and Europe - companies operating on both continents can enjoy a convenient and affordable location between the two. All in all it looks like the country is recovering admirably from its volcanic disaster and making important steps towards overcoming its economic crisis... so now really is a great time to get in on space there.
-Elizabeth English
Photo by helgabj under flickr creative commons license
This article from TMCnet.com caught my attention today - Connecticut is headlining the movement towards what are called "green-collar jobs." Apparently these jobs can be blue or white collar, but the point is that they're in fields which are concerned with the environment and environmental protection.
Connecticut has just signed a bill to further higher education in these fields. They even have a Green Collar Job Council. With sites like greencollarjobs.org, the green collar concept is becoming more and more widely accessible, as well as thanks to the tens of millions of dollars available to further green technology from President Obama's Consolidated Appropriations Act.
Connecticut is a great place for data centers, too. Their focus on green energy and jobs and lack of too many serious natural disasters makes them a great choice for data center construction, colocation, etc.
Having lived on the west coast for so long, I'd like to go and check out what it's like to have real seasons...
-Elizabeth English
photo by peasap under flickr creative commons license
Data Center Blog - Data Center Migration Experts
seems like a good time to keep regularizing the industry, so the Uptime Institute’s standard for Operational Sustainability is very aptly timed.
In any case the federal government is getting in on the push for consolidation of data center facilities, and as with anything the government does (and rightly so), it's causing controversy. It sounds like government workers have doubts about the time frame involved, and like there's a lot of concern over consolidation resulting in jobs getting cut. That's an important point, too - sure it's great for technology to advance, but how do we justify the jobs that are cut? Ideas, anyone?
Iceland's future as a location for data centers is a topic I've addressed before, just after their volcanic disaster. At that time it was concerning because the threat of natural disaster looked like it might eclipse the ways Iceland is appealing as a data center hotspot. As it turns out though, they are recovering completely and getting a lot of attention in the industry.
