Issue 4, June 2009


FOCUS NEWS TECHNOLOGY


VMware announced vSphere 4, a data center operating system for building internal cloud systems with the promise of holistic management of large pools of processors, storage and networking equipment.


EMC’s high-end storage virtualisation assault takes shape. Beta tested by European bank EMC, the firm’s Virtual Matrix Architecture is a data storage architecture that will support virtual data centers and a high-end Symmetrix array.


Brocade launched an Energy Efficiency Review service to provide a picture of the data center from energy use, cooling capacity, air distribution and ancillary environmental factors, and how they will impact operational costs and reliable service.


Thermal solution provider Aavid Thermalloy announced a new data center cooling service to aid data center operators seeking to maximise computing capacity and reduce energy costs associated with cooling.


Raritan and EDSA Micro Corporation combined their data center power analytics products to calculate and present energy efficiency ratings based on the new Advanced Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric (formerly called Level 3).


NYSE Euronext will implement a 100Gbps network to connect its New York and London data centers, which are due to come online next year. The exchange signed a deal with Ciena Corporation to provide the network.


Hitachi Data Systems launched a range of software products to help find and manage server, network and storage assets in the data center. The firm is due to ship IT Operations Analyser, Virtual Server Reporter and the Storage Command Portal.


APC redesigned its Netbotz security and monitoring product. The system now integrates with Schneider Electric’s Pelco IP Cameras, and improved camera and cabling support and power over Ethernet support.


GOOGLE LANDS PATENT APPLICATION FOR OCEAN-FLOATING DATA CENTER


Search giant Google submitted an application for a floating facility that would use sea water for cooling and wave motion – or tidal energy – for power. The company said: “In one implementation, there would be a system that comprises a floating platform-mounted computer data center containing numerous computing units, a sea-powered electrical generator and electrical connection with the computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the computing units.


“The computing units would


Intel announced the launch of its Data Center Manager, a software development kit that helps monitor and manage data center power consumption. “This tool offers custom flexibility and real-time control to empower IT administrators to increase rack density, appropriately manage power and cooling infrastructure, and ultimately conserve energy and reduce costs,” the company said. Features include a built-in policy-based intelligent heuristics engine to maintain group power capping, while dynamically adapting to changing server loads and minimising performance impact of workloads using Intel Intelligent Power Node Manager.


FURTHER READING


See page 20 for Intel’s biggest product announcement of the year to date


IBM’s dynamic infrastructure announcement included a prescriptive Energy Management Adoption Model covering IT, facilities/property and other business assets. A four-stage adoption strategy covers discovery, management, optimisation and reporting.


Sun announced its rack- based cooling door systems as part of a raft of blade server and other hardware product announcements. The company said the cooling system, previously known as Project Glacier, offered six times more


be mounted in crane-removable modules.


“The sea-powered electrical generator would be driven by a wave-powered system, and would include several motion- powered machines arranged in a grid and wired together. “The wave-powered electrical generator system may likewise comprise one or more Pelamis machines.”


FURTHER READING


Back on land, two of the company’s senior engineers have written a book describing large-scale data center systems. See review, page 54


efficient rack cooling than standard data center cooling systems, and would cut energy consumption and increase compute density by up to 70% over in-row cooling options.


HP launched Bladesystem Matrix, a converged software, server, storage and networking platform, that “automates service delivery for the data center”. The firm claims the unified system uses one-third less energy through HP Thermal Logic Tech nology and historical power usage capture, with customers able to reclaim up to 50% of previously overprovisioned data center circuit capacity.


NetApp and Cisco are combining the former’s Unified Storage Architecture with Cisco’s recently announced Unified Computing System. Through Cisco Validated Design, NetApp will provide storage solutions for the Cisco Unified Computing System that will be tested for interoperability in virtualised data center environments.


Cisco and NetApp will also collaborate on marketing efforts, such as the multi-city Virtualised Dynamic Data Center Roadshow with VMware and other integration partners.


Acumen Solutions has teamed with KTA Group to offer a data center energy audit which it says comes with a savings guarantee.


All at sea, but not yet


The audit is an evaluation of facilities, electrical, heating and cooling, as well as an assessment of the equipment, network and the applications that run across them to show how to cut power use or grow within existing space and energy constraints. The firms cited a study by


Lawrence Berkeley National Lab entitled Self Benchmarking Guide for Data Center Energy Performance, which revealed that in a typical data center installation, an average of 33% of the total power goes to IT equipment. The rest is consumed by cooling (50%), the power system (9%), and lighting (8%).


Raritan is shipping two enterprise-class KVM over IP switches that support eight concurrent remote users and offers new productivity features. The Dominion KX2-864 and KX2-832 switches enable eight remote and two local users to access up to 64 and 32 servers, respectively.


Avocent released MergePoint Unity, a switching appliance for KVM over IP. The platform helps IT administrators manage remote equipment racks in data centers through a single appliance and interface.


Streamlined management of devices in data center racks, including servers, storage, networking and serial appliances, cuts the need for in-person management.


www.datacenterdynamics.com 13


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