“If we are not prepared to immediately meet client demands for server space, then we are not staying committed to our mission of providing the highest level of customer service,” stated Albert Ahdoot, Colocation America’s Business Development Director. “By making it incredibly easy for businesses to colocate or get a dedicated server with us, we can put our effort into staying on top of the latest data center technological developments.”

Even though their major data center is located in L.A, Colocation America has data centers in other major cities such as Chicago, San Francisco, New Jersey and New York. All its data centers maintain the highest standards, including PCI, HIPAA, and SSAE 16 compliancy guidelines. Each of these data centers provides wide range of connectivity and collocation options beginning at $75 per month. According to Ahdoot, “Being able to offer full scalability

The new data center, located in Lewisville, Texas, is a Tier 4 designated facility which is the highest level a data center can achieve according to standards set forth by the Telecommunications Infrastructure Standards for Data Centers. The facility will be capable of hosting mission critical computer systems, telecommunications gear, and storage environments with fully redundant subsystems and compartmentalized security zones, monitored by biometric access control methods. It is projected to be operational in the third quarter of this year.

Plans to deliver Connectria’s expanding cloud computing solutions and to provide additional disaster recovery option to its clients are of primary importance. Over the year, the center is expected to accommodate the full range of Connectria’s services. Improved connectivity and proximity for international markets, including South America is another feature of the new data center. Connectria currently has two data centers in St. Louis and one in Philadelphia. The company recently unveiled the availability of its IBM AIX cloud with services that will cost around $1,245 per month which customers will be able to purchase as per requirement.

“We realize that cloud computing is not limited to Windows and Linux alone,” said Connectria president and CEO, Rich Waidman. “Connectria’s commitment to provide reliable cloud hosting solutions for a wide range of customers and environments, including IBM i, IBM AIX, and Oracle/Sun Solaris sets us apart from the crowd.”

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Large firms are assessing ways to be more environmental friendly as a fine PR gesture. Certainly, even the rising substantiation of global climate change has not stimulated a lot of governmental or business organizations to take remarkable measures to diminish carbon dioxide emissions. By cutting down energy utilization and using substitute energy sources businesses can improve cost efficiency. Data center operators are currently everywhere. They are now leaning towards space, power, and cooling crunch that using “Green” technology which can help them to assuage.

The problem is that data center operators are finding themselves in a space, power, and cooling crunch which is a result of years of constructing and setting up applications without considering the power consumption. Data centers are burdened with an inheritance of outdated applications that were deployed with one function per server or one function spread across a whole intact service cluster of servers. These servers are outdated and generate a reduced amount of performance per watt than present day servers. Applications have classically been deployed in silos, with the server technology of the day deployed within silos, servers sized for the utmost conceivable workload, and negative reserve sharing between application silos. On top of all this, power requirements are beyond data center design criteria, designs that were expected to last for as long as 20 years. Data centers were once built to hold up to 40-70watts of energy use per square foot costing roughly around USD $400 per square foot to build that included power and cooling infrastructure. Nowadays, requirements sum up to 500 watts per square foot, with building costs close to $6,000 per square foot. Every watt that is used requires more or less the same number of watts to get rid of the heat that is generated.  When data center goes on battery power, and when air-conditioning is out, where it once took 15 minutes for the temperature to rise 25 degrees, it now takes less than a minute for the present day servers.

There are number of ways to solving data center power and cooling crunch:

• Putting away aging data center equipment with up-to-date, more potent and energy-efficient servers and storage is a simple way to optimize power efficiency.
• Using virtualization to consolidate minor number of systems.
• Advancing power and cooling efficiency in every aspect of operations, from servers to the tool work area.
• Reconfiguring data center spaces with a modular, flexible, and competent plan that chains expansion and an ability to take the constant equipment turn over which distinguishes most data centers today.
• Arrange modern storage systems and tape libraries that can seize more data while consuming less power.
• Consolidating storage so it can be administered as a sole pool of resources.
• Installing competent spot cooling

To obtain the advantage from implementing power optimization strategies, it’s essential to reconfigure the already active data center spaces or create fresh ones. So, here are some of the ways to crack space problems in data center:

• Accessibility through a design that includes suitable use of tier levels.
• Capacity to support multiple tiers in a single data center
• A design that is flexible and adaptable, ready to align IT resources with altering business purposes
• A highly supportive cabling, power, and cooling infrastructure in the data center
• A design which can be used for the few generations of equipment, which are likely to have even-higher power, cooling, and cabling needs.
• Environmental awareness that identifies “going green” makes a company look good, mainly when it engages effortless methods like – using outside air for cooling, can save costs over the years.
• Smart observation that allows power utilization to be scrutinized at all level in the power allotment hierarchy, giving clarity into existing operational factor and the impact of other power saving steps.

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This expansion is the second such initiative by Terremark due to increasing customer demand in Brazil. This initiative comes as a part of Terremarks’s global strategy to make advanced IT solutions available through a network of nearly 50 strategically located data centers around the world. Through its data centers in Brazil, Terremark offers more than 90,000 square foot of collective raised data center floor space in Latin America.

“We have experienced outstanding success and growth in Latin America, which is a clear testament of our unique proposition and our commitment to help enterprises across every industry transform their business through the adoption of the Enterprise Cloud,” said Nelson Fonseca, President of Terremark. “Brazil represents a central IT hub in Latin America and further expanding our operations in Brazil is a vital step in growing our presence in this high-demand region.”

The facility in Brazil, known as ‘NAP do Brazil’, is home to one of the most important internet exchange points in Latin America with huge and diverse connectivity from the region’s largest carriers. The data center delivers a broad range of services from Terremark’s extensive IT solution portfolio which include varied cloud solutions, security and IT capabilities. These solutions are a vital part of the company’s expanded global network of nearly 50 data centers.

“Our goal is to provide growing local and multinational enterprises with a secure, highly available hosting environment for their mission-critical applications,” said Hugo Zanon, head of the operations in Brazil. “We have some of the highest security standards in place, including the ISO 27001 certification which validates our commitment to providing high availability and confidentiality of customer data.”

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Hot/ cold aisle is a plan design for server racks and other computing tools in a data center. They are a familiar consideration for data center architects, engineers, and end users. The idea was perhaps conceived by Robert Sullivan of the Uptime Institute. The design requires air conditioners, fans, and raised floors as a cooling infrastructure. It also necessitates on separation of the inlet cold air and the exhaust hot air.

In enclosures of cabinet space at the data center, heat is produced significantly. As heat increases within the cabinet space, the threat of overheating and damaging the equipment increases. To control such danger, hot/cold aisle is used. Hot/cold aisle is the most sought after concept promoted by thermal managers in recent times. The layout eliminates the direct transfer of hot exhaust air from one system into the intake air of another system in contemporary design. In this system, cold air is pumped directly into a cold aisle. This is supremely separated by curtains which prevents any progress of air into other parts of the data center. The air in the cold aisle is sucked by the fans in the tool on both sides of the aisle. This action is supported by  the equipment that is rightly positioned. Further, air is blown out of the equipment into the hot aisles on both sides of the cold aisles. The hot aisles are detached, which likely extent fire regulations and expediency permit. The air is then passed straight into the return plenum. Both hot-air and cold-air can improve the predictability and efficiency of traditional data center cooling systems.

Both cold/hot aisle approaches reduce the mixing of hot and cold air. However, there are practical dissimilarities in performance and operation that have major consequences on work environment conditions and economize hours. The preference of hot-aisle containment over cold-aisle containment can save up to 38% in annual cooling system energy cost, corresponding to a 13% reduction in annualized Power Usage Effectiveness.

Hot/cold have their advantages and disadvantages. Let us have a look at some of them.

Advantages:

1. Cooling is proficient – less air is pumped and hence, lower energy is cosumed saving on costs.
2. The average heat level of the computer room can be raised, which lowers energy costs even more (consistent temperature is important, not cold temperature)
3. Is self sufficient. It can pay for itself in weeks, if cooling ability in the data center is set up
4. Can be qualified for a utility reimbursement
5. The home coming air is hotter. This makes it easier to utilize outside air which is more competent and more hours/year. Hence, lessening energy costs

Disadvantages:-

1. The air blows tough on IT workers in the cold aisle –This can be chilly and cause discomfort for the workers.
2. It is much hotter in the hot aisle for IT employees
3. Changes are often opposed by IT workers, regarding fire regulators

For obvious, above mentioned reasons, it is important to have Aisle Containment. Containment systems began as physical barriers that merely separated the hot and cold aisles with vinyl plastic sheeting or Plexiglas covers. At present, vendors propose plenums and other commercial options that mingle containment by variable fan drives to avoid cold air and hot air from mixing. Curtains (Aisle Containment curtains) can be very useful in managing airflow in the data center. They are easy to configure and setup.

 There are a few finest practices for hot aisle/cold aisle containment. This includes:

• Hoisting the floor 1.5 feet so that air being pushed by air conditioning tool can pass through.
• Establishing automatic doors in the data center.
•  Installing soaring cubic feet per minute (CFM) rack grills which has output in the range of 600 CFM.
•  Positioning devices that have side or top exhausts in their own part of the data center.

There are three most valuable ways to reduce budget and save energy costs in the data center. They are:

1. Utilizing outside air for cooling purpose
2. Advancing air movement. Lastly,
3.  Virtualization

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“The Loudoun County Department of Economic Development and members of the planning, zoning, and building and development teams have worked very hard to bring this investment to Loudoun County,” said Loudoun County Department of Economic Development Assistant Director Buddy Rizer.

The data center is designed to meet the technical requirements of companies which are looking for the best in class data center solutions. With a capacity to accommodate up to ten 1.125 megawatt data center POD’s, the building also features airside economization that enables customers to achieve among the lowest PUEs in the industry.

“This project presents an exciting opportunity for us to offer customers in the Northern Virginia market our full suite of data center solutions in a state of the art facility designed for flexibility, reliability and efficiency,” said Dave Caron, Senior Vice President, Portfolio Management at Digital Realty. “From a highly customized build-to-suit data center to our move-in ready suites with dedicated, redundant power and cooling infrastructure, and Powered Base Building solutions, we believe that this facility will be able to accommodate a large majority of the data center requirements from customers seeking space in this highly strategic market.”

The building shell and core is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2012 followed by the first three 1.125 megawatt, purpose-built data centers, available in the second quarter of 2013.

“Our strategy is to have inventory readily available for customers in our top data center markets,” said Michael F. Foust, Chief Executive Officer for Digital Realty. “With our existing facilities nearly fully leased within the Ashburn campus, we expect the timely delivery of this new space a year from now to satisfy customers’ data center requirements for the foreseeable future.”

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Transients that occur from various grounds, normally reach peak levels of numerous hundred volts. These high volts can cause hardware to malfunction. The most horrible kind of transient takes place when lightning strikes in the surrounding area (not essential for a power line to be directly hit). This type of spike will be able to peak at thousands of volts and result in enduring damage to equipment.

A surge suppressor is used prevent the peak AC voltage from reaching higher than a certain threshold (plus-or-minus 200 volts). Semiconductor devices are used for this reason. Surge suppressors have to be used as a matter of custom with all semiconductor-based electronic and system hardware. Computer hardware including peripherals such as printers, Mouse, monitors, external hard drives, and modems. However the suppressor must not be relied upon to supply shield against lightning induced transients. All susceptible hardware must be plugged into the suppressor box. Whenever the equipment is left in thunderstorm-prone area, it must be unplugged from the suppressor’s main power cord when the equipment is not in use.

Surge suppression products are ideally installed at service entrances and larger distribution panels.  They limit the impact of both externally and internally produced high-voltage power spikes by fastening them to a suitable level. Despite the fact that they provide an immense first stage of protection from lower-level uproar surge, protection products do not guard susceptible equipment. It includes the low-voltage transients and noise. Surge suppression technology deals with those issues or trials that are far more ordinary than lightning strikes or other high-energy transients. Another reason why most data centers use power protection products is because they are an easy and cost effective way to safeguard electronic equipments from break down, downtime, or failure. Power filtering and surge protection products offer safety and sustained productivity for electronic processes. Protecting a facility with this parallel line is an outstanding first measure of security in bringing in uninterruptible power supply. It also limits the high impulse transients to a level that is suitable to most electronic equipment. These intense energy surge protection products are positioned in matching with panels that are inclined to both externally and internally engender transients. There are a wide range of surge suppressors that provide specific surge protection levels. They range from voltage or phase configurations, and any mode protection prerequisite at any panel within the facility the products are determined with.

Buying a surge protector is a complicated business because they are available in quite a number in the market. Research into a particular model is the best way to ensure good results regarding a purchase. It is important to understand what kind of a surge suppression the data center requires. This depends on the maximum voltage capacity the data center can handle. Although one can get an impression of a product’s performance level by checking for certain aspects but most importantly, the pricing!

As a rule of thumb, the least expensive ones may not be built to handle high voltage. This can result in unexpected disasters. However, high price doesn’t guarantee quality. To understand what the unit is capable of, it is important to check Underwriters Laboratories (UL) ratings. UL is an autonomous, not-for-profit concern that tests electric and electronic products for security. If a protector doesn’t have a UL listing, it’s probably an unreliable product; there’s a fairly good chance it doesn’t have any protection mechanism at all. Many UL-listed products are also of poorer quality of itinerary, but with the slightest certainty that they have some surge protection capabilities in comparison to the uncertified ones. It is essential ensure that the product is listed as a transient voltage surge suppressor. This means that it meets the standard for UL 1449, UL’s least performance standard for surge suppressors. There are a lot of power strips listed by UL that have no surge safety mechanism at all. They are listed only for their performance as extension cords. It’s only through thorough research one can be sure what surge suppression is good for the data center.

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However, when the traditional power distribution system was created, the data centers consisted of a small number of large IT devices which were hardly changed except during the scheduled stoppage of a major IT upgrade. The data centers in the present day have different characteristics that have challenged the traditional architecture, like:
• Constant addition of new power circuits due to the varying power requirements, without disturbing the nearby existing loads.
• With increase in per-rack power density, requirement for multiple branch circuits per cabinet is increased.
• There is no mechanism yet to monitor the circuit overloading above 50% in the commonly implemented dual power path systems.
• Data centers may contain thousands of plug-in devices with separate power cords, instead of a few large IT devices which require several more power receptacles.
• It is very difficult to determine impending overload conditions and to size branch circuits, when a large number of IT devices are connected to a branch circuit breaker

The characteristics of an ideal power distribution system would be:
• No under-floor cables
• Maintenance of capacity and redundancy on every circuit
• Addition or alteration of new circuits can be performed safely on a live system
• All circuits are monitored for power
• Should be able to deploy IT zones and associated power distribution over time
• Excess copper is not installed which is not necessary
• High Efficiency

In accordance with the varying needs of the modern data center, the power distribution systems have been evolving, and over time, various improvements have been introduced to these systems, a few notable ones being:
• Flexible power cords and overhead cable tray
• Less power distribution units of transformers
• Branch circuit metering for power
• High power and pluggable rack power distribution units
• Software for power capacity management

In order to suit a high density data center, the power distribution system should include all the above mentioned elements in its architecture.

The power distribution system has two steps: For larger data centers the main critical bus power from the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is distributed to IT rows using one or more overhead busways. The busways are installed initially which traverse the entire IT rack layout. When a group of racks is to be installed, a low-footprint modular PDU is installed at the same time and plugged

In place of the traditional circuit breaker panels possessing raw wire terminations, we have the modular PDU that contains a backplane into which pre-terminated shock-safe circuit breaker modules are installed. This varied arrangement results in elimination of on-site termination of wires, and also allows the face of the PDU to be much narrower.

There are no initial branch circuits installed in the modular PDU. The power connection from the PDU to the IT racks comprise of flexible cable which can be plugged into the front of the modular PDU onsite depending on requirement of each specific rack. The branch circuit cables to the IT enclosures are pre-terminated with breaker modules that plug into the shock-safe backplane of the modular PDU.

A few particular equipments like blade servers which require a dedicated branch circuit generally possess a single cable from the PDU carrying either one, two or three branch circuits which directly plugs into the blade server, without any additional rack PDU needed. In case of presence of mixed equipment in the rack, we have the rack PDUs which can provide receptacle and current ratings which are interchangeable.

We encounter situations where we have racks of very high density, or a small group of racks being isolated by shape of the room or other constraints, wherein one or more zones within the data center might require only a small number of branch circuits. In these cases, the full 24-branch circuit capability of the standard modular distribution system is not needed. To overcome this, the architecture includes a smaller version of the modular power distribution unit, which supports up to 6 branch circuits and consumes zero floor footprint are directly mounted into an IT rack. The status and energy monitoring capability of the larger floor unit in a 5U rack mount version is included in the PDU.

The circuits can be further simplified for smaller data centers of 200kW or below, where the modular PDU may be integrated directly with the UPS system into a compact arrangement that can be located in the IT room. The requirement for a main bus wiring and separate power room is eliminated in such a setup.

Constant monitoring of current and energy on every circuit in a power distribution system is required at all levels of hierarchy. Simple network management protocols (SNMP) are used for monitoring the system. Also there is Capacity management software which monitors every circuit in the system and enforces safety margins, identify available capacity and verify redundancy.

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 Mark Bilton-Smith, President of Rio Networks, points out, “Businesses located in the Umpqua Business Center who take advantage of Rio’s managed services will be able to focus their time and financial resources on developing the core value of their business rather than managing their technology”. Special financing will allow tenants to fore go the upfront capital investment commonly required to start-up a technology business. “This is truly a game-changing concept for Oregon start-up companies coming to the business incubator.” Continues Mark Bilton-Smith, “In a time when small business financing is difficult to receive, we are proud to offer a world-class facility and technology infrastructure that creates a competitive advantage for otherwise under-capitalized businesses.”

The data center is located below the Umpqua Business Center. We chose the location for the many benefits the “Cow Creek Tribe” can provide but also the low risk of natural disasters, such as earthquakes”, states Bilton-Smith. “Sitting between the two major cities of Portland and Medford offers close proximity to major business centers without the common threats.”

Rio Networks is native of Oregon and provides cloud services like phone, email, data and internet. It covers areas in Portland, Hillsboro, Oregon City, Woodburn, Salem, Albany, Corvallis, Eugene, Springfield, Redmond, Bend, La Pine, Roseburg, Grants Pass and Ashland. The company has a 96% customer satisfaction score within the business communities of Oregon.

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Over 2500 companies in Australia and New Zealand, including Rio Tinto and Xero, utilize the storage, and server and platform service offered by Rackspace. Customers from Australia hosting Rackspace are presently served from its data center in Hong Kong.

Chief operating officer Mark Roenigk said that Australian privacy legislation and Rackspace’s lack of an on-shore data center has directed its hosting business towards web hosting rather than ‘e-tailing’. “In some industries there’s data protection requirements by the government there, and some or a lot of that data needs to stay right within Australia,” said Roenigk. “So the businesses we’re doing with Australian customers today are typically things that can be outsourced that sit outside the proprietary information governance there in Australia.  Those customers are really pushing us to open up local operations in Australia. We’re going to do our best to support those Australian customers that want us to host our product in their own country. As you know, we have a sales office in Australia, and we will open a data center in Australia in the next 12 to 18 months.”

Rackspace Asia vice president Jim Fagan told iTnews in November last year that the company’s Australian expansion plans depend on the success of its private cloud implementation and support services.

Mark Roenigk is also a director on the board of the Facebook-initiated Open Compute Project (OPC) Foundation, which aims to design energy-efficient software, servers and data centers from the ground up.

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