If Silver Lake brokers Yahoo deal, don't you think there will be a data center deal for Silver Lake?

WSJ writes on Silver Lake brokering a purchase of Yahoo.

Private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners is working with one of its investors, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Microsoft Corp. to put together a proposal to buy Yahoo Inc., people familiar with the matter said.Under the proposal being discussed, Microsoft would put up several billion dollars of funding, with additional financing being arranged by banks, the people said. Silver Lake and the CPP Investment Board would kick in the rest of the amount, which would be less than what Microsoft contributes, the people said.

Now, if Silver Lake is smart which they are. Don't you think there is a good chance that there is a data center deal in there somewhere?

Another deal scenario being discussed by interested parties is a complex, multipart bid for Yahoo led by Alibaba, where the Chinese company gets back Yahoo's 40% stake and sells Yahoo's U.S. assets to private equity, according to people familiar with the matter. A transaction can be structured in a way that avoids heavy tax bills on a sale of assets, they added.

60 Minutes Steve Jobs Video, Biographer discusses 9 month delay for cancer operation

Early cancer detection is key to cure the disease.  My dad died of colon cancer caught too late that metastasized and spread to his liver.  My brother, sister and I all get colonoscopies every 5 years.

In this video Steve Jobs biographer discusses how pancreatic cancer was found in Steve Jobs and he refused for 9 month to be operated on.

Steve was a bit of health nut, but some health issues cannot be cured with diet, exercise, and meditation.  Steve wished the cancer would go away.

How many data center issues are too painful to deal with and people wish the problem would go away.  It seems foolish in hindsight that Steve Jobs didn't get the operation, but it is human nature to hope things get better without painful surgery.

Metrics drive behaviors some not intended, Example of CA HOV change for Hybrid Cars

PUE metric is simple and effective way for people to understand the power and cooling efficiency of their data center.  The more people discussing PUE, the lower the numbers go, the difference hopefully will decrease.  A strange example of a difference causing an unintended affect is in California's booting the "Prius Perk" from the HOV lanes.

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Loss Of California HOV-Lane 'Prius Perk' Slows All Traffic

By 

Published October 14, 2011

| High Gear Media

  • Massive Traffic Highway Transportation

    Reuters

Many California drivers silently cheered on July 1, when the yellow stickers on 85,000 hybrid cars expired--meaning their drivers were no longer allowed to travel solo in the carpool lane.

According to a new study released Monday at the University of California-Berkeley, though the loss of the single-occupant privilege that was cheered by other drivers may have made their own lives paradoxically worse.

The study is here.

We verify that slow speeds in a special-use lane, such as a carpool or bus lane, can be due to both high demand  for that lane and slow speeds in the adjacent regular-use lane.  These dual influences are confirmed from months of data collected from all freeway carpool facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Additional data indicate that  both influences hold not only for other types of special-use lanes, including bus lanes, but also for other parts of the world.

The findings do not bode well for a  new  US  regulation stipulating that most classes of LowEmitting Vehicles, or LEVs, are to vacate slow-moving carpool lanes.  These LEVs invariably constitute small percentages of traffic; e.g. they are only about 1% of the freeway traffic demand in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Yet, we show that relegating some or all of these vehicles to regular-use lanes can significantly add to regular-lane congestion, and that this, in turn, can also be damaging to vehicles that continue to use the carpool lanes.  Counterproductive outcomes of this kind are predicted first by applying kinematic wave analysis to a real Bay Area freeway.  The site stands to suffer less from the  regulationthan will others in the region. Yet,  we predict that the site’s people-hours and vehicle-hours traveled during the rush will each increase by  more than 10%, and that carpool-lane traffic will share  in  the damages.  Real data from the site support these predictions.  Further parametric analysis of a hypothetical, but more generic freeway system indicates that  these kinds of  negative outcomes will be widespread.  Constructive ways to amend the new regulation are discussed, as are promising strategies to increase the vehicle speeds in carpool lanes by improving the travel conditions in regular lanes.

Thinking differently about Asset Management, Data Centers, and User useful reporting

I just spent 2 days at International Association IT Asset Management conference.  The first 4 hours I was absorbing what the attendees were like and their roles.  Here is the breadth of range of the subjects presented in this PDF.

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But, after two days and lots of discussions I felt like this is a tactical approach addressing the short term issue which is important.  But, where is the bigger picture that resonates with the CxO and business unit owners.

An analogy could be FedEx tracking individual packages throughout the system as asset management's job. Where are all the packages and where are the records.  But this approach doesn't answer the business effectiveness of the system empowered by the assets.  To give you an idea watch this FedEx video on plane movement.  What is important from the CxO's perspective is did those planes execute as planned, what is the utilization of the plane, was it on time,  what were  the costs associated to run that plane, etc.

Asset Management is important, but it is only one piece of a bigger problem to run operations at its best.

I have figured out the equivalent to a plane load of assets to track, and so far people like the metaphor to report on data center operations.  Next week I am heading to NYC and 2 weeks after that to 7x24Exchange where I'll test the ideas more on how asset management can fit in an overall system.