Amazon lures Data Center Architect from the Mouse (Disney)

The data center community is small and news travels fast.  One of the moves that became official through LinkedIn is Bill Hunter leaving the Mouse (Disney) for Amazon.

Bill Hunter Moving on. Last day at Disney. Starting at Amazon 2/1/2012. New opportunity! Thanks to all the fantastic people at Walt Disney who made the past 5 years great!

Bill is based out of Seattle so he doesn't have to move, but he will be on the road more than ever.

I expect to be traveling more, and
Globally. Should know more after this week.

Now that Bill has joined amazon he will be less visible, but i am sure the vendor community will be pummeling him with e-mails looking to take him to lunch, dinner, drinks, maybe a party in LV.

Amazon made a good hire and there is a more consistent need for data center capacity than the Mouse.  Especially in emerging markets.

Will Seamicro win the battle to obsolete the dual proc server? 64 Xeon processors in latest Server

I've been writing on the topic of little green servers for a while and discussed the idea of Intel Atoms and ARM processors in servers years ago.

SeaMicro announced its latest servers using the Intel Xeon E3-1260L which now supports a higher compute and memory capacity per core.  The press announcement had SeaMicro, Intel,and Samsung discussing the announcement.

SeaMicro Extends the Benefits of Micro Servers to All Segments of the Scale Out Data Center Market in Collaboration with Intel and Samsung Semiconductor

SAN FRANCISCO, January 31, 2012  – SeaMicro™, in cooperation with Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) and Samsung Semiconductor, Inc., today announced the widespread availability of the first fabric-based Intel® Xeon® micro server, the SeaMicro SM10000-XE™. The addition of the quad-core Intel® Xeon®-based SM10000-XE to the SM10000™ family makes SeaMicro the first and only company able to bring the massive benefits of micro servers to all segments of the scale out data center market.

But, if you have 64 Xeon's in a box is this really a micro server?  To give you a different perspective let's look at the back of the latest SeaMicro server.

Up to 16 10Gbe connections, above is 8 10Gbe and 24 1Gbe.  This is not good for some one who lives on the quantity and complexity of network ports.

If you have high costs for rack and stack, network support, then a SeaMicro box becomes more appealing.

"We are a trusted partner in the US intelligence community,” said Chad Wagner, president of CompSec.  “We have worked with our customers to deploy both SeaMicro’s Atom™-based and Xeon®-based systems.  The exceptional compute density and low power draw have made them the right choice for mission critical applications.  Our intelligence community customers have also found success using SeaMicro’s Freedom Supercompute Fabric to deliver huge amounts of compute power to remote and hard-to-access locations.  This greatly reduces response times, provides faster and more in-depth analysis, and helps to advance their mission.”

Facebook Data Center Construction work in progress, Lulea Sweden

Here are a few videos on Facebook's data center construction project.

The following is an overview of the project.

This one shows construction work in progress that is of more interest to the data center insiders.  The design looks like a repeat of the Prineville build.

Spotting the Lies in the Data Center, Liespotting ideas

If you said you were trying to find the lies in the data center to make it greener, people will think you are strange.  If you asked someone to spot the lies in the data center, most would say we have a high availability with security systems that prevent thieves.  But, what few think about is lying is ingrained in human behavior.  How so, consider this post on workplace deception.

5 Surprising Truths About Workplace Deception

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“Honesty is the best policy.” Sounds so old-fashioned, doesn’t it?

In today’s workplace, honesty isn’t always the first choice for business conduct. Fudging the truth is awfully tempting, no matter where you sit in the chain of command. From cooking the books to fibbing on resumes to having a co-worker “punch out” for you, there are a thousand ways people engage in deception at work.

Here are the top five lies in the workplace.

• 1. More than 80% of college undergraduates will lie in an attempt to get a job.
• 2. You will be lied to on the first day of your new job—within the first 10 minutes!
  
• 3 Phone calls are nearly 3x as likely to contain lies as emails.
  
• 4. People are significantly more likely to lie to coworkers than to strangers.
  
• 5. When the stakes are high, a negotiator will almost always lie if given the opportunity.
  

Interest in Google Data Center goes from Wired -> Gizmodo and Slashgear

I wrote about Wired picking up on Google's Hamina Data Center.

Today I saw two other publications that reference the Wired post.

Google's New Data Center Is An Abandoned Paper Mill In Finland

Gizmodo Australia - ‎8 minutes ago‎

I don't know what it is about new data centres, but they all seem to resemble the evil lairs of Bond-movie villains. Google's latest, based in a disused paper mill in Finland, is no exception. According to Wired, Google acquired the site for $US52 ...

Google's recycled paper mill datacenter uses seawater for green cooling

SlashGear - ‎2 hours ago‎

We all know that Google is big on green. The company has huge investments in solar power, wind power, and more green sources of renewable energy. This green push isn't something new at Google; it's been going on for years.

You can argue with the accuracy or newsworthiness of these posts from your data center expertise, but keep in mind for the data center curious articles like these new to them and the facts.