AMD buys SeaMicro, SeaMicro CEO heads up AMD's GM of Data Center Server Solutions

SeaMicro has a press release that AMD has acquired SeaMicro.

AMD to Acquire SeaMicro: Accelerates Disruptive Server Strategy

— SeaMicro’s Low-Power, High-Bandwidth Microserver Solutions Set the Stage for AMD’s Disruptive Approach To Lead Fast-Growing Cloud Data Center Market

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Feb. 29, 2012 – AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire SeaMicro, a pioneer in energy-efficient, high-bandwidth microservers, for approximately $334 million, of which approximately $281 million will be paid in cash. Through the acquisition of SeaMicro, AMD will be accelerating its strategy to deliver disruptive server technology to its OEM customers serving Cloud-centric data centers. With SeaMicro’s fabric technology and system-level design capabilities, AMD will be uniquely positioned to offer industry-leading server building blocks tuned for the fastest-growing workloads such as dynamic web content, social networking, search and video.

It's kind of funny to think of AMD selling Intel processors, until 2nd half of 2012

AMD’s server technology combined with SeaMicro technology provides customers with a range of processor choices and platforms that can help significantly reduce data center complexity, cost and energy consumption while improving performance.  AMD plans to offer the first AMD Opteron™ processor-based solutions that combine AMD and SeaMicro technology in the second half of 2012.  The company remains firmly committed to its traditional server business, and will continue to focus and invest in this area.

“By acquiring SeaMicro, we are accelerating AMD’s transformation into an agile, disruptive innovator capable of staking a data center leadership position,” said Rory Read, president and CEO, AMD.  “SeaMicro is a pioneer in low-power server technology.  The unmatched combination of AMD’s processing capabilities, SeaMicro’s system and fabric technology, and our ambidextrous technology approach uniquely positions AMD with a compelling, differentiated position to attack the fastest growing segment of the server market.”

The SeaMicro of CEO has a new job.

“Cloud computing has brought a sea change to the data center -- dramatically altering the economics of compute by changing the workload and optimal characteristics of a server,” said Andrew Feldman, SeaMicro CEO, who will become general manager of AMD’s newly created Data Center Server Solutions business. “SeaMicro was founded to dramatically reduce the power consumed by servers, while increasing compute density and bandwidth.  By becoming a part of AMD, we will have access to new markets, resources, technology, and scale that will provide us with the opportunity to work tightly with our OEM partners as we fundamentally change the server market.”

Thinking about Big Data, here are 8 rules

Andreas Weigand has a blog post on Eight Rules of Big Data.

Start with the problem, not with the data
Share data to get data
Align interests of all parties
Make it trivially easy for people to contribute, connect, collaborate
Base the equation of your business on customer centric metrics
Decompose the business into its “atoms”
Let people do what people are good at, and computers what computers are good at
Thou shalt not blame technology for barriers of institutions and society

Here is video of Andreas presenting the Eight Rules at Walmart Labs.

Implementing a Green Data Center? Think about Changing your Habits

Greening the Data Center is not easy.  Contrary to what many think a green data center is not simply a low PUE, a certification like LEED, and other ways to say "look at me I have a Green Data Center."

A Green Data Center is not a binary thing of do this, and now you are green.  Drive a Prius used to be thought of being a Green thing.  Driving a Hybrid isn't a big deal any more.

What should you do?  Think about changing your habits?  Bad habits can accumulate a lot of waste.

Charles Duhigg has a new book on "The Power of Habit"

“Charles Duhigg masterfully combines cutting-edge research and captivating stories to reveal how habits shape our lives and how we can shape our habits. Once you read this book, you’ll never look at yourself, your organization, or your world quite the same way.”
Daniel H. Pink, author of #1 New York Times bestselling Drive and A Whole New Mind

Oops, Cloud Data Center to serve US Fed gov't opened in May 2011 closes

The media makes it seem like the cloud is everything, but when you look carefully, the cloud momentum isn't as big as some believe.  Want some proof? Harris Corporation is shutting down its cloud data center operations as it finds its federal customers want physical space.

‘Cloud’ Data Center Closes Because Federal Agencies Prefer Earth

• By Caleb Garling
• Email Author
• February 28, 2012 |
• 5:38 pm |
• Categories: Infrastructure as a Service

According to Harris, the government prefers to keep its data in-house. Photo: gregwest98/Flickr

Harris Corporation — an outfit that provides computing infrastructure for government agencies — is selling its super-secure data center in Harrisonburg, Virginia and leaving the “cloud computing” business, saying that both its government and commercial customers prefer hosting “mission-critical information” on their own premises rather than in the proverbial cloud.

...

“[The closure will] allow us to refocus our capital and efforts on the secure, cost-effective communications and IT solutions that our customers are demanding,” read a statement from Harris CEO William M. Brown.

Ericsson launches Data Center Service and OpenStack Solution

Ericsson has launched a Data Center Service leveraging its mobile network.

Ericsson launches Data Center Build and Optimization offering

February 26, 2012, 14:09 (CET) Download: 

• Ericsson enters the market for data centers, enables telecom operators to offer cloud services for their enterprise customers
• Operators ideally positioned to offer high quality, high security and high availability cloud services to enterprises
• With an optimized cloud strategy, a telco enterprise customer can lower its IT operating expenditure

Ericsson is reaching out its installed base.

Paolo Colella, Head of Consulting and Systems Integration at Ericsson, says: "Operators are ideally positioned to offer high quality, high security and high availability cloud services to enterprises. We bring telecom-grade thinking to the cloud space, focusing both on availability and security of the services, as well as cost and efficiency gains for enterprise customers. And, in addition, cloud services bring new business opportunities for the telecom operators.

And, they have joined the OpenStack initiative.

Ericsson joins OpenStack, demonstrates unique virtual data center manager

February 28, 2012, 10:00 (CET) Download: 

• Ericsson to demonstrate cloud-management solution based on OpenStack's open-source components
• Virtual data center manager supports multi-tenant distributed clouds and integrates elastic networking over wide area networks
• Automated deployment driven by a service-level agreement drastically reduces costs and time to market

As part of the recently announced Network-enabled Cloud concept, Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) has joined the OpenStack project, an open-source community dedicated to creating cloud software that has achieved strong industrial momentum. Ericsson will contribute to further developing OpenStack to support carrier-grade services and applications. OpenStack provides a flexible alternative cloud management solution that is based on open-source components.

If you didn't think Mobile and the Cloud had much to do with each other, Ericsson may change your mind.