17 3MW diesel generators are a new air pollution source, Vantage applies for 51 MW in Quincy WA

One of the things you need to do in the USA to build a data center is get an air permit from the state ecological department.  An example is the Vantage Data Center's new data center construction in Quincy, WA.  As part of the process there is a public hearing phase that describes the project.

NOTICE TO CONSTRUCT A NEW AIR POLLUTION SOURCE,

ANNOUNCEMENT OF PUBLIC HEARING, & SECOND TIER PETITION APPROVAL RECOMMENDATION

Comments accepted July 30 through September 10, 2012

The State of Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) has received application to construct a new air pollution source. Vantage Data Centers Management Company, LLC, 2625 Walsh Avenue, Santa Clara, CA 95051, has proposed to build Vantage Data Centers located at the northwest corner of the intersection of Road 11 NW and Road O NW, Quincy in Grant County. The mailing address for the Vantage Data Centers in Quincy is 2101 M Street, Quincy, WA 98848.

Vantage Data Centers will contain four main data center buildings once it is fully constructed, and will install and operate up to 17 diesel engines that will power 3.0 megawatt electrical generators for a total of 51 megawatts of emergency backup electrical power. Diesel engines generate criteria and toxic air contaminants which have been evaluated. Diesel engine exhaust particulate (DEEP) emissions were reviewed under a Second Tier Health Impact Assessment to evaluate health risks posed by the project. After review of the completed Notice of Construction application and other information on file with the agency, Ecology has decided that this project proposal will conform to all requirements as specified in Chapter 173-400 WAC. After review of the Second Tier Health Impact Assessment, Ecology concluded that impacts to the community due to the Vantage Data Centers will meet the protective requirements contained in Chapter 173-460 WAC.

Copies of the Notice of Construction Preliminary Determination, the Second Tier Petition Recommendation, and supporting application documents are available for public review at Department of Ecology, Eastern Regional Office, 4601 N. Monroe, Spokane, WA 99205-1295, and at the City of Quincy, 104 B Street SW, Quincy, WA 98848.

The public is invited to attend a public hearing that has been scheduled to start at 5:15 PM on September 6, 2012 in the upstairs meeting room at the Quincy City Hall located at 104 B Street SW in Quincy. The public hearing will include presentations followed by a question and answer session starting at 5:30 PM. Public comment will be taken starting promptly at 6:30 PM. In addition to public comments taken at the public hearing, the public is invited to comment on this project proposal prior to the public hearing. Comments accepted July 30 through

September 10, 2012. Submit comments to Beth Mort at Ecology's Spokane Office, 4601

N. Monroe, Spokane, WA 99205-1295, or email beth.mort@ecy.wa.gov, or 509 329-3502.

Oracle acquires Virtual Network Company Xsigo

It's tough being a network company.  Why?  Because VMware buys Ncira, and now Oracle buys Xsigo.

Oracle Buys Xsigo

Extends Oracle's Virtualization Capabilities with Leading Software-Defined Networking Technology for Cloud Environments

Redwood Shores, Calif. – July 30, 2012

News Facts

Oracle today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Xsigo Systems, a leading provider of network virtualization technology.
Xsigo’s software-defined networking technology simplifies cloud infrastructure and operations by allowing customers to dynamically and flexibly connect any server to any network and storage, resulting in increased asset utilization and application performance while reducing cost.
The company’s products have been deployed at hundreds of enterprise customers including British Telecom, eBay, Softbank and Verizon.
The combination of Xsigo for network virtualization and Oracle VM for server virtualization is expected to deliver a complete set of virtualization capabilities for cloud environments.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. More information on this announcement can be found at oracle.com/xsigo.

Supporting Quotes

"The proliferation of virtualized servers in the last few years has made the virtualization of the supporting network connections essential," said John Fowler, Oracle Executive Vice President of Systems. "With Xsigo, customers can reduce the complexity and simplify management of their clouds by delivering compute, storage and network resources that can be dynamically reallocated on-demand."
"Customers are focused on reducing costs and improving utilization of their network," said Lloyd Carney, Xsigo CEO. "Virtualization of these resources allows customers to scale compute and storage for their public and private clouds while matching network capacity as demand dictates."

By the way the press releases reads you would think VMware would be one  buying Xsigo and not Oracle.

Twitter outage couldn't have happened at a worse time, day before Olympics

People have gotten used to Twitter.  Depending on a service that is free leaves little recourse except to switch.

Out of the times Twitter could go down, the day before the 2012 summer olympics is probably one of the worse.

Twitter outage spreads around the globe

Social media site's second outage in 5 weeks

 
 
 
Associated Press

12:13 p.m. CDT, July 26, 2012

People across much of the planet were having problems accessing Twitter on Thursday, a day before the 2012 Olympic Games are expected to cause a spike in use of the micro-blogging site.

The San Francisco-based company acknowledged the problem, saying in a statement that its engineers are "currently working to resolve the issue," although it didn't go into any further detail.

Visitors to the site were greeted with a half-formed message partially in code saying that "Twitter is currently down."

The fields where a reason for the outage and a deadline for restoring service were apparently meant to go were filled with computer code.

Sluggishness or outages were reported from countries in North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Isn't it kind of funny to think that you retweet a twitter outage.  :-)

THU

permalink

Twitter Site Issue 2 hours ago

Users may be experiencing issues accessing Twitter. Our engineers are currently working to resolve the issue.

And who thought the US gov't would shut down their data centers on the first try, maybe the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th try will show a 10% reduction

There was all kinds of news when some of the first announcements were made that the federal gov't would reduce the number of its data centers.  Virtualization vendors and consultants were excited. Data center companies joined in.  

What I think almost everyone misses is this not a technology issue.  Data Centers are socialist programs that keep lots of people employed who get paid really well, and can cripple an organization.  When United Airlines cut over to the Continental reservation system there were all kinds of problems.  People have little incentive to make things work smoothly when they are eliminating their jobs.

The GAO has their press release.  The GAO recommends to solve the problem to get everyone to count things the same way with a standardized cost model.

What GAO Recommends

OMB’s Federal Chief Information Officer should ensure that agencies use a standardized cost model to improve consolidation planning, and the 5 selected agencies should implement recognized best practices when establishing schedules and cost estimates for their consolidation efforts. OMB and 3 agencies agreed with, and 2 did not agree or disagree with, GAO’s recommendations.

This situation will go on for years and years as people have little incentive to get ride of their job.

Monty Python has a skit on a failed execution.  You could probably write a skit about the people who are asked to shut down their data center.

If you want some night time reading you can read the 124 page GAO report. http://www.gao.gov/assets/600/592696.pdf