Can you hear the leaks in the Data Center hype bubble?

I haven't written a post for a few days. My main machine needed to go in for repairs, and it took me offline for two days and forced me to go to back-up computers.  Instead of getting frustrated I went with the flow and spent more time reading and thinking.

What comes to mind is the number of things that are not panning out to meet the hype.

Like what?  The Yahoo Chicken coop.  DCK took a trip in the Yahoo chicken coop.

Inside Yahoo’s ‘Chicken Coop’ Data Center

• By: Rich Miller
  December 12th, 2011
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If you’re a regular reader of Data Center Knowledge, you’ve seen plenty of images we’ve posted of the Yahoo Computing Coop data center in Lockport, New York. But we’ve never seen any video from inside the facility until we came across this footage on YouTube from the grand opening of the data center. There’s brief comments from politicians and executives, but also some views of the racks and aisles. This video runs about 5 minutes.

The media was all excited.  Who else is building a chicken coop type of design?

The Modular Data Center has almost every data center company saying they can go modular or containers.  Where is the massive container park DC?  There a few, but modular doesn't seem as big as the hype.

DCIM is supposed to be big.  Many are using systems, but they are finding out how much there is marketing hype vs. the reality of operating DCIM.

The number of data center consultants, real estate, and site selection people has added a lot more people over the past 5 years, but the business has not grown as much.

The data center shows are not as crowded as they used to be and the vendors are questioning their marketing spend.

Thanks to Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google data centers are in the media more often, but the number of data centers isn't even close to the increase in media coverage.

You could look at all of this as leaks in the data center hype bubble.  The bubble will not burst like other hyped events, but it does seem like you can hear the air deflating out of the bubble.

Google, Microsoft, Facebook presenting at 7x24 Exchange Nov 2012

The 7x24 Exchange Conference has announced their agenda and two people who I have had on 7x24 panels are presenting on their own this next conference, Microsoft's Amaya Souarez and Google's Joe Kava.

One of the reasons I enjoy the 7x24 Exchange conference is how people who have something good to say can get a speaking spot without a sponsorship package.  

Monday Amaya Souarez is presenting on Capacity Planning.

1:30 P.M.
Microsoft: DC Capacity Planning - From Rack to Future Market

Capacity Planning for Data Centers is a uniquely challenging adventure, and is not a one size fits all problem. All data center owners, hosting providers and business strategy planners are at some point in time dealing with a capacity planning issue. The complexity of managing capacity is particularly accelerated in the online services industry, due to rapidly changing market requirements.

Amaya Souarez
Director, DC Strategy & Automation
Microsoft

Tues Joe Kava is Keynoting with some new material never presented to the public.

9:00 A.M.
Keynote:
Google Data Centers: A Behind the Scenes Look at Infrastructure and Innovations

Google's data center practice helped develop the company's competitive edge for online services and products. Now, nearly seven years after the first data center went into production, there is an ever increasing need to be creative in order to drive efficiency and minimize the impact on the planet. This presentation hopes to uncover some of Google's early day decisions, why they were made and how those decisions led to future innovation. Take a virtual tour with us of our facilities and join the discussion of what challenges we all face in the industry.

Joe Kava
Senior Director
Google Data Centers

Weds Facebook is presenting data on their operations in humid climates.

10:15 A.M.
Facebook OCP: Operation in Humid Climate & DC Reliability Calculations

Facebook has completed the of construction of custom greenfield datacenters in Prineville, OR, and Forest City, NC, and is currently constructing in Lulea, Sweden. Previously, Facebook leased datacenter capacity, as is typical for Internet startups. As demand continued to grow, it was clear that Facebook would reach a scale where design and construction of a customized site would be beneficial. Control of the application, the server configurations, and the datacenter design would allow for customization beyond what is typical industry practice. The following Open Compute Project technologies and topics will be discussed (opencompute.org): quick review of design; operational data in east coast datacenter humid climate; review of our reliability calculations.

Paul Hsu, P.E.
Datacenter Electrical Engineer
facebook

Dan Lee. P.E.
Datacenter Mechanical Engineer
facebook

Chicago "On Tap" Social, Oct 16, 2012, 7-10p

It’s that time of year for Steve Manos’s “On Tap” social.  This year it is Norland On Tap at Chicago Illuminating Company.  The sponsors are Norland, Opengate, Latisys, and JLL.

If you’ll be in Chicago on Oct 16 your best bet to attend is to reach out to your contacts at the sponsoring companies for an invitation.

Unfortunately, I cannot make it this year, but I will be in Chicago the week after for another event.

A time history of Dave Ohara

I was at a data center social last week and a construction guy asked me what I do. 

I have the about me page on this blog, but it doesn't really answer the question what I do, so let me try a different way to explain.

My degree is in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.  What does in IEOR focus on?

The Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR) educates students to become highly skilled in:

the quantitative modeling and analysis of a broad array of systems-level decision problems concerned with economic efficiency, productivity and quality;

the collection of data and analysis of data using database and decision-support tools;

the comprehensive modeling of uncertainty;

the development and creative use of analytical and computational methods for solving these problems;

and to obtain the broader skills, background and knowledge necessary to be an effective professional in a rapidly-changing global economy.

I spent 5 years at HP working in manufacturing and logistics from 1980 - 1985. When the printer business was building up and one of the divisions I worked in was the HP division that was the distributor for printers and computer supplies.

In 1984, HP introduced both inkjet and laser printers for the desktop. Along with its scanner product line, these have later been developed into successful multifunctionproducts, the most significant being single-unit printer/scanner/copier/fax machines. The print mechanisms in HP's tremendously popular LaserJet line of laser printers depend almost entirely on Canon's components (print engines), which in turn use technology developed by Xerox. HP develops the hardware, firmware, and software that convert data into dots for the mechanism to print.

I made the switch from HP to Apple and worked on distribution and supply chain logistics, OEM peripheral procurement, and operating systems from 1985 - 1992 coinciding with rise and fall period of Apple.  Working on the Mac II and System were great. Working on the Mac Portable provided some good life lessons.

1986–1993: Rise and fall

See also: Timeline of Apple II family and Timeline of Macintosh models

The Macintosh Portable was Apple's first "portable" Macintosh computer, released in 1989.

Having learned several painful lessons after introducing the bulky Macintosh Portable in 1989, Apple introduced the PowerBook in 1991. The Macintosh Portable was designed to be just as powerful as a desktop Macintosh, but weighed 7.5 kilograms (17 lb) with a 12-hour battery life. The same year, Apple introduced System 7, a major upgrade to the operating system, which added color to the interface and introduced new networking capabilities. It remained the architectural basis for Mac OSuntil 2001.

The success of the PowerBook and other products brought increasing revenue.^[49] For some time, it appeared that Apple could do no wrong, introducing fresh new products and generating increasing profits in the process. The magazine MacAddict named the period between 1989 and 1991 as the "first golden age" of the Macintosh.

At Microsoft I was recruited to work on Win3.1 Far East fonts, then spent most of my time working on Windows Operating system up until Windows XP.  After Windows XP, I switched to server, management tools, and evangelism.  1992 - 2006 was a long 14 years with a lot of changes.  The Microsoft years can be long so I just embedded the three time periods below.

• 3 1992–1995: Domination of the corporate market
• 4 1995–1999: Foray into the Web and other ventures
• 5 2000–2005: Legal issues, XP, and .NET

In 2006 I took a year off, then started working on data centers with Mike Manos at first, then Olivier Sanche.  

I don't think I answered the question from the construction guy on what I do, but you have a better idea of what I did in my past.

NYTimes Publishes Two Letters to Editor, DC Most Inefficient users of Energy

I hope this gives you a laugh.  I did.  The NYTimes chose two letters to publish about the infamous James Glanz article on Sept 27. 

Here is the first to make you laugh.

To the Editor:

For the last decade at least, we have been told that computerizing everything imaginable was part of an overall strategy of “going green.” Now we discover that computers are among the world’s most profligate, inefficient users of energy and that “the cloud” is a carbon-intensive, diesel particulate-spewing, eco-unfriendly fog.

The party ended last night, and the beer goggles just came off. I feel really dirty this morning.

CINDY BROOMAN
Delaware, Ohio, Sept. 25, 2012

So who is Cindy Brooman?  A 61 year old small business owner of web site Point and Click Software.  Wow Cindy thinks data centers are the most inefficient immoral users of energy.  Her server hoster is a 200% renewable energy user which makes you think Cindy is a hardcore environmentalist.

OS	Server	Last changed	IP address	Netblock Owner
F5 BIG-IP	Microsoft-IIS/6.0	2-Oct-2012	66.96.143.162	Endurance International Group, Inc.

And the other letter is from NRDC promoting their upcoming cloud report.

A coming Natural Resources Defense Council report will reveal that not all clouds are created equal; there are “green” clouds and “brown” clouds. Those that carry out energy-efficiency best practices and use low-carbon energy sources are far more sustainable than typical server rooms.

Now these are the two letters that the editor choose to put into print.  Talk about a waste.

I can’t wait to see what James Glanz fires out next.  This is quite entertaining.