A different way for DCIM, drop the M - Data Center Infrastructure

It has been interesting watching the DCIM market develop.  I designed a DCIM solution 4 years ago and what I thought was obvious I find few people would do.

Given the popularity of my post on DCIM not living up to expectations. I'll write a bit more.

One good rule is to follow what is articulated and followed by Google's demi god of infrastructure Jeff Dean who reports to THE god of google's infrastructure Urs Hoelzle.

One of Jeff Dean's demi god powers is.

If Dean has a superhuman power, then, it’s not the ability to do things perfectly in an instant. It’s the power to prioritize and optimize and deal in orders of magnitude. Put another way, it’s the power to recognize an opportunity to do something pretty well in far less time than it would take to do it perfectly. In Silicon Valley, that’s much cooler than shooting cowboys with an Uzi.

DCIM. Data Center Infrastructure Management.  Sometimes I think the solution would be better solved if the M - Management was dropped.  What is needed in Data Center Infrastructure.

What are the real problems in the Infrastructure that need to be solved.  Jeff Dean's #1 rule is the necessity of solving a problem.

I think one of the things that have caused us to build infrastructure as we were often doing things out of necessity, so we would be running into problems where we needed some infrastructure that would solve that problem in a way that could make it so that it can scale to deal with larger amounts of data or larger amounts of requests volumes and all of these kinds of things. There’s nothing like necessity of needing to do something to cause you to come up with abstractions that help you break through the forms. So map reduce was born out of needing to scale our indexing system.

I think I have a new bar joke "What is the necessity of management in DCIM?"  DCIM solutions would be so much better if the decision on what DCIM is deployed was made by Operations Team and not the Management Team.

Would you rather operate an air cooled rack or an oil immersion rack?

I regularly have people mention how immersion cooling is interesting.  But, almost all these people are outsiders, not people who work in data centers.   Poll question how many of you want to spend the day with mineral oil soaked components?  I don't see any hands up.

DCK just had a post on CGG's use of Green Revolution Cooling.

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This solution must have looked good on paper to someone for CGG.  What do the operations guys think?

When you let operations have a voice what looks good on paper will many times have issues.

Arstechnica just posted a tour of Facebook's HW group.

Could you imagine 100,000 servers immersed in oil at Facebook.

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The operating costs for an immersion system are an unknown and there is no way it will deliver a 50% reduction in a Facebook data center.

A skeptical view of Zynga's new CEO, Om Malik explains

Om Malik posts on GigaOm on his views of Zynga's move to add a new CEO to solve its problems.  Om explains his logic and starts off questioning the PR spin.

SUMMARY:

Zynga has hired Don Mattrick as its new CEO, replacing founder Mark Pincus. The stock has jumped almost 20 percent in two days. Everyone believes that things will get better — that is, everyone except me. Let me explain why I don’t buy the PR spin.

Om throws some zingers like the new CEO doesn't know mobile.

The glowing press releases not withstanding, Zynga isn’t any step closer to solving its number one challenge — mobile. The company’s business tactics, which worked dramatically well on the Facebook platform, don’t work as well on mobile. And frankly, what does Mattrick really know about mobile? For God’s sake, the guy ran Xbox for six years.

Zynga was built on the Facebook ecosystem which limits its ability to grow beyond.

From the very beginning Zynga has been a company optimized for short-term gains. It used the well-established pattern of super fast release, iterate, re-release to grow its games. That pattern of developing and releasing games works well on the web. Of course, that means sub-par creativity and leads to the short shelf life of a game. Of course, this resulted in a business logic — user acquisition channels, game development methods and technology stack — were optimized for one platform: Facebook. The company rewarded teams that build Facebook hits.

We'll see what Zynga looks like in a year, but that is an eternity in the game business.

It is so pervasive and embedded that unless Mattrick undertakes a company wide apheresis he is destined to fail. And with Pincus still as the chairman and chief product officer, you know nothing really has changed.

40% change in Flooding in USA by 2100

You may want to rethink the long term flood risks for your data center.

FEMA has a Climate Change report where flooding is discussed.

Download and read the study, "The Impact of Climate Change and Population Growth on the National Flood Insurance Program"

 ...

The national average increase in SFHA by the year 2100 may approximate 40% for riverine areas and coastal areas if shoreline recession is assumed; and 45% for riverine areas and coastal areas if fixed coastlines are assumed.

Fast Company reports on the same study and says the risk is 45%, choosing to emphasize the change if fixed coastlines are assumed.  The number would be 40% if shoreline recession is assumed.

Our Flooded Future, According To FEMA

By 2100, the area of the U.S. at risk for inundation will increase 45%. These maps--from the guys who are going to have to deal with it--show where.

Apple makes news with its latest Solar project in Nevada

Here is a bunch of news that just hit over the last couple of hours on Apple's latest solar project in Nevada.

  1. News for apple nevada solar


    1.  
      Apple Invests In Solar Farm For Nevada Data Center
      Wall Street Journal (blog) ‎- by Ian Sherr ‎- 36 minutes ago
      Apple is building a new data center in Nevada that will be powered in part by a large, new solar array, in one of the largest renewable energy ...
     
  2. Apple is building a solar grid for its data center in Reno, Nevada

    thenextweb.com/apple/.../apple-to-build-solar-grid-to-power-data-center-...
     
    1 hour ago - Apple has confirmed plans to build an 18 to 20-megawatt solar panel farm for its upcoming data center in Reno, Nevada.
  3. Apple's solar array to bring 100 jobs to region - Reno Gazette-Journal

    www.rgj.com/.../Apple-offers-1st-glimpse-proposed-solar-array-...
    2 hours ago - The first glimpse of Apple Inc.'s proposed 18-megawatt photovoltaic solar plant that will keep the servers running in its NorthernNevada data ...
     
  4. Apple Plans A Reno Solar Farm To Power Its Data Center - AllThingsD

    allthingsd.com/.../apple-plans-a-reno-solar-farm-to-power-its-data-center...
     
    1 hour ago - appleSolar In conjunction with Nevada utility company NV Energy, Appleplans to build a solar array next to its Reno, Nevada data center, ...
  5. Apple is planning a solar panel farm for its data center in Reno ...

    gigaom.com/.../apple-is-planning-a-solar-panel-farm-for-its-data...
    2 hours ago - Apple, working with Nevada utility NV Energy, is planning to build another solar panel farm next to a data center, and this time it's for its new ...
     
  6. Apple to Build Solar Panel Farm for Reno Data Center - Mac Rumors

    www.macrumors.com/.../apple-to-build-solar-panel-farm-for-reno-data-c...
     
    1 hour ago - Apple is planning to work with Nevada utility company NV energy to build asolar panel farm next to its Reno data center, reports GigaOM.