The Hot Aisle

European techies feel no guilt at using work time for personal tasks

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:24:37 +0000

Three quarters (76.1 percent) of IT professionals in the UK do not feel guilty about carrying out personal tasks while they are at work, according to a survey undertaken by The IT Job Board The figure compares to 75.9 percent in Belgium and 81.6 percent in The Netherlands. This is the first time the online [...]

What is your Carbon Footprint when using the Internet?

Steve O'Donnell — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 22:01:59 +0000

How much CO2 does one Google search produce? How much for one EBAY auction or for a SecondLife avatar, or running one blog like http://www.thehotaisle.com? How do our activities on the Internet compare to driving our car? The answers might surprise you…… Fellow blogger Rolf Kersten pulled together some quite surprising numbers: Web service CO2 emission Same emission as One [...]

Using Social Bookmarks on The Hot Aisle

Steve O'Donnell — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:48:42 +0000

You might have noticed the social networking bar at the bottom of all Hot Aisle articles and wondered what it was: Why not share this article? We all have favourite websites that we bookmark within our browsers as favorites so that we can find them again, but these are stored on a specific machine meaning that when we use [...]

Massive New Data Center investment in Wales

Steve O'Donnell — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:54:54 +0000

An ambitious project is under way in Newport Gwent, to build one of the most advanced and secure data centres in Europe. Next Generation Data (NGD) is investing £200 million ($346 million) to modify a 750,000 square-foot (69,677 square meters) factory built by the Korean firm, LG more than a decade ago near Newport, Wales, intended [...]

What is the Credit Crunch doing to InterXion?

Steve O'Donnell — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 22:50:07 +0000

Back on the 11th September I put together an article for The Hot Aisle about how Data Center Hosting Company - IntereXion had managed to convince the banking sector that expanding their credit facility was sensible. I reported that - The credit facility was arranged by Fortis Bank (Nederland) B.V., Coöperatieve Rabobank Regio Schiphol U.A. and ING [...]

Thieves stole 17 million T-Mobile customer records

Steve O'Donnell — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:00:39 +0000

Deutsche Telekom is involved in the latest data leakage scandal. The mobile division T-Mobile has admitted that over 17 million customer data records were stolen in 2006. Der Spiegel reports that the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) records, phone numbers, addresses, birth dates and some e-mail addresses of customers, were being offered for sale on the Internet. The stolen data [...]

Electronic Payments Now Account for Majority of Consumer Payments

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:31:48 +0000

Consumers are increasingly using electronic payments at the expense of cash and checks, according to a new nationwide consumer payment preferences study conducted by BAI and Hitachi Consulting. The research was sponsored by First Data Corporation and its STAR® Network, Harland Clarke, MasterCard Worldwide, Metavante, and PULSE. The 2008 Study of Consumer Payment Preferences found that [...]

People are basically honest…..

Steve O'Donnell — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 23:34:58 +0000

I lost my cellphone, apparently I left it on the backseat of a taxi I caught from Norwich International Airport to home on Friday night. It is quite a nice phone, a Nokia N95, one that I wouldn’t want to loose… But the important thing is the phone numbers I have stored in it’s memory [...]

Exclusive Interview with 3PAR’s Geoff Hough

Steve O'Donnell — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:21:49 +0000

The Hot Aisle is delighted to serve up another exclusive interview with a senior industry figure, 3PAR’s Senior Director of Strategy Geoff Hough. In this interview, Geoff answers some searching questions about 3PAR’s product capability and environmentalism and its intersection with self-interest - reduced running costs. The Hot Aisle: Can you explain 3PAR’s strategy around environmental [...]

Exclusive Interview with Mark Shirman - CEO of Glasshouse Technologies

Steve O'Donnell — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 22:44:12 +0000

I recently met with Mark Shirman, CEO and Founder of Glasshouse Technologies and had the opportunity to get another exclusive Hot Aisle interview. Mark is uniquely placed to comment on the recent changes in the Data Center and Storage markets with particular emphasis on Green issues. For many years Glasshouse has been the leading independent Storage [...]

The Hot Aisle Recognized as Top 10 Blog

Steve O'Donnell — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:33:57 +0000

After only six months from a standing start, The Hot Aisle has been recognized as one of the top 10 global blogs in IT Operations. Stacksafe published the list of top 10 IT Operations blogs based on Technorati rating.

Are you Planning or Running a Data Center Move?

Steve O'Donnell — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:37:21 +0000

The results are just in from the largest survey we have ever hosted here on The Hot Aisle. A massive 3,700 readers took part answering the question “Is your company running a Data Center move or consolidation Project?” 82% of participants stated that they were either in the midst of a migration or were actively planning [...]

There is money to be had from trash

Steve O'Donnell — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 22:56:58 +0000

I picked up an interesting article on the Executive Business Lifestyle website. (You have no idea the lengths that The Hot Aisle goes to in order to deliver interesting content!) Scouring through rubbish tips for reusable items and materials is nothing new. We see the practice on TV regularly, usually accompanied by a serious commentary on [...]

Why your humidification plant is wasting electricity

Steve O'Donnell — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 13:08:03 +0000

Our atmosphere (the air around us) is made up of gasses consisting of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), carbon dioxide (0.3%) and water in the form of vapor (humidity). The amount of water in the atmosphere is measured as a Relative Humidity (RH) Data Center air should contain the proper amount of water vapor to maximize the availability [...]

Data Center in a Tent?

Steve O'Donnell — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:06:31 +0000

I read a very interesting article from fellow blogger Christian Belady, who is Principal Power and Cooling Architect at Microsoft. Christian decided to take the PUE challenge and see if he could build a data center with a PUE of one! That is to have all of the power delivered to computing equipment and none at [...]

I want to be as Green at Home as at the Data Center

Steve O'Donnell — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 06:45:36 +0000

I got a mail-shot from Friends of the Earth picking up a pitch from a small electricity supplier called Good Energy. They are a small outfit of 50 people who contract with large and small green energy providers to trade in renewable electricity. I just thought it was a cool grass roots way of changing the world [...]

Microsoft to Open $500M Data Center in Chicago

Steve O'Donnell — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:29:35 +0000

Chicago Business News reports that Microsoft plans to open another massive data center, in Northlake near Chicago in 2009 that will be central to the software giant’s war with Google Inc. for Internet supremacy. The Data Center, large enough to hold eight football fields, is mooted to cost more than $500 million to build, sources familiar with [...]

First Tuesday 10th Anniversary

Steve O'Donnell — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 05:06:12 +0000

I first attended a First Tuesday event way back in 1999 when I was running a small startup software company in the telecommunications space. I remember lots of eager, young things desperately networking and looking for funding. First Tuesday is still going after 10 years, trying to help young companies and entrepreneurs network and raise capital. Unsurprisingly First [...]

A Green Data Center Approach and Design

Steve O'Donnell — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 11:06:03 +0000

I wrote about Elean Park Data Center some time ago on The Hot Aisle where we looked at the use of absorption chillers that use the waste heat from a biomass power station and gas generation plant on site to drive them. Howard Phelby of 5 nines kindly sent me the attached diagram that shows [...]

Cordys the fastest growing Business Process Management Suite vendor

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:42:24 +0000

Global research firm, Gartner Inc, has reported Cordys, a global leader in next generation Business Process Management, as the fastest growing of the leading BPMS vendors worldwide. According to a recent report issued by the research firm, Cordys grew 98.2% year on year in 2007 based on total software revenue. The Gartner report states that the [...]

Why do customers make irrational buying decisions?

Steve O'Donnell — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 22:23:17 +0000

I got a note from Ivan who used the Contact form on The Hot Aisle to get in touch with me, headed up - Best of breed: “Steve, great to see your article about Mike and Brocade on TheHotAisle and hope that this will continue the positive rise and acceptance we have in the SAN space. On the basis [...]

Why haven’t Cisco killed off Brocade?

Steve O'Donnell — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 01:48:44 +0000

I met up with the Mike Klayko the CEO of Brocade last week in the restaurant of the St Regis Hotel in New York (famous for creating the best burgers, bar none, in the city) for an exclusive Hot Aisle interview. Mr Klayko is an industry veteran with decades of experience starting at IBM, HP, [...]

Interxion Secures Euro 135 Million Credit Facility

Steve O'Donnell — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:02:05 +0000

Carrier neutral data center facilities still in expansion mode despite sub prime crisis. * Fortis and Rabobank are joined by ING in expanded credit facility * Company announces H1 2008 results : 38% revenue growth and 33% adjusted EBITDA margins Interxion, a leading European provider of carrier-neutral data centers, today announced that it has obtained a Euro 135 million [...]

Why did IBM Spend $300M on XIV?

Steve O'Donnell — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:09:31 +0000

I met up with Andy Monshaw, General Manager of IBM’s Storage Division last week for an exclusive Hot Aisle interview and found him in ebullient mood. Andy has been running Storage for IBM since January 2005 and is an industry veteran. Andy had prepared a huge list of new products and initiatives he wanted to share with [...]

Hot Aisle Containment and Fire Protection

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 05:54:17 +0000

Recently we have been writing a lot about how hot-aisle/cold aisle containment. It is important to be aware this strategy, fire detection and protection requires special attention. A recent article in Search Data Center gives some good advice: Hot-aisle/cold-aisle containment – a variation on the traditional data center best practice of hot-aisle/cold-aisle design – is a way for data [...]

Fire Detection Best Practice

Steve O'Donnell — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:36:03 +0000

Today we are going to look at how fire detection systems can be used in Data Centers to prevent catastrophic loss and damage; we will focus on Very Early Smoke Detection Systems, (VESDA – Very Early Smoke Detection Alarm). Without an efficient and safe environment, there is no way to be assured of business continuity. To [...]

Why do IT Operations suck?

Steve O'Donnell — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:01:47 +0000

One of the strangest things about IT people is that they often miss the obvious until it is explained to them (sometimes with the aid of a hammer). We are all so used to following the rules and doing what everyone else does. This particularly applies to IT Operations, also known as the Command Centre [...]

How many servers can you migrate in a weekend?

Steve O'Donnell — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:32:53 +0000

I got a question from a colleague Bill about data center migrations: What is a good range of number of servers that could be migrated over a weekend? I know there a bunch of qualifiers (e.g. new kit versus “lift and shift”, amount of storage, etc.), but is there some type of answer you would give [...]

Is there space for another Browser?

Steve O'Donnell — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 08:02:49 +0000

Google are about to launch Chrome, a new browser that they claim is designed to address the new Internet. An Internet used to run applications rather than display smart HTML. Is this Googles response to the new Apple Webkit that run’s smart Internet applications and the beginning of he end for Windows? Here’s what is being said on the Google [...]

Cutting CO2 Emissions by switching off Computers

Steve O'Donnell — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 08:00:59 +0000

I read a cool article about some community action to deliver a green outcome: Cobweb Solutions, has joined together with 58 customers to produce a total energy saving equivalent to a tonne of carbon, in just one night on 14th August. The CO2 saving is equivalent to the emissions generated by ten passengers on a return [...]

Businessweek likes GO-Tags

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:00:46 +0000

Some of you may know that I work in the banking sector, here is some of the cool stuff we have been doing at First Data. After Kohlberg Kravis Roberts bought First Data for $26 billion last year in one of the largest LBOs ever, the firm approached Michael Capellas about taking the helm. At first, [...]

IT Sector Jobs remain static

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 08:10:21 +0000

The latest IT Job Board’s skills in demand survey figures show that regardless of the credit crunch, jobs in the IT sector have remained static since the beginning of the year with a slight increase in a few positions. Key findings are as follows: Demand for testing roles increased by 8.3 percent between Q1 to Q2 IT support, [...]

I always knew it - Scotland does IT better than the USA!

Steve O'Donnell — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 20:26:11 +0000

My little brother is in the news again with an article in The Times. It seemed the most unlikely of joint-billings - the Star Warsdirector George Lucas and a modest Scots initiative to improve e-communication within schools. In what must rank as one of the most heady compliments ever given to an education system, the film maker announced [...]

An Alternative to VDI and Thin Clients

Steve O'Donnell — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:57:50 +0000

My friend, the inventor and green innovator, Peter Hopton from VeryPC has a unique view on how to be environmentally responsible whilst deploying PCs into an office environment and he is presenting his ideas at The Carbon Footprint Energy Efficient IT Summit on the 4th and 5th September. Peter says that there are three basic approaches: Give [...]

How do we protect data?

Steve O'Donnell — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 20:03:16 +0000

I have been catching up on press releases that have come in since I have been on holiday and picked up one from Secerno. Perimeter application firewall requirement leaves customer data vulnerable to growing insider threat, claims database security expert Secerno’s products are designed to protect the database by implementing a set of perimeter controls and rules [...]

Is there a DIY approach to Green Data Centers?

Steve O'Donnell — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:37:37 +0000

IT Infrastructure specialist Richardson Eyres recently issued a press release to help drum up some consulting business in the Retail market but make some generally applicable and interesting points worth looking at. Even though most organizations are making energy cuts a top priority for 2008/9, many are not taking green issues seriously enough and are adopting a do-it-yourself [...]

Do Techie’s work too hard?

Steve O'Donnell — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:52:35 +0000

When I read the headline for this press release from The IT Job Board, I just about fell off my chair laughing. After reading through some of the finding though some things started to hit home. Research conducted by online recruitment specialist www.theitjobboard.co.uk revealed that of 500 IT workers surveyed for a report on working hours, nearly half [...]

Will the next Data Loss scandal be our Private Pensions?

Steve O'Donnell — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 09:29:35 +0000

I picked up a press release about a medium sized firm of Financial Advisors changing over from paper based to scanned images for storing their client files. Independent financial advisors, IFS, standardise on Kodak’s ScanMate i1120 scanners to manage client files * Financial Services Authority requires client paperwork to be stored indefinitely * Moving away from paper storage to scanning [...]

Nightmares are made of this

Steve O'Donnell — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:55:59 +0000

The Daily Mail reports that a UK Government investigation was launched after the personally identifiable information (PII) of more than a million bank customers was found on a computer sold on eBay. Highly sensitive information on American Express, NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland customers was found on the disk array sold for £35.88 (about $72). The [...]

Contactless Payment Technology

Steve O'Donnell — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:05:34 +0000

Want to see the future of electronic payment systems, then have a look at the First Data GO-Tag. During this year’s Democratic National Convention (DNC), Denver’s Pepsi Center will serve not only as a focal point of American politics, but also as an arena for the future of how people will pay for goods and services. Next [...]

A Load of Hot Air

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:26:03 +0000

This photograph shows a technique used to remove hot air from a high density area in a Data Center in Milan.

Working with Fiber

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:32:04 +0000

An Engineer working on a Fiber Optic Patch Panel.

Heat Exchanger

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:29:33 +0000

This photograph shows an Intercooler unit in the basement of the I.Net data center in Milan.

How to cut your Data Center Power Bill

Steve O'Donnell — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:10:35 +0000

Today we are going to look at practical changes that we can all make to our data centres that will improve cooling efficiency, to enable us to install more equipment in the same space or reduce our electricity bills. There are a few basic rules that will help us become more efficient. The first is the less [...]

Data Center Constraints

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:28:03 +0000

The Hot Aisle readership have reported that they have significant constraints on existing data centers with 56% reporting cooling constraints and a further 17% reporting more than one constraint. Significantly only one reader reports space as a constraint which agrees with my hypothesis that there is plenty of Data Center space, just no M&E left.

GlassHouse Releases Reflector Tool

Steve O'Donnell — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:11:44 +0000

GlassHouse Technologies, a global provider of independent IT infrastructure consulting services, announced on the 5th August 2008 the release of Reflector, a proprietary tool for managing data center migrations and consolidations. Reflector acts as a “single point of truth,” creating an efficient and streamlined process for managing a successful migration or consolidation project. In my opinion if you [...]

AVIVA (aka Norwich Union) miss opportunity to Go Green

Steve O'Donnell — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 14:57:59 +0000

AVIVA (aka Norwich Union) is set to open its third data centre - Data Centre 3 (DC3) at the Broadlands Business Park near Norwich, UK this September. Although the site uses some modern design principles to minimize energy use, AVIVA have been far too conservative with the design and the opportunity to really go green has been missed. The site [...]

Cold Aisle Curtains gain Popularity

Steve O'Donnell — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 19:10:03 +0000

I was reading an article about the recent Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) Data Center Energy Summit, in San Francisco, engineers and data center pros gathered to study 11 case studies on energy efficiency. The data center studies varied, but one green data center tactic stood out: hot-aisle/cold-aisle containment. The Hot Aisle readers know that data center best [...]

Business Process Management Think Tank in Netherlands

Steve O'Donnell — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:11:45 +0000

The Hot Aisle always likes Business Process Management (BPM) as it helps our business colleagues to standardize and automate business processes that we can then provide automation technology to support. One of the best BPM companies, Cordys is holding an event on November 11-12, 2008 at Vanenburg Castle, Putten, Netherlands The Object Management Group (OMG) today announced [...]

A Google Beater?

Steve O'Donnell — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 03:43:45 +0000

Cuil, a technology company pioneering a new approach to search, unveils its innovative search offering, which combines the biggest Web index with content-based relevance methods, results organized by ideas, and complete user privacy. Cuil (www.Cuil.com) has indexed 120 billion Web pages, three times more than Google they claim. Cuil (pronounced COOL) provides organized and relevant results [...]

How not to do it

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:54:44 +0000

The photograph shows what happens when cable management is left to chance. The weight of the cables will put strain on the connections resulting in unexpected failures. Almost certainly the mess will grow and the jumble of cables will spill out of the rack door causing a trip hazard. Yeugh!

Keeping the Data Center Tidy

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 15:43:21 +0000

This picture comes from Craig Black and shows the most artistic cable management setup I have ever seen. Incredibly tidy and neat. Craig comments that “The horizontal stuff is Leviton and the vertical is Panduit. It all came together really well — we wanted to make it look neat and it ended up that way.”

Safety First

Steve O'Donnell — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 03:39:47 +0000

This is an essential piece of equipment in a data center. A device designed to lift and hold servers and other rack mounted equipment ready to install into their home rack. Without one of these (or something similar), it is just a matter of time before you drop a server and injure yourself or a colleague. [...]

Managing Virtual Servers

Steve O'Donnell — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 16:12:35 +0000

I just picked up a really neat article from Eric Siebert - When Not to Treat VMs like Physical Servers. The basis of the article is common sense really (but common sense is often left at home by us in IT), mostly we can treat Virtual Machines just like Physical Machines but there are a [...]

Cold Aisle Containment Curtain

Steve O'Donnell — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 18:18:32 +0000

A photograph from the BT Rochdale Data Center showing how the transparent curtains are attached to the roof. These curtains are used to separate the Hot Aisle from the Cold Aisle in order to drive up cooling capacity and efficiency. There are a number of articles about using Curtains to drive energy efficiency on The [...]

How Many Things Does Your Business Do?

Steve O'Donnell — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:49:07 +0000

I bet that you came up with a big number? Some people I ask sit down and scratch their head and then start listing all of the products and services their companies offer. After a while most folks just give up, overwhelmed by the scale of the simple question I have asked. Try it for [...]