Green (Low Carbon) Data Center Blog

As Faceboook Lulea powers up, makes sure its neighbors don't put infrastructure at risk

Dave Ohara — Tue, 21 May 2013 13:23:13 +0000

Part of what a big data center company like Google and Microsoft have learned to expect is that neighbors show up after they are the first to build. Facebook going to Lulea was one of the first data center operators in the area. And now that there are others looking at Lulea and Facebook is going through commissioning, there are concerns there is enough infrastructure.

NyTeknik reports in Swedish on the local event.

Soon it's time for the commissioning of the first of the giant data centers like Facebook is based in Luleå. Availability of green electricity from hydropower and a stable electricity grid were two of the factors that got Facebook to choose Luleå.

While trying municipality to attract more IT companies and a large computer giant is about to establish itself around Facebook in Porsön in Luleå.

But now reacts Facebook and through its agents Pinnacle Sweden, asked to Luleå further investigate the availability of energy, water and sanitation, the newspaper reported Norrländska Socialdemokraten.

Here is a picture from the same publication.

What's next for GreenM3 to focus on? Thinking 5 years out what will the data center industry be like

Dave Ohara — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:52:03 +0000

I started out in the data center industry working with some smart people who asked some tough questions

What is the energy consumption of an application in a data center?
What is a way for our company to be a thought leader in the data center industry?
How should I apply product lifecycle management principles to the data center?

All these are questions in the past, and I have been getting kind of bored. I left HP, Apple, and Microsoft because I got bored. Boredom has bad effects.

Boredom is generally an unpleasant emotion, composed of a lack of stimulation and physiological arousal. Unfortunately, boredom is often associated with the academic setting of attending class and studying. That said, while academic boredom may be present in higher education, do we care?

...

As stated by the authors, “the evidence in our studies suggests that boredom typically impairs attention, motivation, behavioral strategies, and performance in achievement settings. The pervasiveness of the boredom experienced by many students, coupled with its deleterious effects, clearly implies that educators, administrators, and policy makers responsible for the design of academic settings should pay more attention to this emotion.”

Last week another smart data center guy said in response to an e-mail.

It sure is an interesting time....I don't think anyone knows how it will turn out in 5 years.

Yeh, it is impossible to know what data centers will be like in 5 years. But, then I thought about the question more.

Five years from the data centers built are going to look different than what is currently industry standard. So, what is known there will be change. Who is the most aggressive and innovative? There is media coverage for some data centers that are not leading others to be innovative.

Data Centers 5 years from now will be greener - more energy efficient and more renewable energy. The cost of water will most likely grow faster than the cost of power.

There are actually many things that can be reasonably certain will occur 5 years from now. Of the top data center operators who will be in the top 5 years from now. Who are the new companies?

What I like about thinking 5 years out is it is hard to get bored. :-)

Facebook's Iowa Data Center has three phases over 6 years

Dave Ohara — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:09:14 +0000

Des Moines Register has a review of the 18 month process the City of Altoona went through.

What seems interesting is a tax issue based on a three limit needed to get changed to six.

Also in March, a roadblock suddenly emerges: VanderZanden emails Durham that state rules prohibit the company from fully benefiting from Altoona’s proposed 20-year tax abatement.

The rules specify that all phases must be built within a three-year project completion window. Facebook plans three phases over six years.

“Iowa should remove as many hurdles as it can to our building the third building in Altoona,” VanderZanden writes in an email.

The issues of renewable energy shows up in the article too.

Durham says Facebook discusses a “wind farm totally dedicated to them” vs. investing in a portfolio of renewable energy.

It’s tricky territory for her. A wind farm would compete with energy Facebook gets from MidAmerican, a close partner with the state in encouraging economic development in Iowa.

Eventually the plan is for there to be a 100 employees.

In the parking lot after the announcement, Durham signs the state’s finalized contract with Facebook. The state agrees to provide Facebook with $18 million in tax credits, based on job creation and capital investment.

Within days, Facebook begins filling key positions, says Kirkland, Facebook’s spokesman. State leaders believe permanent jobs will grow to about 100 when all three phases are built.

Party Stress test, 50 people hosted in our house

Dave Ohara — Mon, 20 May 2013 04:18:03 +0000

One thing the data center industry teaches you is stress testing and finding the limits of your design. I was over a fiends house where 5 of us were having a nice relaxing evening last week and I said we were hosting a dinner party. How many? 50. Fifty, not fifteen. Yes, five zero.

My wife and I designed our house to be a great space to entertain. we have had about 30 people for our construction crew for a dinner party. and 20 kids and adults for a soccer pizza party. Last night we had 50 people over for a going away party for our ski friends from Crystal Mountain Alpine Club (CMAC), Angie and Steve.

We had a 20 x 10 tent in case it rained on the deck.

Here are pictures from the party in a slide show.

After the party my wife felt 50 was comfortable and we could easily handle 100 guests. I then told her we don't need to have a party with 100 people to test the limit. :-) 50 people is a big enough number and know we have head room for a margin of comfort and it is easier on the budget.

Thanks to our good friends Megan and Curtis, the event was catered, staffed, including cleaned up. My wife is decorating wizard and she picked the flowers and all the rest of the decorating. My job was to take the pictures.

Chicago's 601 Polk is open for co-location business

Dave Ohara — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:57:56 +0000

DCK has a post on 601 Polk opening its doors for co-location business.

AlteredScale Opens Doors at 601 Polk in Chicago

By: Jason Verge
May 17th, 2013

601 West Polk in Chicago is the home of a new data center for AlteredScale. The facility will be managed by Norland Managed Services.

601 West Polk is alive and kicking. The 100 year old structure just west of the Loop in Chicago has been through a lot over the years, including a previous owner passing through bankruptcy. After several millions of dollars worth of renovations. AlteredScale, a provider of mission critical data center solutions, announced this week that it has chosen Norland Managed Services to operate and maintain its data center at 601 West Polk.

But, this opening is not so much news as a milestone in a long process.

First the President of AlteredScale, Kevin Francis is a good friend and we have had many conversations over the past 3 years. We've had fun at SXSW. Discussed many changes in the data center industry, and caught up on what's up with our personal lives. A year and half ago I went into 601 Polk when it was a shell and met many of the people who were working on the project.

About 6 months ago, Kevin said he was looking for options of who could run facility operations at 601 Polk. There is a short list of who could do the work and you know the list. Given Kevin is a close friend, I made an introduction to another good friend Norland Managed Services, General Manager North America Steve Manos. You could view this as a favoritism to take care of your buddies. Or you could see that good people working together is what the industry needs more of. This could be the end of the process, but I know I'll be chatting with Kevin again to hear how 601 Polk is running and how Norland is able to work with his co-location environment. And, I'll be talking to Steve Manos soon (most likely at 7x24 Exchange in Boca) as well, and thinking of more interesting ways to work in the industry. Steve started data center socials in Chicago and LV, mine is in Santa Clara. We'll see where we go next.

It is a milestone to make the announcement, but it is not really news when I saw the space 1 1/2 years ago, and made the introductions between AlteredScale and Norland 6 months ago.

Bored of Data Center Presentations? Me too, so do something about it

Dave Ohara — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:26:49 +0000

It was fun catching up with Chris Crosby in LV and Santa Clara over the past couple of weeks. Chris just posted on the issue of wishing upon a star for maybe these data center conferences would be more interesting.

In doing a quick review of some of the topical fodder that will be discussed at some of the data center industry’s upcoming confabs, I have to say that it looks like we’re stuck in a bit of a rut. Does an over abundance of Power Points expounding on the how it’s “DCiM’s time” and that the Cloud “will change everything” reflect some hidden industry wish that these things will come true? Should we cue Jiminy Cricket?

Chris closes imploring the event staff to change the formats.

While there is little that we can do about the topic’s that speakers will be covering this tradeshow season, I would ask—and I don’t think I’m alone here—that the companies that put on these extravaganzas endeavor to broaden the scope of topics before they implore us to “Join Them” in the one of the nation’s metropolis’s in the future. If I see one more product pitch presentation delivered by someone with the charisma of a newt, I may just lose my lunch. Get out on a limb and say something new. As for DCiM and the Cloud I say look to that Walt Disney classic, Pinnochio, for guidance. After all, after being turned into a donkey and being swallowed by a whale, his wish to become a real boy came true.

But, getting people to change is one of the hardest things in life. Much harder than greening a data center and coming up with new ways to change the industry for a new performance per watt approach.

So instead of asking for change, change yourself. About two years ago I stopped going to AFCOM Data Center World and Uptime Symposium as media and started trying other conferences. I started going to GigaOm Structure as a media attendee and thanks to Barton George he introduced me to Stacey Higginbotham as GigaOm needed a data center analyst. So, I spend time (less than 20%) as an analyst for GigaOm Pro as well as a bunch of other things (the other 80%).

In a month at GigaOm Structure I'll be moderating two panel discussions.

One with following title and presenters

Compute everywhere: the architects behind the change

Chandra Pandey, Vice President, Platform Solutions, BTI Systems

Lane Patterson, CTO, Equinix

And the other

How infrastructure can transform business success

Cynthi Stoddard, SVP & CIO, NetApp

David Giambruno, SVP and CIO, Revlon

I could try to interject something like the above into a typical data center conference, but it is a lot of work. The above people are presenting because of the GigaOm brand and its audience. Also, I'll most likely be jumping into a mode of business value of IT, not data center infrastructure.

The data center infrastructure is important and many of the changes going forward are how the data center infrastructure supports business innovation which is what CIO's care about. It will be interesting whether data center conferences can change to more than a DCIM and Cloud discussion.

I'll be at GigaOm Structure given I work for the GigaOm folks and am a speaker. Here are some of the interesting sponsors that work in the data center industry.

And Open Compute Project will participate.

Facebook and the Open Compute Project are hosting their second hardware hackathon with the winners presenting at GigaOM’s Structure conference on June 19. So start thinking about your idea, and go register.

If you want to hear a different discussion of the cloud you may want to trying something different for a change, or you can keep on going to the same conferences and hope they get more interesting.

What our attendees are saying

Structure has always been, and continues to be, the place with the most vibrant and provocative cloud discussion. I’ve tracked cloud for a long time and still find Structure to be an essential meeting in order to keep up.

- Peter Christy

Co-Founder, Internet Research Group

Structure is a ‘multi-phasic examination’ report on Cloud. In two days, one gets a reading on the state of the technology, the commercial aspects, and the ability to engage in conversation with the people most influential in its evolution.

-Rich Miller

CEO, Telematica

Structure has always been, and continues to be, the place with the most vibrant and provocative cloud discussion. I’ve tracked cloud for a long time and still find Structure to be an essential meeting in order to keep up.

- Peter Christy

Co-Founder, Internet Research Group

Structure is a ‘multi-phasic examination’ report on Cloud. In two days, one gets a reading on the state of the technology, the commercial aspects, and the ability to engage in conversation with the people most influential in its evolution.

-Rich Miller

CEO, Telematica

Structure has always been, and continues to be, the place with the most vibrant and provocative cloud discussion. I’ve tracked cloud for a long time and still find Structure to be an essential meeting in order to keep up.

- Peter Christy

Co-Founder, Internet Research Group

Structure is a ‘multi-phasic examination’ report on Cloud. In two days, one gets a reading on the state of the technology, the commercial aspects, and the ability to engage in conversation with the people most influential in its evolution.

-Rich Miller

CEO, Telematica

Looking at a Double Rainbow, colors are inverted

Dave Ohara — Sat, 18 May 2013 17:58:50 +0000

I've been traveling a lot and about to start another burst.

The nice thing come home is the view. Here is one of a double rainbow.

One interesting fact of a double rainbow is the color are inverted.

While a primary rainbow is visible when light is reflected once off the back of a raindrop, a secondary and usually dimmer rainbow is spotted when light is reflected twice in a more complicated pattern.

The colors of the second rainbow are inverted, with blue on the outside and red moved to the inside. The second bow appears dimmer or cloudier because much more light is released from two reflections, and both bows cover a larger portion of the sky.

Zooming into the above picture you can see the colors are inverted.

Realty vs. Myth, 5 manuscript versions of Gettysburg Address

Dave Ohara — Sat, 18 May 2013 13:29:57 +0000

Being an engineer, I enjoyed Math, Physics, Chemistry, and many other sciences. Studying Accounting and Finance was a close third to Math and Science. These were exact things to understand. When I was 14 I was working part-time after school, and it didn't work out as I wasn't fitting in. Losing the job didn't really bother me which bothered my mom more than it did me. What I think the event did do is get me into studying psychology, philosophy, reading Jung, Freud, and Zen Buddhism. People's perceptions shape their realty.

Here is an example of perception. I was curios to read the exact words of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address. We all take "four score and seven years ago…" as a truth. But, guess what there are five different manuscripts of Abraham Lincoln's speech and each has its different place in history.

Despite the speech's prominent place in the history and popular culture of the United States, the exact wording and location of the speech are disputed. The five known manuscripts of the Gettysburg Address differ in a number of details and also differ from contemporary newspaper reprints of the speech.

Here are references to the 5 different manuscripts.

^a The Gettysburg Address: Nicolay copy. The Library of Congress. Retrieved on 2010-09-15.^b The Gettysburg Address: Hay copy. The Library of Congress. Retrieved on 2010-09-15.^c Everett copy (jpg). virtualgettsyburg.com. Retrieved from internet archive 2007-06-14 version on 2007-12-10.^d Bancroft copy cover letter (pic), Bancroft copy, page 1 (pic), page 2 (pic). Cornell University Library. Retrieved on 2007-12-11.^e Bliss copy, page 1 (jpg), page 2 (jpg), page 3 (jpg). Illinois Historic Preservation Agency. Retrieved on 2007-12-11.

One of the lessons learned is the perception (of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address) is stronger than the reality (5 different manuscripts).

How many of these perception issues exist in the data center that the mass majority believe is true, but actually there is little data to support the perceived truth.

If you want to make it worse, there are some who benefit from distortion of perception as they create a reality that benefits their agenda.

Some of the smartest people know how to question common accepted truths as they ask for the data.

And sometimes those who speak less say more.

Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln was the second speaker on November 19, 1863, at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg. Lincoln was preceded on the podium by the famed orator Edward Everett, who spoke to the crowd for two hours. Lincoln followed with his now immortal Gettysburg Address. On November 20, Everett wrote to Lincoln: “Permit me also to express my great admiration of the thoughts expressed by you, with such eloquent simplicity & appropriateness, at the consecration of the Cemetery. I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

273 Words to a New America (2:59 min)

Curator: Dr. John R. Sellers
Week of: September 23, 2009

The Data Center World is getting smaller as it grows

Dave Ohara — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:53:07 +0000

One of my favorite books in high school was "Small is Beautiful."

Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays by British economist E. F. Schumacher. The phrase "Small Is Beautiful" came from a phrase by his teacher Leopold Kohr.^[1] It is often used to champion small, appropriate technologies that are believed to empower people more, in contrast with phrases such as "bigger is better".

After two weeks of being in LV and then SJ hanging around data center people having interesting discussions it struck me how small the data center world is. Yet it is growing.

With Social Networking and the bigger getting bigger, there is a small set of people who are driving the industry forward. Yet, there is an increasing set of people who demand data center services including IT organizations who don't understand how the small data center world works.

I think part of the problem for an newbie to data centers is to filter through the marketing and sales positioning to get the core of how the data center works. The marketing folks are not taking an approach that "Small is Beautiful" and it is about taking small steps in technology to empower people to design, build, and operate data centers better than the past.

The small is beautiful approach is an interesting one, that needs to be studied more.

Do you know me if you read my blog?

Dave Ohara — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:52:25 +0000

I was at IBM's Impact conference in a smart fire side chat type of format with a bunch of media folks and an IBM VP. We went around the room and introduced ourselves. The IBM executive and I shook hands and then he said "I know you." I quickly went through my memory trying to figure out where I had met the executive. Sometimes the brain doesn't work the way it used and I couldn't figure out where we had met. Then he said, "I read your blog." My first reaction was reading my blog doesn't mean you know me. I've shared this story with a few and had a few laughs. Then one of the my data center friends said well given the way you write and share your thoughts beyond the data center industry, people do feel like they know you.

After a few days in LV last week and a few days in Santa Clara catching up with friends and making new ones. I do think people know me through this blog.

This past week I hosted 30 - 40 people in a brew pub. Went to a small dinner party that I helped reach out to some thought leaders who were in town to attend. Last week was in LV was another pub social, dinner with IBM execs, and a 100 person party at PURE nightclub. So kind of socially burnt out. I have two days of rest before we host 50 people at our house for a going away party. Only one guy going does any work in the data center industry that I know of, although there are a few real estate people who have done some data center work. I think I'll take some pictures with my Canon 6D and post some. I am surprised how photography does show up in some of the conversation I have on the road.

Part of what got me writing in the style to share more than data center stuff is when Olivier Sanche and I would jump into conversations and I would mention blog posts. He cut me off and said I read everything you post, so let's just reference various ideas you have discussed and I'll tell you if I agree or disagree. It's kind of like we were having linked cross referenced discussions with footnotes of relevant ideas. It really tests my memory to remember what I posted on. Sometimes I need to look at the daily e-mail posting from the site to remember what I posted on. :-) And, my local friends read my stuff more than my wife does and will send he posts to her with their comments. In fact, I think the readers of my blog have a better idea of where I am going next than my wife does. Next week is North Carolina, then 7x24 Boca, then GigaOm Structure in SF.

Thanks for visiting this blog. And, I guess people do know me through what I post.

-Dave Ohara