Microsoft archrival VMware announced this week a set of future technologies called the “Virtual Datacenter OS” that some are comparing with Windows Server 2008.
But Windows Server 2008 and its integrated Hyper-V hypervisor aren’t what Microsoft is going to be pitting against VMware, Google and Amazon in the brave, new datacenter-centric world. Instead, Microsoft’s soon-to-be-unveiled “Zurich” foundational services and its “RedDog” system services are what the Redmondians will be fielding against its cloud competitors.
Not so different, are they? (VMware, like Microsoft, is talking about spanning both “on-premise” and “cloud” datacenters. Not too surprising when you remember from where VMware CEO Paul Maritz hails….)
Microsoft is expected to detail at least the mid-tier — the Zurich services — at its Professional Developers Conference in late October. I’m hearing most at least some of Microsoft’s Zurich deliverables are slated to be released in final form by mid-2009.
At the base level, down at the substrate which Microsoft previously has described as its “Global Foundation Services” layer is where I’m betting RedDog will fit in. These are services like provisioning, networking, security, management, and operations. (Virtualization fits in here, as well, in the context of helping users migrate between the cloud and on-premise and vice versa.) RedDog has been described as the horizontal “cloud OS” that Microsoft is building to power datacenters.
At the next level, “Zurich” — which Microsoft also has described as the Live Platform services layer — Microsoft will deliver federated identity, data synchronization, workflow and “relay services.” I’ve been hearing a bit more lately about Relay, which I believe Microsoft also has called “Overlay” services.
Overlay is a peer-to-peer network that will help bridge distributed, parallel systems. Supposedly, Overlay will help Microsoft do everything from load balancing and replication of application states across the network of machines, to providing a discovery framework for Web services to make use of presence and federation services. Elements of the overlay network are expected to be part of .Net 4.0, the next version of Microsoft’s .Net Framework.
Bottom line: Don’t think Windows Server 2008 is the be-all/end-all of Microsoft’s datacenter OS story. There is lots more that the company still won’t discuss publicly, but is known to be happening in the background.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
disaster recovery data center
We’re starting to see some interesting case studies for servers in shipping containers. In a profile of Revlon CTO David Giambruno, ComputerWorld has some details on Revlon’s use of distributed data center containers in its disaster recovery network. Here’s an excerpt:
“Rather than have parallel datacenters and SANs in various countries, Giambruno’s plan put high-capacity storage at five sites across the world, consolidating data and applications at its U.S. datacenter. Using the same shipping system as for its cosmetics manufacturing, Revlon sent out five pre-loaded “Mini Me” datacenter containers to its four other IT centers, creating a global disaster recovery network of identical systems that assured resources would work when moved. These Mini Me datacenters have the SAN, storage, and severs for both local operations and can support external fail-over from other locations if needed.
Revlon says this approach reduced its datacenter power consumption by 72 percent asnd cut disaster recovery costs in half, as well as dramatically reducing the time required to back up 6.5 terabytes of data each week. Read ComputerWorld for more.
“Rather than have parallel datacenters and SANs in various countries, Giambruno’s plan put high-capacity storage at five sites across the world, consolidating data and applications at its U.S. datacenter. Using the same shipping system as for its cosmetics manufacturing, Revlon sent out five pre-loaded “Mini Me” datacenter containers to its four other IT centers, creating a global disaster recovery network of identical systems that assured resources would work when moved. These Mini Me datacenters have the SAN, storage, and severs for both local operations and can support external fail-over from other locations if needed.
Revlon says this approach reduced its datacenter power consumption by 72 percent asnd cut disaster recovery costs in half, as well as dramatically reducing the time required to back up 6.5 terabytes of data each week. Read ComputerWorld for more.
data center energy efficiency
EPA ENERGY STAR Program released to Congress a report assessing opportunities for energy efficiency improvements for government and commercial computer servers and data centers in the United States.
The study projects near-term growth in energy use of U.S. computer servers and data centers, assesses potential cost and energy savings related to computer server and data center energy efficiency improvements, and recommends potential incentives and voluntary programs to promote energy-efficient computer servers and data centers. The report complements EPA’s ongoing efforts to develop new energy efficiency specifications for data servers, including market and technical research, industry collaboration, and explorations into a new ENERGY STAR buildings benchmark for data centers which reflects whole building operations.
The report recommends a mix of programs and incentives, as well as a holistic approach to achieve significant savings. Recommendations include:
* Collaborating with industry and other stakeholders on the development of a standardized whole-building performance rating system for data centers.
* Federal leadership through implementation of best practices for its own facilities.
* Development of ENERGY STAR specifications for servers and related product categories.
* Encouraging electric utilities to offer financial incentives to facilitate datacenter energy efficiency improvements.
* The Federal government should partner with industry to issue a CEO Challenge, for private-sector CEOs to assess and improve the energy efficiency of their data centers.
* Public/private research and development into advanced technology and practices including computing software, IT hardware, power conversion, heat removal, controls and management, and cross-cutting activities.
The study projects near-term growth in energy use of U.S. computer servers and data centers, assesses potential cost and energy savings related to computer server and data center energy efficiency improvements, and recommends potential incentives and voluntary programs to promote energy-efficient computer servers and data centers. The report complements EPA’s ongoing efforts to develop new energy efficiency specifications for data servers, including market and technical research, industry collaboration, and explorations into a new ENERGY STAR buildings benchmark for data centers which reflects whole building operations.
The report recommends a mix of programs and incentives, as well as a holistic approach to achieve significant savings. Recommendations include:
* Collaborating with industry and other stakeholders on the development of a standardized whole-building performance rating system for data centers.
* Federal leadership through implementation of best practices for its own facilities.
* Development of ENERGY STAR specifications for servers and related product categories.
* Encouraging electric utilities to offer financial incentives to facilitate datacenter energy efficiency improvements.
* The Federal government should partner with industry to issue a CEO Challenge, for private-sector CEOs to assess and improve the energy efficiency of their data centers.
* Public/private research and development into advanced technology and practices including computing software, IT hardware, power conversion, heat removal, controls and management, and cross-cutting activities.
national data centre pune
National Data Centre (NDC) is the sole custodian of all Meteorological Data being collected from various parts of India. The data are available for more then 125 years. The mandate is to preserve quality controlled data and supply for Weather Prediction, Aviation, Agriculture, Environmental studies, Oceanography and Shipping and Researchers of various Institutions and Universities.
google data api
Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. This includes making information accessible in contexts other than a web browser and accessible to services outside of Google. As an end-user or a developer, you are the owner of your information, and we want to give you the best tools possible to access, manipulate, and obtain that information.
Why AtomPub?
Web syndication is an effective and popular method for providing and aggregating content. The Google Data Protocol extends AtomPub as a way to expand the types of content available through syndication. In particular, the protocol lets you use the AtomPub syndication mechanism to send queries and receive query results. It also lets you send data to Google and update data that Google maintains.
Why JSON?
JSON, or JavaScript Object notation, is a lightweight data interchange format in widespread use among web developers. JSON is easy to read and write; you can parse it using any programming language, and its structures map directly to data structures used in most programming languages. Within the Google Data Protocol, JSON objects simply mirror the Atom representation.
Why AtomPub?
Web syndication is an effective and popular method for providing and aggregating content. The Google Data Protocol extends AtomPub as a way to expand the types of content available through syndication. In particular, the protocol lets you use the AtomPub syndication mechanism to send queries and receive query results. It also lets you send data to Google and update data that Google maintains.
Why JSON?
JSON, or JavaScript Object notation, is a lightweight data interchange format in widespread use among web developers. JSON is easy to read and write; you can parse it using any programming language, and its structures map directly to data structures used in most programming languages. Within the Google Data Protocol, JSON objects simply mirror the Atom representation.
microsoft data center
Though the building alone covers a whopping 11 acres, you can't even see Microsoft's new $550 million data center in the hills west of San Antonio until you're practically on top of it. But by that point, you can hardly see anything else.
A "spine" of wires and pipes supplies power, cooling and other vital resources throughout Microsoft's Chicago data center, which is under construction.
(click for image gallery)
These days, the massive data center is a bustling construction zone where visitors have to wear hardhats, helmets, orange safety vests, goggles and gloves. By September, it'll be the newest star in Microsoft's rapidly expanding collection of massive data centers, powering Microsoft's forays into cloud computing like Live Mesh and Exchange Online, among plenty of other as-yet-unannounced services. Pulling in, visitors are stopped by Securitas guards who check IDs and ask if they work for Microsoft. An incomplete gate marks the way. Microsoft's general manager of data center services, Mike Manos, won't say exactly what security measures will be in place when the data center opens, but won't rule anything out. "Will the gates be able to stop a speeding Mack truck?" I ask. "Or more," he responds. "Will you have biometrics?" "We have just about everything."
As the car rounds the bend beyond the gate, the building sweeps into full view. The San Antonio data center building itself is 475,000 square feet, or about 11 acres. It's a 1.3 mile walk to circumnavigate the building. To get a perspective on that, it's one building that's the size of almost 10 football fields laid out side-by-side, or 1/10th the floor space of the entire Sears Tower, covered with servers and electrical equipment. "I thought I understood what scale looked like," Manos says.
When the San Antonio data center was under peak construction, 965 people were working full time to build it, with more than 15 trucks of material coming and going each day in order to get the job done in 18 months from scouting the site to opening up. The facilities were built with continuous workflow of materials in mind, even after the site's completion.
As one walks toward the data center's main entrance, a feature that stands out is a row of several truck bays much like would be seen in an industrial park. Trucks pull up and leave servers or other materials inside the bays or "truck tracks," to be picked up and inventoried in the next room and then moved to storage or deployment.
Most everything in the data center is functional. On the small scale, wainscoting-like pieces of plywood cover the bottom of hallway walls to protect both the walls and servers and other equipment moving back and forth. On the large scale, San Antonio is actually two data centers side by side to separate business risk. "One side could burn down and the other one could continue to operate," Manos says.
The components inside are just as gargantuan as those on the outside. Seven massive battery rooms contain hundreds of batteries and 2.7 mW of back-up power apiece. Very few industrial sites, among them aluminum smelters, silicon manufacturers and automobile factories, consume as much energy as mega data centers of the order Microsoft is building.
A "spine" of wires and pipes supplies power, cooling and other vital resources throughout Microsoft's Chicago data center, which is under construction.
(click for image gallery)
These days, the massive data center is a bustling construction zone where visitors have to wear hardhats, helmets, orange safety vests, goggles and gloves. By September, it'll be the newest star in Microsoft's rapidly expanding collection of massive data centers, powering Microsoft's forays into cloud computing like Live Mesh and Exchange Online, among plenty of other as-yet-unannounced services. Pulling in, visitors are stopped by Securitas guards who check IDs and ask if they work for Microsoft. An incomplete gate marks the way. Microsoft's general manager of data center services, Mike Manos, won't say exactly what security measures will be in place when the data center opens, but won't rule anything out. "Will the gates be able to stop a speeding Mack truck?" I ask. "Or more," he responds. "Will you have biometrics?" "We have just about everything."
As the car rounds the bend beyond the gate, the building sweeps into full view. The San Antonio data center building itself is 475,000 square feet, or about 11 acres. It's a 1.3 mile walk to circumnavigate the building. To get a perspective on that, it's one building that's the size of almost 10 football fields laid out side-by-side, or 1/10th the floor space of the entire Sears Tower, covered with servers and electrical equipment. "I thought I understood what scale looked like," Manos says.
When the San Antonio data center was under peak construction, 965 people were working full time to build it, with more than 15 trucks of material coming and going each day in order to get the job done in 18 months from scouting the site to opening up. The facilities were built with continuous workflow of materials in mind, even after the site's completion.
As one walks toward the data center's main entrance, a feature that stands out is a row of several truck bays much like would be seen in an industrial park. Trucks pull up and leave servers or other materials inside the bays or "truck tracks," to be picked up and inventoried in the next room and then moved to storage or deployment.
Most everything in the data center is functional. On the small scale, wainscoting-like pieces of plywood cover the bottom of hallway walls to protect both the walls and servers and other equipment moving back and forth. On the large scale, San Antonio is actually two data centers side by side to separate business risk. "One side could burn down and the other one could continue to operate," Manos says.
The components inside are just as gargantuan as those on the outside. Seven massive battery rooms contain hundreds of batteries and 2.7 mW of back-up power apiece. Very few industrial sites, among them aluminum smelters, silicon manufacturers and automobile factories, consume as much energy as mega data centers of the order Microsoft is building.
yahoo data center
Companies like Google and IBM are trying to lead the world in cutting-edge, efficient data centers. Not to be outdone, on Tuesday Yahoo! announced they're hoping to change to future of data centers as well. The company unveiled plans to build one of the world's most efficient data centers in Lockport, NY, and the details do sound pretty exciting.
The data center will be powered mainly by hydroelectric power from Niagara Falls, with 90 percent of that energy going towards powering the servers. The center itself will be built to resemble a chicken coop, using 100 percent outside air to cool the servers, a task which typically gobbles up 50 percent of a data center's energy supply. And the company expects the yearly PUE average to be 1.1 or better.
In addition to building this super-efficient data center, the company also committed to reducing the carbon footprint of all their data centers by 40 percent by 2014. They intend to accomplish this through using more renewable energy sources to power their data centers, implementing more efficient building designs and improving the efficiency of the servers themselves.
Another major commitment made in this announcement was that the company would cease purchasing carbon offsets and was aiming to reduce their carbon impact directly through decreasing energy consumption. We would love to hear of more companies relying less on offsets and more on energy-saving improvements.
The data center will be powered mainly by hydroelectric power from Niagara Falls, with 90 percent of that energy going towards powering the servers. The center itself will be built to resemble a chicken coop, using 100 percent outside air to cool the servers, a task which typically gobbles up 50 percent of a data center's energy supply. And the company expects the yearly PUE average to be 1.1 or better.
In addition to building this super-efficient data center, the company also committed to reducing the carbon footprint of all their data centers by 40 percent by 2014. They intend to accomplish this through using more renewable energy sources to power their data centers, implementing more efficient building designs and improving the efficiency of the servers themselves.
Another major commitment made in this announcement was that the company would cease purchasing carbon offsets and was aiming to reduce their carbon impact directly through decreasing energy consumption. We would love to hear of more companies relying less on offsets and more on energy-saving improvements.
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