| Friday, April 23, 2010 |
 |
| Virtualization and de-virtualization - is that the best answer for power on all systems? |
|
| One thing that is certain in computing is the cyclical nature of data centers. If you think back over the years, we have gone from main frames, to lots of servers, now to virtualization. Some companies that I work with are already de-virtualizing servers due to the growth in applications and their resulting computing needs. Yet others are de-virtualizing applications that do not require 24x7 resources with a plan to power cycle those machines for an increased savings in power and to free up... |
|
posted by Carrie Higbie at 6:52:57 AM |  0 comments |
|
| Monday, March 15, 2010 |
|
| Departmental Budgets are not CTO/CIO budgets - But Companies are Moving in that Direction! |
|
| It started with energy bills and answering the question, how much are we saving? Of course the answer to that was, we don't know because we can't measure our usage. This changed to lots of monitored power options which according to recent surveys about 75% (on average depending on the survey) of data centers have already implemented. Energy bills moved out of facilities and became a line item in under the CIO/CTO's budget. What's next?
Well according to several of the end users I work with... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 7:39:17 PM | 0 comments |
|
| Thursday, February 25, 2010 |
|
| Marketing alliance or product endorsement- Know the difference? |
|
| These days it seems that more and more companies are doing joint announcements and forming alliances to go after business. The trick is determining if an announcement is an actual product endorsement exclusive of all other products, and which is a marketing alliance.
In order to gain market share companies share leads either formally or in some cases informally. It is a way to share information and bring new customers to the table. Does that mean that one company's product only works with... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 6:38:34 AM | 0 comments |
|
| Thursday, January 21, 2010 |
|
| Is 2010 the year for upgrades? |
|
| With the vendor wars heating up, is it smarter to wait and see what “shakes out” or buy now and deal with any fallout later through equipment attrition? I hear that question a lot. Historically, companies have refreshed their electronics every 3 years. The truth is now that companies hold on to expensive switches, servers, etc. until there is a compelling reason to upgrade or the things just die. We are now at a point however where we do have compelling reasons to upgrade. The first reason... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 3:04:08 PM | 0 comments |
|
| Friday, December 18, 2009 |
|
| Twas the Night Before Christmas- the DC Manager's Version |
|
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the DC
Not a creature was stirring not even a techie
The operators were asleep all tanked on eggnog
While those of us that write are dreaming up blogs
The new year awaits with visions of green
Lower TCO's alive in our dreams
The vendors align competing for space
IBM, Sun, Cisco, HP, and Dell have all entered the race
Our budgets are smaller and scattered about
Can one vendor win? We all... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 7:14:45 AM | 0 comments |
|
| Friday, November 13, 2009 |
|
| Green Grid to publish a new Design Guide |
|
| If we add standards, codes, and guides from manufacturers and now the green grid, there are literally hundreds of opinions on how we should design a generic data center. While I agree that it is nice to have a guide, the tricky part is that it isn't always easy to find designers that actually read them. It's even more difficult when vendors set marketing messages around a small item in one of them and promote it at the expense of all other systems in the data center.
To complicate matters... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 6:04:56 AM | 0 comments |
|
| Monday, November 09, 2009 |
|
| Legislating cyber security for business - really? |
|
| The Washington Post reports that such legislation may be introduced as early as this week by Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., and Sen. Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine. Thinking back to SOX (Sarbases/Oxley) and the significant costs to companies, what would this do to businesses?
I seriously doubt that most businesses could stand another expensive legislated hit to their IT budgets. I would also be concerned that new technology would not be deployed, purchased... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 12:54:17 PM | 0 comments |
|
| Saturday, October 31, 2009 |
|
| Clouds, new toys, is it really a good thing? |
|
| Of the customers I work with around the globe, I think that cloud computing works for some applications but certainly not all. In any scenario, a risk assessment is needed to determine what will actually benefit from clouds and what will be technology just because it is the latest and greatest most hyped in the news. Data centers are particularly cyclical in nature. Today's latest and greatest is built on yesterday's latest and greatest ...just new and improved.
Clouds may not work or even be... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 7:51:55 AM | 0 comments |
|
| Thursday, October 08, 2009 |
|
| Overhead versus Underfloor Pathways - which is best? |
|
| This is one question that I hear repeatedly. Those that have had a giant blob of spaghetti would vote for overhead systems, those that have had visible overhead spaghetti would vote for underfloor. The correct answer is, it depends. Data centers today often deploy a mixture of both. The error that data centers make is randomly making this decision. In a new build, you basically have a blank slate and you can chose whichever suits your needs and preferences. Either system can really get a bum... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 12:30:00 PM | 1 comments |
|
| Thursday, August 20, 2009 |
|
| The data center battles heat up! Watch your budgets! |
|
| I keep in touch via blogs, newsletters, stocks and of course end user opinions and one thing that is true is that the competition in the data center space is getting stronger and even a bit bloodier than any other time I can remember. (I've been in this industry for the better part of 30 years). New partnerships both marketing and OEM are heating up this space. The days of saying I'm a "brand X" house are going to be gone shortly, I think. With all this press coverage, CTO's and CIO's are going... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 3:42:20 PM | 0 comments |
|
| Thursday, June 25, 2009 |
|
| 10GBASE-T going mainstream – Bring on the Options! |
|
| For a few months now, the naysayers have been trying to discredit 10GBASE-T as a viable option for data centers based on the power usage of the original – proof of concept chips that were available. Historically, for those of us old enough to remember, we shouldn’t have expected that power requirement to last. If we think back to the first GbE chips, at first introduction they were around 6 Watts per port compared to the <1 Watt per port we see today. Those early high power claims are no... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 11:20:25 AM | 0 comments |
|
| Tuesday, June 02, 2009 |
|
| Good specifications gone bad... |
|
| Gone are the days of installing "any old thing" and/or myriads of equipment based on some application vendor's preference for hardware. Today, data centers are paying attention to things like training, power, quality of installation and the need for consistency. If one were to add up all of the hours it takes in training, quality assurance, etc. for multiple systems, it doesn't take long to realize that this costs a lot of man hours and dollars. Not to mention the time drain from replacing... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 9:32:44 AM | 0 comments |
|
| Wednesday, April 15, 2009 |
|
| How to kill a budget in 3 words |
|
| Data centers are suffering these days from these 3 words - "Lack of Communication." It is high time that network, facilities, server, and security start communicating with each other. In speaking around the globe, this problem is raised often. Networking buys gear that requires a complete cable rework that isn't budgeted, new PDU's as capacity is at it's maximum, or even new cooling for the latest "cool" technology. The same can be said for servers and security toys that are showing up without... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 12:48:55 PM | 0 comments |
|
| Saturday, March 28, 2009 |
|
| Would you let your pool boy do your taxes? Then why let non-network folks design your data center? |
|
| First, for the responsible design and build, architectural and MPE firms, I'm not talking about you. For the "consultants" out there that don't up their education and are still living in the 70's and the electrical design firms that are in the same era....SHAME ON YOU! At least once a week I work with an end user that is being stuck with a design and budget that is completely non-workable with today's equipment. This includes pathways, spaces, budgetary guidelines, layouts, space, you name it!... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 8:25:52 AM | 1 comments |
|
| Wednesday, March 25, 2009 |
|
| Will there ever be an end all be all single vendor data center? |
|
| Mergers, acquisitions, changes and new products abound as vendors work to be your sole source data center supplier. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? In the past we have been stuck with hardware decisions based on the platform that our applications vendors like. After all, no one wanted to be a guinea pig and try new platforms. This resulted in a DC full of various platforms. On one hand, the cost for training to maintain multiple vendors can be significant. But on the other hand, single... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 7:45:33 AM | 0 comments |
|
| You are Killing Yourself and You Don't Believe IT - time for Spring cleaning! |
|
| The time has come to stop throwing money into a mess and clean up your data center. We have known about cable abatement, decommissioning and the need for clean up for a long time. So what are you waiting for? Cooling inefficiencies are not going to be solved by adding new cooling when your air pathways are obstructed by years of old stuff. One problem that companies have is trying to figure out what stuff can go. Outside of the obvious bus and tag and old twinax, the other cabling is a mess of... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 7:37:03 AM | 0 comments |
|
| Will you Colo? |
|
| Data centers seem to be busting out of their seams despite efforts to virtualize and consolidate/condense. There are some significant capital expenditure advantages in using collocation/hosted space. But is it for you? As a tenant you want to be sure that the site addresses the following: -Hot and cold aisles so that your equipment is not getting the next cages hot air -Defined pathways and spaces so that the next cage is not cutting off your air -Standards for what goes in the cages (blanking... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 9:38:27 AM | 0 comments |
|
| Monday, March 23, 2009 |
|
| How to Land Lock a Data Center in 3 Easy Words |
|
| Point to point! If someone is suggesting this to you, you owe it to yourself to just say no in most cases. The only company that these connections really benefit are the switch manufacturer. Think of the following: You purchase a 48 port switch for a cabinet. You are only using 12. This means you paid for 36 and are paying maintenance on 36 ports that you are not using. OOOPS! And this also means that your network ports dictate where new equipment can be deployed. If that was the only switch... |
|
| posted by Carrie Higbie at 9:17:18 AM | 0 comments |
|
Carrie Higbie