Green (low carbon) Data Center Blog

HP's 6 Global Delivery Hubs with Data Centers

HP Enterprise Services announced its 6 Global delivery hubs.

HP Expands Best Shore Global Sourcing Model; Names Six Global Delivery Hubs

PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 10, 2010

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HP Enterprise Services today announced the expansion of Best Shore – its global services delivery model – by designating six countries as global delivery hubs that will grow to support increasing client demand for cost-efficient, scalable services that effectively meet business needs.

This expansion is part of the $1 billion investment HP announced in June to transform and grow its Enterprise Services business.

Bulgaria, China, Costa Rica, India, Malaysia and the Philippines are the designated delivery hubs. These mature HP Best Shore locations operate in time zone-relevant countries and will offer a significant employee base that can deliver various highly scalable services to clients across the globe. These centers also will offer multiple capabilities in each location, including applications, infrastructure technology and business process outsourcing services.

In this announcement there is no mention of data centers. But, how can you put 6 Global enterprise services organizations as a hub without a data center. Digging a bit I found the announcement about the Malaysia facility. and found the data center part.

Built on sustainable design principles, this 60-acre campus represents another investment the company is making to drive strategic growth in Asia. Serving global HP Enterprise Services clients, the center is home to one of six HP Best Shore global delivery hubs and, as part of future investment plans, will house a client-centric HP Next Generation Data Center. Driving HP innovation and addressing internal business needs, this global center also boasts an internal HP Global Application Development and Support Center and a HP Global Finance Center.

if you check out this video about the Malaysia facility you can see it needs the 24x7 service requirements of a data center as part of the service is NOC and customer support services.

I've taken many trips to Southeast Asia back when I was developing Southeast Asia fonts for Win3.1.  Malaysia has the space to support data centers and customer support facilities.  Singapore is often discussed as a location for data centers due to its network access, but building big data centers in Singapore is tough.

Here is an HP video of the Russelheim data center.

What's in Dell's move to Quincy, WA? Competing with IBM and HP?

Wenatchee World has the story on Dell coming to Quincy, WA for a data center.

Secret's out? Dell headed here

Blog: Everyday Business

By Mike Irwin

November 2, 2010

Dell, the world's third-largest computer company, has purchased property in Quincy that could become the site of the Columbia Basin town's newest data center, the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce reported this morning.
Underway for months, the top-secret purchase — known as Project Roosevelt — would add the computer manufacturer to Quincy's list of tech industry standouts, such as Microsoft and Yahoo.

DataCenterKnowledge has more details.

Officials with the Port of Quincy have confirmed that the deal is related to Project Roosevelt, the code name for a data center that could include grow to 250,000 square feet over time. The initial specifications call for 7 megawatts of power, ramping up to 30 megawatts over time. The search also considered sites in Douglas County.

Why is Dell building 7 MW with growth for 25 MW?  Perot systems is the competitor of HP/EDS and IBM services. Perot systems doesn't have the data center inventory that HP and IBM has.

Converged infrastructure is a hot topic, and it is much easier to sell a converged infrastructure solution when you have the data center contract.  The Dell data center is most likely a cost effective solution for hosting, gives a low carbon data center alternative, and becomes a showcase for Dell/Perot.

Dell announced today the acquisition of Cloud Solution SaaS company Boomi.

Dell to Acquire Boomi; Adds Industry’s No. 1 Integration Cloud™ Solution to SaaS Capabilities

Date : 11/2/2010

Round Rock, Texas

Dell today announced it has agreed to acquire Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) integration leader Boomi to help businesses reap the full value of cloud computing. Powered by its revolutionary AtomSphere technology, Boomi offers the industry’s only pure SaaS application integration platform that takes the cost and complexity out of integrating applications by allowing easy transfer of data between cloud-based and on-premise applications with no appliances, no software and no coding required.

 

Google's Lenoir Data Center, 30 megawatts, 708 Lynhaven St SW, Lenoir, NC

There is a common belief you can't find a Google Data Center using Google Maps.  Well here is the Google Lenoir, NC data center at 708 Lynhaven St SW, Lenoir, NC.  Data Center friends estimate the power to be 10 megawatts for the building maybe 15 max.

I found the address here, but Lynhaven is misspelled.

This one was in Lenoir, N.C., nestled in the rolling hills of Caldwell County at 708 Lynnhaven St. Never heard of it? That's okay. Google likes it that way, nice and secretive. For perspective, Lenoir is about 70 miles northwest of Charlotte.

Using Bing Maps you can see what the site looked like before construction.

The red circled area shows where the substation will go.  Here are substations added to the site.

Here is a closer view of the data center.

The resolution is quite good and you can see the construction is not complete.

Mapquest shows the building further along with cars at the support building.

South of the site looks like another data center being built.

MasterCard Campus with Main Data Center achieves LEED Gold for existing building

LEED is typically discussed for new data centers, but you can achieve LEED certification as well for existing structures.

Here is the press release.

MasterCard Campus is First in Missouri to Earn Green Building Certification

MasterCard Technologies Facility achieves Gold certification in the LEED® for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance rating system.

St. Louis, October 19, 2010 - MasterCard Worldwide today announced that its main technology campus in O’Fallon, Missouri, has achieved Gold certification in the LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance (LEED®-EBOM) rating system. Established by the U.S. Green Building Council and verified by the Green Building Certification Institute, LEED is the preeminent program for the design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings.

The Data Center is mentioned as part of the site.

The 550,000-square-foot MasterCard Technologies campus, which is the company’s largest facility and home to its main data center, is the first project in Missouri to earn LEED-EBOM Gold certification.

Out of 550,000 sq ft how much is data center space?  What I have been finding in the financial sector the  space reported for data centers is lumped in with office worker space.  How much work does the data center do?

In 2009, $2.5 trillion in gross dollar volume was generated on its products by consumers around the world. Powered by the MasterCard Worldwide Network — the fastest payment processing network in the world — MasterCard processes over 22 billion transactions each year, has the capacity to handle 140 million transactions per hour, with an average network response time of 140 milliseconds and with 99.99 percent reliability.

My initial guess is the data center space is less than 5 MW.  So, let's find the MasterCard O'Fallon facility.

The facility is listed.

St. Louis
OPERATIONS CENTER2200 MasterCard Blvd
O’Fallon, MO 63368+7263 U.S.A
Telephone: 636.722.6100

Google maps shows the site at 200 MasterCard Blvd.

Bing Maps shows a nicer view to look at the data center.  Go to Bird's eye view and you see how much of the space is used for office space with all the cars.

And you get a better view of the data center cooling system and generators.

So what is a guess on power?  Asking an expert.

Looks like only 3 generators – probably not 3.0 MW since this has been around a little while – so I would guess 2.5 MW each.  N+1 with some reserve for HVAC – maybe 4.0 MW of critical load.  Maybe 3.0 MW

So, 3 - 4 MW of critical load capacity to run MasterCard's main data center.

NYSE is run on less than 2.5 MW.  MasterCard main data center is run on less than 4 MW.

How much smaller do you think Financial data centers could be if they were built on Hadoop and HBase?

Where is NYSE Mahwah Data Center? 1600 MacArthur Blvd the future is co-location and liquidity hub

It is typical not to disclose a data center location, but for those who really want to find out they can.  What is the harm knowing a data center location?

What does happen once a data center site location is known you find out the truth of how big it is.  How much power is available.  What approach was taken.  Here is one analysis of the site.

The Mahwah data center looks interesting.  Agree with your assessment about ~10MW total size.  Most interesting feature to me are what look to be fully redundant on-site substations which I guess are fed from two separate and independent distribution substations from the utility supplier.  Assuming most utility reliability at 25kV and up is in the 4-nines range (99.99%) then a 2N, truly diverse path substation distribution system should provide them very high power availability.  Gen back up in this case would be for (1) maintenance, and (2) region-wide power outages.

I posted on the secret location of NYSE Mahwah data center's trying not to disclose too much, but then one of my readers said hey I recognize that place I used to live within a few blocks.

I actually found the address for the NYSE data center on the www.nyse.com web site.   Go to this article http://www.nyse.com/pdfs/traders_magazine_05_2010.pdf  which is a good article to read as well.

and you find the address.  Click on the link.

Now I did feel a little ethical tug honoring NYSE not to disclose the location of their data center, but given they published the information in a public magazine and even put it up on their own web site the information is out there. And now anyone can Google Search "where is NYSE data center" and find it.

Besides anyone who really wants to know can find out can.  When you build a data center that is meant to change the industry you can't hide.

One writer suggested the NYSE Mahwah site should not be disclosed because it could be a terrorist target.  How long is the list of data centers that are terrorist targets? "Let's not talk about that data center because it is a terrorist target."  I think every data center at one point has been thought of as a terrorist target.

I would feel bad about disclosing the site if I was told by someone in confidence.  But, there it is right on the NYSE.com web site.

I guess I believe in open information discussion and if its publicly disclosed its open for discussion.

Note: I have talked to no one at NYSE or any associates to figure this out. I just happen to be curious studying low latency trading technology, and found the above article with Google Search.

You want to count how long it is before the above PDF disappears?  I saved my local copy.  And Google has the document cached.

NYSE Mahwah Data Center Aerial views

60 minutes covered the opening of the NYSE data center and they promised not to disclose the site location. 

Robot Traders of the NYSE

In a secret new building in New Jersey, high-speed computers decide which stocks to buy and sell. Could this kind of automated "trading floor" lead to Wall Street's next "flash crash"?

In Steve Kroft's "60 Minutes" report on high-frequency trading, you heard how most stock trades in the U.S. are no longer made by humans, but by computers capable of buying and selling stocks at warp speed.

I won't give the address.  Yet.  :-)  I did find the address in a public source though.  Just lucky researching low latency technology NYSE uses and there it was the address.

Here are pictures from Bing Maps and Google maps.

Any guesses on the power on site given the cooling picture below?

Here is the bare dirt.

Here is the building under construction.

Here is the completed building with a Google address location pin.

Cooling

One substation on the North.

And another on the South.

And a picture inside the data center.

 

 

 

 

 

Studying Tenants in a Colocation Data Center space, what is in Digital Realty Trust

Digital Realty Trust has in its 2009 10-K statement on page 35 a list of its top 20 tenants.

I've been staring at this table for a while, seeing what could be learned from this public disclosure.

Top 3 tenants are resellers of space - Savvis, Equinix and Qwest comprise 24.8% of the sq ft, but are only 18.9% of the rent.

The 3 financials - JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and HSBC are 2.8% of the sq ft and 7.1% of the revenue which can be explained by the high availability requirements for their space and requirements to support financial transactions.

Google is not in the Top 20 listed.  But, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Facebook are. Microsoft has the most amount of space of these 3 with 2.5% of the space and 1.6% of revenue.  Yahoo! has 0.9% of the sq ft and 1.9% of the revenue.  With Facebook at #4 in revenue with 3.6%, they have only 1.1% of the space in Digital's data centers.  Facebook being a young company could be in high density space, so judging just by sq ft and not knowing power leaves more questions.

Comverse Technology looks like they have the most amount of space in one location 2.9% of the sq ft and only 1.4% of the revenue.  But, all spaces are not created equal and it would seem the space Comverse got into had little demand from others which may explain why there is so much space.

Why are these numbers important?  As companies decide to build data centers, they use their colocation costs as part of the business justification.  But, how many look at the costs others are paying for colocation space to judge the ROI of a data center?

If Brazil can build a critic proof dam, why can't the same ideas be applied to a data center?

Dams are notorious for their environmental impact.  James Cameron has protested one Brazilian dam.

Brazil dam project prompts animated response from director Cameron

September 01, 2010|By Matthew Knight for CNN

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Movie director, James Cameron has teamed up with environmental campaigners in an effort to help Brazilian tribes' epic fight against the construction of a controversial dam in northern Brazil.

But, another Brazilian dam has a strategy to be free of critics or at least minimize the social and environmental impact. WSJ reports on this effort.

Brazil Engineers a Critic-Proof Dam

By JOHN LYONS

Ana Ottoni

The Santo Antonio dam rises in the Amazon, one of 24 planned there.

PORTO VELHO, Brazil—Tethered to scaffolding on concrete towers by a clay-colored river, workers clad head to toe for protection from sun and mosquitoes are building the first large dam in the Amazon in decades.

Greenpeace has focused its sights on Facebook's data center.  The Brazilian company has spent $600 million to reduce the impact of the dam.

Yet few people have heard of the $8 billion Santo Antonio project, even in Brazil—which is just how the builders planned it. They designed it to avoid the controversies that have delayed other dam projects for years and multiplied their costs.

The builders spent some $600 million to head off trouble with regulators, environmental groups and Indian tribes before it arose. They trained thousands of rain-forest residents to provide a local labor pool and built modern houses for families who will be displaced. They created a high-tech fish ladder so species like giant catfish can get around the dam—and to meet one local demand, they built an alligator slaughterhouse.

For those who doubt a green fits in a data center.  Consider these words.

The dam's greener hue isn't because of any special environmental ardor on the part of the builders. It reflects a calculation about the unpredictable extra costs that environmental suits, Indian protests and political backlashes can cause.

Note the dam staff member who comes from World Wildlife Fund.

"In the end, this is business," said Gabriel Azevedo, a former World Bank and World Wildlife Fund executive who serves as sustainability director at the energy division of the dam's lead construction company, Odebrecht SA. Odebrecht is a closely held Brazilian concern whose other projects include boring a 12-mile tunnel through the Andes to carry Amazon water to Peru. Its co-builder is another private Brazilian company, Andrade Gutierrez SA.

Is this the future of data centers?  Well maybe not all of you.  As Greenpeace stays focused on Facebook as the target, others sigh in relief.

HP integrates new servers with POD containers for faster, cheaper, smaller IT solutions

HP announced new servers for solution providers.

Accelerate application performance and efficiency for service providers

When supporting a business model based on large-scale application service delivery, service providers need to consider every CPU, millisecond, watt, dollar and square foot to gain a competitive advantage in the market.

The new HP ProLiant SL6500 Scalable System features a common modular architecture that can scale from one node to thousands while delivering breakthrough energy efficiency and performance of up to 1 teraFLOPS per unit of rack space. This standard platform can be highly customized and tuned with the HP ProLiant SL390s G7 server and HP ProLiant SL170s G6 server to meet varying application demands, such as high-performance computing, web services, cloud computing and hosting.

As part of HP's Converged Infrastructure.

HP is targeting the solution provider market with this current announcement.

HP POD-Works and HP PODs are ideal for any service provider / enterprise customer requiring:

• Quick IT deployment using HP POD-Works and HP Factory Express
• Pay as you grow to minimize up front capital outlay - add additional HP PODs as you need more datacenter space
• Decrease operating expenses with PUEs as low as 1.25

HP POD meets demanding requirements for service providers

• High efficient power distribution delivering 3-phase power through the HP POD, 240V within racks, and supporting N+N power redundancy
• Easily accommodates very dense IT deployments supplying up to 600kW in a 40ft/12m HP POD, and 290kW in a 20ft/6m HP POD

Amazon leases data center space while Google and Microsoft build

DataCenterKnowledge reports on Amazon.com leasing 125,000 sq ft of office/warehouse space and converting it to data center space.

Report: Amazon Leases Space in Virginia

September 28th, 2010 : Rich Miller

Amazon’s expanding cloud computing operation apparently needs room to grow. The commercial real estate news site Globe Street reports that Amazon has leased a building in northern Virginia that will be used to expand its data center operations.

Citing an unnamed source, Globe Street says Amazon has leased a 125,000 square foot facility in Sterling, Va. and will invest $60 million in converting the site into a data center. The building, which is owned by a joint venture between Altus Realty Partners and Perseus Realty Partners, features a 90,000 square foot warehouse with 18-foot ceiling clearance that can be converted to data center space. The facility also features about 35,000 square feet of space currently used for offices.

as referenced the Globe Street mentions the shortage of space.

As data center space becomes ever more scarce in the area, a growing number of firms are investing in building out the operations themselves. Microsoft, for example, is investing $499 million in the southern county of Mecklenburg to build a data center. It will be the largest investment here and create 50 jobs, according to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.

Amazon has an estimated 150,000 plus servers which would have most companies building data centers not leasing them.  Amazon is a different breed than other high tech companies thinking like a retailer and driven by a financial discipline.  Amazon has only one built data center in Boardman, Oregon.

Will Amazon eventually build big data centers like the rest following Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook? 

At many companies the rigors of getting approval a data center construction project approved are from the business units, technical people, and the CFO.  I would expect at Amazon.com, everyone wants to see the numbers, and they spend much more time on financial modeling.

Should we lease or build?

What is the best use of Amazon's capital and cash?

What is the overall operating expense of a leased vs. owned facility?

Latest decision in the East Coast. Lease.