Top 5 Data Center Stories: Week of Oct. 15

Dell Readies Major Cloud Hub in Quincy - Dell is getting busy in its global data center expansion to support its push into cloud computing services. Early Wednesday the company announced plans to open a new UK data center in Slough, a suburb of London. Later that day at DellWorld in Austin, Dell discussed details of its major new cloud hosting facility in Quincy, a major data center hub in Washington state.

AOL Launches New 'Lights Out' Data Center - AOL has begun operations at a new data center that will be completely unmanned, with all monitoring and management being handled remotely. The new “lights out” facility is part of a broader updating of AOL’s infrastructure that leverages virtualization and modular design to rapidly deploy and manage server capacity.

Data Centers Added to Mark Cuban's Wonderview - The visions of Texas billionaires Mark Cuban and T. Boone Pickens are intersecting in a data center project in Dallas, which will include up to four major data centers powered by renewable energy – including electricity generated from garbage and sewer sludge.

NYSE Recovers From Fire at NJ Data Center - The New York Stock Exchange says it expects a normal trading day after a small fire Sunday at its data center in Mahwah, New Jersey, which supports computer systems that are critical to the U.S. financial markets. The NYSE says the incident briefly interrupted connectivity for some customers, but should have no impact on its trading operations for Monday.

Microsoft to Slash its Water Impact in Quincy - In a move that will save millions of gallons of potable water for the local community, Microsoft has teamed with the city of Quincy, Washington to retool the city’s water treatment infrastructure. As part of the partnership, a multi-million dollar water treatment plant built by Microsoft to support its data center will be leased to the city of Quincy for just $10 a year.