Best of the Data Center Blogs for March 26

Here are some of the notable items we came across in this week's surfing of the data center blogs. It's been a while since our last roundup, so we've got seven items in this installment:

True Detective and Data Center Trade Shows - Compass CEO Chris Crosby reflects on HBO's "True Detective" and the state of data center conferences: "Interesting and compelling content makes for must see TV. As we enter trade show season, shouldn’t this same axiom work for them? Instead, the most interesting aspect of the typical data center trade show is determining who offered the most interesting tchotchke."

Power Quality Issues : Silent Efficiency Killer - From the Schneider Electric Blog: "Power quality issues cost the U.S. economy about $15 billion each year. Because approximately 80 percent of all power-quality problems originate from the customer’s side of the meter, facility owners, managers, designers and other high-tech equipment users need to understand and manage and avoid power quality issues."

All Herald The 'Cloudy Mainframe' - From Ben Kepes via Forbes: "Cloudwashing or truly revolutionary? ASG Software Solutions is leading with that most attractive of concepts and promising “cloud based automation and service orchestration” for mainframes. Do we see an honest merging of technology paradigms of yesterday (of, 30 years ago) and today?"

Data Centers and the Internet of Things to Come - At Wired, Digital Realty CTO Jim Smith ponders the role of the data center in an instrumented world: "While it is still too early to tell exactly how the Internet of Things will unfold over the next few years, one thing is clear: data centers will play a critical role."

Cisco UCS Five Years On: Can Cisco UCS really be five years old? Todd Brannon looks back in a post at the Cisco Data Center blog: "Thinking back five years to March of 2009, when Cisco introduced UCS, the economy was still spiraling into the worst recession of our lifetime. IT budgets were being slashed. Many wondered if it was the right time for Cisco to enter a new market with deeply entrenched competitors. As it turns out, it was the perfect time. Because change occurs fastest when times are hard."

Why Maps Matter to Business Continuity and Risk Professionals - SunGard Availability's Seema Sheth-Voss looks at maps and DR preparation: "Do maps matter to business continuity and risk professionals? Absolutely. Crisis and incident management personnel in the public and private sector routinely subscribe to all sorts of alerts with respect to their location. But taking that flood of information, putting it all together, and finding the insights contained can be a challenge! It’s time for IT business continuity and risk professionals to leverage the map analytics already available to other professionals."

Equinix Performance Hub and the Needs of the Enterprise - At the Equinix Interconenctions blog, Jay Lindsey lays out several use cases which spell out different ways enterprises can benefit from installing a Performance Hub, which extends a company’s existing network into an Equinix data center.