Best of the Data Center Blogs, July 16th

Here’s a roundup of some interesting items we came across this week in our reading of data center industry blogs:

Why There are Data Centers in NY, Hong Kong, and Tokyo - James Hamilton looks at data center site selection: "Google is in New York because it has millions of customers in New York. If it were physically possible to serve these customers from an already built, hyper efficient datacenter like Google Dalles, they certainly would. But that facility is 70 msec round trip away from New York. What about Iceland? Roughly the same distance. It simply doesn’t work competitively. Companies build near their users because physics of the speed of light is unbending and uncaring."

Knowing your Current (Amps) and Future Power Needs With Metered PDUs - From the Tripp Lite Data Center Blog: "There are many different types of Power Distribution Units in the market ranging from very basic outlet strips to IP addressable in which one can have remote access to control down to the outlet level. More importantly, PDU’s can provide a great deal of insight for what is currently being drawn on the circuit and provide for future power capacity planning."

Data Center Does Dallas – Fun with Data Center Marketing - At the Compass Datacenter Blog, Chris Crosby has some sport with the trend towards larger facilities: "Since we all know that the first thing customers look for in a data center is whether it is large enough to have its own gravitational field, there is an obvious sense of urgency to developing some standardization of data center size categories. The issue is complicated by a couple of factors. First, 'Massive' has already been interjected into the lexicon, and second all the really good descriptors—small, medium, large, extra large and tall, grande and venti—have already been taken. Nevertheless, the importance of the issue dictates that we persevere."

Green Grid Maturity Model brings benefit to Data Center Management - At the Schneider Electric blog, Damien Wells looks at the Green Grid's Data Center Maturity Model: " DCMM enables data center managers to forecast the relative maturity and performance of their data centers against peer facilities worldwide. Its value to the data center management community has also been highlighted in DCIM presentations from The 451 Group and Schneider Electric."

Six Requirements of an Effective Leader - From Mark Thiele at Switchscribe: "Through my career I’ve had the privilege and luck to work for some of the best and some of the worst leaders or managers (some weren’t leaders, just managers and not even good ones). I’ve also been taught many a tough lesson by those I was leading. What I discovered was that in most cases where your job seems to be at its worst, the situation is but a symptom of a failure of leadership."