Best of the Data Center Blogs, July 5th

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

Outages and the Weakonomics of Public Cloud - Thoughts on cloud deployments from Greg Ness at Archimedius: "The latest Amazon outage again begs whether or not Amazon’s customers are technology leaders or laggards simply trying to reduce IT costs to their bare minimum. Certainly some enterprises are properly using the public cloud for key projects where a non-critical application or service needs to be created quickly and within a low budget. Yet some companies seem to be using the public cloud for even predictable workloads, with the idea of minimizing costs even to the point of accepting higher risk."

Should Energy Choices Shape the Perception of “Green” IT? - Jack Pouchet of Emerson Network Power discusses power sourcing activism by Greenpeace: "While there is much that can be done within the walls of the data center to promote sustainable and efficient energy use (many outlined in the Energy Logic approach), it is becoming clear that the sustainability challenges facing data center managers of today and tomorrow will soon extend well beyond the data center infrastructure – with more scrutiny being placed on companies and data centers touting 'green' computing efforts than ever before."

Watch for Blowback When Decommissioning a CRAC! - Data center energy consultant Mark Bramfitt notes a potential loss of energy that is sometimes overlooked: "CRAC units don't typically feature back flow prevention dampers, so that when the unit isn't running air can flow through in either direction. Given that the underfloor plenum has a positive pressure, that means supply air is lost through the CRAC."

3 Ways that Under-floor Cabling Causes Data Center Energy Loss - At the Schneider Electric blog, Victor Avelar also looks at airflow and sub-floor plenums: "Raised floors are common in data centers, used to provide a space through which cool air is delivered to the data center. Unfortunately, the space under the raised floor is also often used to run cabling. It’s the 'out of sight, out of mind' mentality, and it can lead to some significant energy loss."

Data Center Move Pitfalls: How to Avoid Them - Larry Davis from the PTS Data Center Design blog examines migration challenges: "Data Center relocations are fraught with risks. Unlike other organizations within the enterprise that might have more mundane equipment such as desks, book cases, and file cabinets, data center operators and IT staff must have everything go smoothly. If the move doesn't go as planned, troubles can range from costs associated with replacing or fixing broken servers to company downtime because critical data and applications were lost in the move."

Walking the Talk - Intel's Bob Deutsche, a popular Industry Perspectives columnist here at DCK, looks at cloud security: "It’s hard to avoid headlines that sensationalize the latest news about a security breach at company X that compromised some enormous amount of sensitive data at an estimated cost of (insert a very large number). In fact, reports from the Ponemon Institute, Evalueserve/McAfee, the Information Risk Executive Council and Verizon/U.S. Secret Service/Politie, and others consolidate this type of information into easily digestible data. After reading these reports, you’re left with the impression that enterprises are fighting a war and—quite bluntly—losing."