Best of the Data Center Blogs: Nov. 5th

It's been a while since we've provided links to interesting items found in our reading of data center industry blogs. So this week we're catching up with five noteworthy posts:

The Insidious Plot to Become a Data Center Mecca - Compass CEO Chris Crosby likes to bring a sense of humor to his posts at Compass points, and isn't afraid to have some fun skewering the latest news stories - like BMW opening a data center in Iceland. "With this latest announcement the truth has become undeniable—Iceland is now officially the new data center Mecca. That sound you hear in the background is the thousands of large real estate owners in Oregon falling out of their chairs. Now I’m sure that you’re all asking yourself 'how could this happen?' I agree that I don’t think any of us saw this coming but obviously these Icelanders are crafty rascals."

Adventures in Site Selection - What's the strangest thing that's ever happened during a site selection process. If the answer isn't "ritual blood sacrifice," you may be interested in this blog post by Kevin Timmons of CyrusOne. "I’ve always wanted to share more about what it’s really like to go to the far reaches of the earth in search of that one perfect slice of datacenter heaven that we’re all seeking. Recently I’ve had one of my more memorable site selection trips and I wanted to share it with you."

How Vyatta buy helps Brocade in a software-defined world - Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOm looks at Brocade's purchase of Vyatta in the latest networking/SDN deal: "Software is eating the networking world and Brocade is rushing up the stack trying to ensure it can deliver some higher-value services. While this looks like the rebuilding of an integrated networking stack with different providers stitching together their wares, Brocade at least has paid lip service to the fact that its gear and software will have to work with products from others in order to keep serving customers. Like VMware, when it purchased Nicira this summer for $1.26 billion, Brocade is mentioning OpenStack as well as it’s ability to work with a variety of hypervisors. What’s unclear is how far Brocade’s software-defined networking vision will go."

Could DCIM signal “Merry Christmas” for Colo Data Centers? - At the Schneider Electric blog, Soeren Brogaard Hensen wonders whether early interest in DCIM isn't the tip of a much bigger iceberg. "I’m pretty sure that as our DCIM business develops, demand from colo sales desks will become an important driver. After all, many colocation companies have already adopted the software for its engineering capabilities. "

AMD Announces Server Targeted ARM Part - At the Perspectives blog, Amazon's James Hamilton looks at new advances in ARM-based microservers by AMD. "Having watched and participated in our industry for nearly 3 decades, one reality seems to dominate all others: high-volume economics drives innovation and just about always wins."