Top 10 Data Center Stories, July 2015

Here's a recap of the 10 most popular stories that ran on Data Center Knowledge in July:

Uptime Institute Kills Tier Certification for Commercial Data Center Designs

The Uptime Tier system, which rates data center efficiency on the scale of I (least reliable) to IV (most reliable) has long been criticized for numerous reasons, but the biggest complaint has been the proliferation of misuse of its terminology.

At Facebook Data Centers, New Protocol Helps Add Servers Faster

One of the Facebook data center team’s latest projects had to do with shrinking the time it takes between the point a server is physically installed in a data center and the point it comes online and starts crunching numbers.

A technician at work in a data hall at Facebook's Altoona, Iowa, data center. (Photo: Facebook/2014 Jacob Sharp Photography)

Cloud Needs Drive Consolidation in Colocation Data Center Market

The market is increasingly driven by service-provider clients rather than enterprises. As a result, data center providers need both scale and breadth of geographic footprint to meet service-provider needs, prompting consolidation.

Equinix in Aggressive Pursuit of SaaS Provider Partnerships

Access to cloud service providers has been “changing the dialogue” with customers about colocation services. It has become an essential attribute of a multi-tenant data center, on par with the fundamentals of space, power, and cost.

Inside Equinix's SV5 data center in San Jose, California (Photo: Equinix)

CenturyLink Expands Data Centers in Six Markets

Latest round of expansion was to address growing demand in Boston, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and London.

Survey: Enterprises Plan to Spend More on Data Centers

Despite the popular belief that cloud services are well on their way to replacing enterprise data centers, most mid-size and large businesses are planning to increase spending on their mission-critical facilities in the near future.

What Chicago’s New ‘Cloud Tax’ May Mean for Service Providers

While it’s creation seems tailored specifically to subscription entertainment services like Netflix, it may also apply to cloud-service providers, from infrastructure to cloud apps.

Brocade CEO: Specialized Data Center Network Gear on Its Way Out

Software-defined networking and network function virtualization, in combination with constant advances in capabilities of the x86 server architecture, are changing everything about data center networking technology and economics.

Amazon’s MySQL Alternative Aurora Now Generally Available

The company positions Aurora as a formidable alternative to traditional MySQL, claiming Aurora couples enterprise-grade performance with open source database economics,

Report: Utah Cops Get $1M a Year to Park at NSA Data Center

State highway patrol troopers provide the facility that became a center of attention following Edward Snowden’s disclosures about the agency’s mass surveillance practices with a “perimeter presence” under contract with the feds.

The NSA data center with the Salt Lake Valley in the background in Bluffdale, Utah, in 2013. The data center has reportedly been plagued by power surges that destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment and delayed the opening of the center for a year. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

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