Top 5 Data Center Stories: Week of Feb. 26

Social Security Works to Avert Data Center Failure - early two years after $500 million in stimulus funding was earmarked to build a new data center for the Social Security Administration, the project is already a year behind schedule and won’t be operational before 2016. In the meantime, the agency is trying to extend the life of a problem-plagued 30-year-old facility that serves as the primary data center.

Equinix, Carpathia Partner on Government Clouds - In a strategic partnership aimed at the government market, colocation provider Equinix said it will team with Carpathia Hosting on an expanded suite of cloud computing and managed hosting solutions.

What’s Next? Hotter Servers With ‘Gas Pedals’ - Why can’t servers run in the desert with no air conditioning? And why can’t data center managers automatically ramp processor power usage up and down to match their workloads? Those questions were debated by some of the world’s leading data center experts Wednesday. The surprising answer: some of these scenarios are closer to reality than you think.

Was Egypt’s ‘Kill Switch’ the Big Red Button? - Did a common data center safety feature play a role in the Mubarak government’s move to cut off Egypt’s access to the Internet? Reports of a “breaker” being used to power down equipment raises the prospect that the incident may have involved an Emergency Power Off (EPO) button or a similar hardware shutdown.

Transphorm Targets Data Center Power Losses - Transphorm made its formal debut, touting an energy-efficient power conversion module for power-hungry devices from servers to electric car batteries to solar panels. If it works, Transphorm could help reduce energy losses during power conversions as electricity makes its way from the utility grid to the servers.