Top 5 Data Center Stories, Week of Sept. 14

ibm-nextscale

IBM’s NeXtScale System is the newest addition to IBM’s x86 portfolio. (Photo: IBM)

For your weekend reading, here’s a recap of five noteworthy stories that appeared on Data Center Knowledge this past week.

Microsoft Accelerates its Global Data Center Expansion - Microsoft is accelerating a global expansion of its data center infrastructure to support growth in its Azure cloud services and Xbox Live gaming service. At a time when many cloud builders are debating whether to build or buy their data center space, Microsoft is doing both. Microsoft has long been one of the Internet’s master builders, investing $15 billion in data centers that now house more than 1 million servers.

IBM Targets Hyperscale, HPC Markets With NeXtScale Server Line - IBM today introduced the NeXtScale System, a new x86 computing platform designed to bring “the power of a supercomputer in any data center.” IBM says the new servers will combine high-density and improved power efficiency, and can operate in data center environments as warm as 104 degrees F. That’s a scenario seen most often in hyperscale server farms, which represent a growing chunk of server sales.

Seaport Capital Sees Opportunity in Data Center Maintenance - The private equity sector sees opportunity in data center maintenance. Seaport Capital, which has a long history of investing in the data center industry, said this week that it has acquired DSA Mission Critical Services (MCS), which may become a vehicle for “strategic acquisitions.”

With New Xeon e5-2600 v2 Chips, Intel Addresses the Brawny Data Center - After addressing the growing market for optimized low-power workloads last week with the Atom C2000 processor, Intel turned to to the brawny side of the data center Tuesday with the launch of the Xeon E5-2600 v2 product family, formerly code named Ivy Bridge-EP.

Western Digital Acquires Flash Storage Specialist Virident - In a move to boost is offerings for enterprise SSD storage, Western Digital will acquire Virident Systems for $685 million, the companies said today. Western Digital is one of two remaining major players in the market hard disk drives (Seagate is the other), and seeking to position itself for the emergence of SSD (solid state drives).