Roundup: Intel, Rackwise, Fibertown, Internap

Here’s our review of today’s noteworthy links for the data center industry:

Intel to acquire Qlogic's InfiniBand business. Intel Corporation (INTC) announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with QLogic to acquire the product lines of and certain assets related to its InfiniBand business. The InfiniBand assets help Intel grow its networking portfolio and provide scalable high performance computing (HPC) fabric technology. InfiniBand is widely used in HPC environments and is a key element to Intel's efforts to innovate fabric architectures in order to achieve ExaFLOP per second performance by 2018.  InfiniBand was the interconnect family used in 41.8 percent of the Top500 Supercomputers in November 2011. “At the International Supercomputing Conference 2011, Intel unveiled a bold vision to redefine HPC performance and break the Exascale barrier by 2018,” said Kirk Skaugen, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Data Center and Connected System Group. “The technology and expertise from QLogic provide important assets to provide the scalable system fabric needed to execute on this vision. Adding QLogic’s InfiniBand product line to our networking portfolio will bring increased options and exceptional value to our datacenter customers.”

New release of Rackwise DCIM product. Rackwise announced that it will release version 3.6 of its core DCIM software product, the Rackwise Data Center Manager in April of 2012.  The new version will be released in accordance with its recent licensing agreement with Intel. The new software release will contain a suite of new features including enhanced device level real-time monitoring, enhanced power modeling, rich asset search, visualization, blade server management, fault impact analysis and business reporting analytics. "We are extremely excited to make this announcement, marking the initial product launch pursuant to our agreements with Intel to develop and introduce ground-breaking capabilities for the data center infrastructure management market," said Rackwise CEO Guy Archbold. "The integration of device level data aggregation within our asset visualization, modeling, and analytics functions provides data center and infrastructure technology professionals powerful, state-of-the-art tools for real-time data management to maximize operational efficiencies and economic benefits.”

Fibertown adds carriers to Houston data center.  Fibertown announced the addition of new telecom carriers into its 50,000 sq.ft. North Houston data center. “Multi-carrier connectivity provides our data center customers with more robust options and plays a crucial role in the redundancy of our offerings,” said Brandon Perryman, senior vice president at FIBERTOWN. “Customers are empowered to select acarrier that best fits their business requirements.”  The Houston data center offers diverse fiber entrances and houses primary and secondary Point of Presence (PoP) rooms.

Internap completes SOC2 audit.  Internap (INAP) announced that it has successfully completed the transition from SAS 70 to a Service Organization Controls (SOC) Report, regarding the operations and control structure in its company-controlled data centers. The SOC2 Type II Report confirms that Internap’s data center security and operational procedures have been reviewed and tested by an independent certified auditor and validates that controls and processes are suitably designed and operate effectively to protect and safeguard customers’ equipment and data. "In today’s global economy, service providers must demonstrate they have adequate controls and safeguards when they host information belonging to their customers," said Mike Higgins, senior vice president of data center services at Internap. "Completing the SOC2 audit demonstrates Internap’s commitment to meeting the service and performance level needs of our customers."