DCK Up to Date: the Data Center News Briefing - June 14, 2018

Dropbox has re-architected its cloud to use higher-density storage. The team wrote new software and re-designed hardware to use SMR drives, which it expects will lead to a smaller data center footprint and lower cost. Google has bought 173 acres of land in the Netherlands as it explores options for building more data centers across Europe. The decision whether to build on the site in Noord-Holland will be made soon. Bloom Energy, whose fuel cells power Apple, eBay, Intel, and Equinix data centers by converting natural gas to electricity, has filed paperwork for an IPO. The company said it doesn't expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future. IBM Cloud is launching availability zones for the first time, hosted in 18 new data centers in North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Its rivals AWS and Google Cloud Platform have had availability zones for some time now, while Microsoft Azure launched them just recently.