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Electricity Price Arbitrage In Cloud And Other Data Centre Location Decisions

Location, location, location are said to be the most important issues in choosing a retail store. In deciding where to locate a large data centre other considerations are also important, such as:

  • The availability and cost of highly skilled staff to install and manage equipment
  • The regional or country legislation which requires certain applications to be based in specific countries
  • The cost and availability of property suitable for the proposed facility
  • The availability and cost of networking pipes
  • The ambient temperature of the site, especially if you’re considering fresh air or other alternative cooling techniques Read more »

Chilled Out HP Cuts CO2 Emissions With Fresh Air Cooling In Its New Wynyard Data Centre

HP Wynyard Highlights

  • It is one of a number of Next Generation Data Centers being set up by HP
  • It has redundancy and resilience designed in every aspect of its operation
  • The first systems being installed belong to a large Enterprise Services customer
  • Located close to HP’s Doxford data centre, offering site fail-over potential
  • Is the first HP data centre to use fresh air cooling
  • The cooling method requires a tall building and a country with a moderate ambient temperature
  • Fresh air cooling will cut the use of traditional chillers to 20 hours per year
  • The new approach is also testament to HP’s CSR strategy, representing something close to a ‘unique practice’

 

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Vision Solutions Double-Take Software Steps Into Cloud Computing With Amazon EC2 – Promises ‘Recovery as a Service’

please note – Double-Take is now part of Vision Solutions

Double-Take Software Cloud Computing Highlights

  • Has selected Amazon’s EC2 as the first deployment platform and partner
  • Offers real time replication at around $250/month for the first and $150/month for subsequent servers
  • Focuses on ensuring recovery, rather than merely backing up data
  • As an asynchronous technique with a recovery point, will not be used for transaction processing
  • Is only available for x86 servers running Windows or Linux
  • Will move to ‘Recovery as a Service’ provider status
  • Will consider partnerships and more integrated solutions in future
  • Is focusing on Large as well as Medium and Small Enterprises Read more »

Centrix Software Helps Plan For Large Organisational Cloud Computing

I’m really excited about Centrix Software‘s announcement today of the availability of its two new offerings – WorkSpace Discovery and WorkSpace iQ. This small company, with less than £10 million annual turnover is based just round the corner from me in Newbury, more famous as the home of Vodafone. But it’s a small company with big ambition and good experience and with some well known faces. Read more »

The World Server Market – A Forecast To Recovery

World Server Forecast Highlights

We’ve updated the sizing and forecasts a number of times since publishing this: so please contact us for a free update.

  • In 2009 the worldwide value of server hardware revenue stood at $42.2 billion – an 18% decline on 2008
  • HP led the market with a 27.6% share, closely followed by IBM
  • In the x86 market HP led the market, taking 31.0% of the revenue and followed by Dell with 17.7%
  • The decline in server spending in 2009 was steeper than the PC, software or IT service areas reaching a staggering -26% in Q2
  • The upturn in the server market began in Q3 2009 (-17%) and continued in Q4 (-6%)
  • ITCandor forecasts the server market to grow 2% in 2010 to reach $43 billion
  • The recovery will continue into 2011 when revenue for all suppliers will climb a further 6%
  • x86 servers fared better than other types (RISC and IBM z based machines) in Q4 2009
  • ITCandor expects the recovery to be faster in the x86 area – other servers will not show positive growth within the forecast period

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IBM Buys Initiate Systems – Increases Focus On HealthCare, SaaS And Information Management

What Does Initiate Offer IBM?

In what it claims to be its 30th acquisition in the area of information and analytics, IBM announced today its intention to buy Initiate Systems, an expert in providing a trusted view of information in the Health Care information exchange and for Government agencies. This privately owned company employs 347 staff and has over 200 customers, most of which are in North America (although it sells software to BMI medical in the UK). The price of the transaction has not been disclosed. The company will be integrated into IBM’s Information Management division once the deal closes, which IBM expects later in Q1 2010. Read more »

EMC Grows Quarterly Revenues 2% To $4.2 Billion – Focuses On Acquisitions And Cloud

EMC Q4 2009 Results Highlights

  • It has returned to a modest 2% growth in revenues following three quarters of decline
  • It has acquired 5 more companies since Data Domain in August
  • EMC sees Cloud Computing to be about helping large organisations build private Clouds and/or purchase ‘Storage as a Service’ offerings
  • VMWare sees providing Cloud Computing software components as a way of moving upward from the virtualisation and management stacks

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‘Storage OnLine’ Offers Practical Disaster Recovery Services With A Just A Gist Of Cloud

 

Storage OnLine Recovery Service Highlights

  • The company is expanding from Ireland, through the UK to continental Europe through introducing recovery centres
  • A long-term Symantec partner, the company uses Backup Exec (BE), Backup Exec Systems Recovery (BESR), Enterprise Vault (EV) and other offerings in its services
  • It has always seen de-duplication as a way to offer online backup, but has been waiting for it to become cost effective to offer a solution
  • Its Backup Monitor is offered as a SaaS offering
  • It places an emphasis on recovery and in particular the ability to recover systems
  • Its customers are mid-sized organisations with around 100 servers each
  • It offers ‘quick ship recovery’ as well as ‘recovery to the Cloud’
  • It sees Symantec’s inclusion of de-duplication, enhanced Disaster Recovery (DR) services, integrated archiving and the enhanced support for virtual agents as the major benefits of BE 2010 Read more »

ITCandor 2010 Expectations – Cloud, Gaming And Convergence Drives The Recovery

ITC ‘Expectations 2010’ Highlights

  1. The World ITC Market Will Grow Zero Percent
  2. Asia Pacific Will Lead Regional ITC Growth
  3. Cloud Computing Matures To Become A Profitable Delivery Mechanism
  4. New Analytic Techniques Will Emerge To Handle The Upsurge In Digital Data
  5. Government ITC Spending Will Come Under Greater Pressure
  6. Business And Industry Expertise – Not Logistics – Define Third Party Channels
  7. The Enterprise Network War Will Intensify
  8. Higher Electricity Prices – Not Legislation Or CSR – Will Drive Improvements In Data Centre Efficiency
  9. Gaming Applications Will Continue To Out-Perform Other Software Areas
  10. The PC Market Will Grow By 1.5%, But Device Diversity And Desktop Virtualisation Continue Read more »

CIOs Need To Watch Copenhagen Results

I’m not very Green. The downturn has made me think of much more urgent issues about building my own business, given the fact I had to leave the company I’d been working in happily as a very senior researcher for 23 years. I share with many deep concerns about employment and survival of many of the people, companies and organisations and the way technology can help. I’m surprised that telecommuting and travel avoidance haven’t become more important issues over the last year, but am pleased that Cloud Computing is a vibrant subject which is bringing with it a new kind of outsourcing.

I’m not even sure that a global agreement on carbon emissions will help us avoid potential climate disasters, such as the melting of the ice caps or the ending of the Atlantic conveyor. However, I’m certain that we (CIOs, industry analysts and managers) need to learn not ‘to walk on the grass’, to improve the energy efficiency of our systems and improve our CSR strategies. I’m also pleased that it looks as if there will be positive results today for Africa and other emerging regions in terms of social and economic development. In addition I know that ITC holds an important key in supporting the environmental aspiations of the majority of the world’s population. Even if you’re not at all Green, you’ll need to adjust your ITC strategy in coming months.

So my fingers are crossed, as I hope many of yous are as well.

I’ve written about many of these subjects and encourage you to investigate my thoughts and those of the people and companies who have contributed to this site. Look through the ‘Research as a Service’ tag at the top of this page to learn more. I’ll also analyse the technical consequences of today’s agreement for CIOs later. Please let me have your own thoughts by commenting on this article.

Cloud Computing – An Essential Subject For CIOs In 2010

Cloud Computing Highlights

  • CIOs are understandably slow to address Private Cloud development
  • Cloud Services – ‘… as a Service’ – to consumers and small businesses are growing strongly
  • The definition of Cloud Computing differs depending on the audience
  • The enthusiasm for Cloud Computing by large organisations differs by role
  • Most CIOs will need to address Cloud Computing in 2010
  • ITCandor offers a free Cloud Computing evaluation service for advice

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Copenhagen Climate Change Summit And ITC

So the Climate Change Summit has started. As always we don’t know whether there’ll be an agreement to limit carbon emissions, whether the big players will turn up. As usual it’s more to do with national politics and trade than trying to prevent major catastrophes. My take on it all is that the change in the weather is most probably due to human activity (anthropogenic to give it a more formal term). In any case it’s best for us to assume it is and ‘not walk on the grass’, to make an analogy with moral philosophy.

In case you haven’t seen them I wanted to point you out two reports I’ve published on the issues concerning the Summit. In particular:

  • I’ve written more about the wider issues and why we should consider limiting our carbon producing activities.
  • I’ve also written more specifically about the things CIOs can (and are) doing to improve efficiency, reduce electricity costs and contribute as part of a Corporate and Social Responsibility strategy.

I’ll write more about the technology consequences once the meeting has concluded. In the meantime I’m very interested in your own views on the issue. Please do so by writing comments on this post.

FNZ’s ‘Platform As A Service’ Offering – Wholesale Wealth Management And Cloud Computing

FNZ Highlights

  • Offers Platform as a Service to Financial Services companies in the Wealth Managent area
  • Helps to aggregate the back office functions in investment and regulated areas
  • Wealth management support via PaaS is another chapter in the evolving Cloud Computing story

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Fujitsu Technology Solutions Strategy Offers Cloud Computing And Dynamic Infrastructures

FTS Visit 09 Highlights

  • The strategy is based on moving to offering busines and infrastructure service and Cloud Computing
  • FTS has taken over from FCS but has not merged with Fujitsu Services
  • FTS has engaged in major restructuring – especially in hiring services staff
  • The Augsburg plant will shift in status away from manufacturing towards data centre hosting
  • The newly announce global alliance with NetApp is the first Tight Alliance, but is pre-dated by close relationships with other vendors
  • As yet there is no ‘One Fujitsu’ for European Enterprise customers

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NGD Offers Cloud Computing Data Centre Warehousing From Wales

NGD Europe 1 Highlights

  • NGD has opened a new facility to offer data centre warehousing to European markets
  • The facility reuses the LG foundry building – part of a massive inward investment project which was never completed
  • NGD advantages are in its lower cost location, massive dedicated 180 MVA power supply and flexibility in available data suites and the variety of carriers available in this area
  • Container computing can be accommodated on site
  • NGD has 2 ‘anchor clients’ who will be operational by Q1 2010 – and others who will take occupancy over the build-out period which should take 3-5 years.

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Deutsche Pfandbriefbank Outsources IT Infrastructure To Fujitsu Services

Fujitsu’s Dirk Weigel and the Pfandbriefbank’s Kai Wolf held a teleconference today describing the latter’s move to outsource its IT infrastructure to the former. It’s interesting in light of the traditional reluctance of German businesses to outsource and the slowness of outsourcing business for major vendors in the recession (at least in comparison with the last downturn from 2001-2002). The bank (one of the largest in Germany) has made a relatively quick decision to outsource its data centres, servers, networking and end-user computing in a contract that is worth approximately €100 million over a five-year period. It is expecting a cost-saving of around 20% as a result. The bank has decided to retain responsibility for its applications. Fujitsu won the contract in competition with IBM and T-Systems. Fujitsu will be taking over the 50 or so staff currently employed by the bank, of which the majority are in Germany. It also has staff in the UK, Ireland, New York and the Netherlands. It is interesting that Fujitsu will use some of its off-shore (or rather ‘remote’) resources in Russia and Poland to provide support. Fujitsu doesn’t currently break out the revenues it makes from outsourcing, but if we look at vendor revenues from EDS and IBM we can see that there has been no great upsurge in the last year. In general I believe this is because a) most large data centres have already been outsourced and b) the standardisation of technology has made technology easier to manage internally. If we look over the horizon Cloud Computing will take on much of the role of Outsourcing – but without the need to move staff from user to vendor and with all the services being delivered remotely. My take on this latest announcement is that it has very little to do with Cloud (at least not yet). German IT managers and CEOs have been traditionally very reticent to outsource – at least in comparison with the UK, which accounts for as much as 50% of European activities. It’s possible that we’ll now see a German trend associated with the recession and akin with the overall European growth in outsourcing found in the last downturn. Outsourcing of course has the advantage of turning large capital budgets into operational ones. Do you know of any other examples of new outsourcing in the recession? Please let me know by commenting on this article.

Cisco To Acquire ScanSafe – SaaS Security For Cloud Computing

Cisco has announced its intended acquisition of ScanSafe – a specialist in Web Security in the Software as a Service space. Although this time the company ‘only’ cost $183 million it again demonstrates Cisco’s eagerness to add to its strengths at a period when the downturn has restricted growth. ScanSafe is being bracketed by Cisco with IronPort, which it acquired in January 2007 for $274 million.

I’m tracking all acquisitions from major suppliers. Another year-to-date picture of Cisco’s by specialisation is shown in Figure 1.

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Symantec – Enabling The Shift From ‘System’ To ‘Information’ Centric IT With Cloud Computing

ITCandor Opinion

Symantec is doing no worse financially than every other software company in the teeth of the economic downturn. The company is founded on a series of important acquisitions, but has so far failed to integrate the portfolio as well as Citrix, or its salesforce as successfully as Oracle. Its customers and partners like its widespread licensing practices and it has a lot to offer all participants in the development of Cloud Computing. I was surprised to see how important managed services has become and impressed with products such as FileStore and Pure Disk. Unlike most major software companies Symantec currently lacks an operating system business and has no new acquisitions to worry about. Its business is strongly coloured, but not restricted, by its traditional security, data protection and storage past. I expect it will end the year with less than the 43k partners it claims to have in EMEA – not through its own actions, but due to the shake out. I believe its strategy will become clearer once the recession dies away in 2010 and Cloud Computing becomes a more tangible market.
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