datacenter
Which web hosting companies and related businesses operate the largest number of servers? Rackspace announced they had hit the 50,000 mark recently, and DatacenterKnowledge took the opportunity to determine who is in the same league. Three web hosting companies lead the pack: 1&1 Internet (55,000), Rackspace (50,038), and The Planet (48,500). They are followed by Akamai Technologies, OVH, SBC Communications, Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and SoftLayer.
The web hosting industry is in a very interesting position in the beginning of 2009, heavily influenced by two opposing trends. The first trend is the continuing growth in IT infrastructure and innovation in the sphere of web-related technologies, while the second one is decreased consumer spending in the face of what everyone expects to be a lengthy, unpleasant recession.
McKinsey & Company, a management consulting company, has released a report entitled "Data centers: How to cut carbon emissions and costs." The report provides a detailed overview of data center trends, complete with interesting facts: the carbon footprint of global data center operations equals that of the Netherlands or Argentina; and data center costs are rising almost four times faster than overall IT costs. A bit on the technical side, but a good read nonetheless.
1&1 Internet recently launched a new green data center in Lexena, Kansas. The new facility provides space for 40,000 servers and makes it possible to have equal latency for both the East and West coasts by being in the middle of major traffic areas. The company said Kansas City is one of the safest locations to have a data center because the risk of black/brownouts is minimal. 1&1 will also be purchasing purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs)to match the electricity used at the datacenter.
We talk to Mr. Thorsten Ziegler, Head of 1&1's new U.S. Data Center.
According to ReadWriteWeb, the five big data center trends this year are blade servers, green tech, virtualization, scalable cloud platforms, and Linux in the enterprise. In the full article, you can read their rationale for choosing these technologies.
Assemble racks, servers, and cables together, according to a detailed plan. Ensure the presence of electricity and a flow of air. Introduce technicians to the mix, and a datacenter is born. In this post, you can see the whole two-week long process, documented in a time lapse video by Knürr, producers of rack equipment. Video after the jump.
The Planet's Houston datacenter went offline late Saturday afternoon, after an explosion knocked down walls at an electric equipment room. Reports are that approximately 9,000 servers and 7,500 clients are affected. The company expects to have operations on the second floor of the facility restored today; the first floor has sustained more serious damage.
The global internet infrastructure keeps growing, with three new big data centers slated to go online in the US. Google, Oracle, and Switch Communications have invested a total of over $1 billion into three facilities, located in North Carolina, Utah, and Nevada.
Google's new computing powerhouse is likely to be the first of the three to start operations. Last Thursday, the company announced the completion of the first building and invited local media and citizens to take a peek.
WHIR TV has a new video interview with Niko Nelissen, VP of business development and co-founder of Q-layer, discussing a new paradigm for datacenters. Video after the jump.
