Nothing But Net

The People and Computer (IT Infrastructure) Conference was held in Tel Aviv in front on an audience of 200 people last week.

As Minicom headquarters are in Jerusalem, we sent our local sales reps and support team to participate. In addition to enjoying the chocolate filled croissants for coffee breaks and a nice buffet lunch, the Minicom team delivered a live demo of our latest product, the Centralized Access & Management Solution for IT Managers - KVM.net® II. It was very well received and got the attention of all there. If you would also like a demo of the KVM.net® II you can arrange one here.

Some more photos from the event...

more photos here

Stay Cool

Here is a great article about how to keep the data center cool for summer. It provides 11 tips and is definitely worth reading.

Location Location

Even when you are putting a data center in the middle of nowhere there are factors to consider. Take this proposed data center in Canberra, Australia as an example. It was unsuitable due to the presence of Aboriginal artefacts, the land was too small, it low-lying under a flight path and it was too close to a highway.
When it comes to data center location its not just a matter of having the space - the environment also has to be conducive. But given that the data center may be in the middle of nowhere, remote access, management and control takes on even more relevance.

KVM.net® II webinar

On Tuesday August 5, 2008 (2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EDT) there will be a special introductory webinar dedicated to the KVM.net® II. KVM.net II is a centralized management solution for access to servers, virtual servers, blade consoles and network devices in the server room and data center environments. It consolidates management of access to servers and network devices, unifying administration of targets and users across geographic locations to distributed branch offices. In addition to KVM access management, the KVM.net II provides a powerful Access Services feature that supports a wide range of remote access technologies including Serial, RDP, VNC, SSH, Telnet, VMware, HP ILO and Web Services. The webinar will focus on what's unique about KVM.net II as well as what the new Access Services feature is?
For those in the industry this is a must-be event so register now to avoid missing out.

Being Green

ATEN has come up with a bunch of Green IT tips and suggestions for network administrators.
These are the tips:
Go IT Remotely
Cut the Clutter and Reduce Power Consumption
Check out the Most Environmentally Friendly KVMs
Going Green Starts on the Factory Floor
They are all excellent ones and great start for going green.

Containment

This article discusses how Hewlett-Packard is the latest company to offer container-based data centers. They join the likes of Sun Microsystems, Rackable Systems and IBM in doing so.

According to the article, HP's Performance Optimized Data Center, or POD will consist of 22 taller-than-average 50U racks that can support up to 3,500 compute nodes, or 12,000 large form-factor hard drives. The servers will be accessible from the front of the rack and cooled with HP modular cooling system components using chilled water HP will also offer a 20-foot container option for smaller environments.
Not all reaction to them has been rosy with Chuck Goolsbee of Digital Forest saying that they shouldn't be considered a long-term solution. Will be interesting to see how the market reacts to them.

Centralizing Your IT Department

Stumbled onto this interesting video about centralizing your IT department. Jason Hiner from Tech Republic is the one doing the talking and gives five reason why doing so is a good idea. Check it out.

German Webinar Today

For all those German speakers out there - don't forget that there is a German webinar today
2-3pm CEST (GMT+2).
The topic is the KVM.net® II. The KVM.net® II is a centralized management solution for access to servers, virtual servers, blade consoles and network devices in the server room and data center environments. It consolidates management of access to servers and network devices, unifying administration of targets and users across geographic locations to distributed branch offices.In addition to KVM access management, the KVM.net® II provides a powerful Access Services feature that supports a wide range of remote access technologies including Serial, RDP, VNC, SSH, Telnet, VMware, HP ILO and Web Services.

Criminal Behaviour

This report from England is of another data center being hit by thieves. Websites such as that of the Financial Times were hit and down until the back-up servers could be triggered. The snowball affect of these actions is massive. The websites go down and the hundreds of thousands who rely on these websites are in turn affected. Simply after scrap metal, these criminals have no idea about the consequences of their actions. It's not like the world is being brought to its knees like in Die Hard 4.0 but data center security is becoming an increasingly important issue.

The Minicom Interview

This week the Minicom Interview speaks to Simon Perry from Quocirca. Simon is Principal Associate Analyst to Quocirca. He specialises in environmental sustainability issues and their implications to business models. His particular interest is the role that IT can play in supporting transformational business society and new ways of working


Minicom Blog: Hi Simon, thanks for joining us.
Simon Perry: My pleasure.

MB: What do you see as the current data center trends?
SP: Energy efficiency regardless of the hardware or software architecture in the data center. The main concern is how much energy is it consuming? Then there are the issues of sustainability, cost and climate control.

MB: Electricity usage is a big issue isn’t it?
SP: Yes. Back three years ago it was about the physical placement of the racks in the room but now people are thinking about an efficient approach to electricity consumption. For instance, how much will be needed to cool the room.

MB: What are the other key data center issues?
SP: Virtualization as well as the utilization of floor space. And with the real estate market as it is people want to maximize every square foot of space they have. To do so the answer is to go up vertically. Cable clutter is another major concern as it blocks cooling and create hotspots. But all of these issues are interconnected.

MB: Speaking of real estate, appears to be many new data centers opening up in remote locations.
SP: That’s as labor is cheaper there, the cost of the property is cheaper and there is actually more electricity available there.

MB: With the technology, won’t things get smaller?
SP: Miniaturization will increase floor efficiency but the energy density per floor space will go up as will heat density. Even though the technology sees the size of devices decreasing they use as electricity as they did 20 years ago. The demands for processing

MB: Been a pleasure speaking to you Simon.
SP: Likewise

All the Way to the Top

People may think of data centers as something which is very niche and largely irrelevant but as this article shows they are being discussed on the floor of the house. If it's going all the way up to the Governor's office that must mean something.

Blog You Should Know About

I found this excellent blog called IT Management and Cloud Blog

It's written by John Willis who writes very well. He writes a fair bit on cloud computing which is a subject which doesn't get enough exposure.
Keep an eye on it

Guten Tag

For anyone who is interested we have a German webinar coming up. The topic is the KVM.net® II.
The KVM.net® II is a centralized management solution for access to servers, virtual servers, blade consoles and network devices in the server room and data center environments. It consolidates management of access to servers and network devices, unifying administration of targets and users across geographic locations to distributed branch offices.In addition to KVM access management, the KVM.net® II provides a powerful Access Services feature that supports a wide range of remote access technologies including Serial, RDP, VNC, SSH, Telnet, VMware, HP ILO and Web Services.
The webinar will be taking place next Monday July 14 from 2-3 CEST (GMT+2)
Bis Dann!

Data Centre Efficiency

Here is an interesting article posted on vnunet.com by Simon Perry. Perry works at Quocirca as a sustainability analyst. He makes some very good points one of which is:
Business urgently requires a standardised and regulated way of calculating emissions. Sustainability efforts urgently require those measurements to deliver transparency through regular reporting of performance.
The environment isn't an issue which is going to go away and must be dealt with sooner rather than later.

Minicom Media Club

There is a new section on our website called the Minicom Media Club and it is devoted to all things multimedia and audio-visual.

There will be webinars, podcasts and all manner of things multimedia devoted to KVM Technology. Enjoy!

Future of the Data Center

Here is an interesting article from Forbes.com looking at the future of the data center. It is an interview with Doug Harr who is CIO of Ingres. Doug says some interesting things about data centers.

Real Needs Webinar Take Two

For those of your who missed it or heard about it and wanted to be a part of it - the Real Needs™ webinar will be happening again today. A few spaces are still available and you can register here.
It's happening at 11am Eastern Time. See you there!