Industry groups and government agencies from the US, Europe and Japan have reached a basic agreement on how to measure the energy efficiency of data centres.The agreement is seen as significant because it establishes a common metric that different types of data centres, in different parts of the world, can use to report their level of energy efficiency. That could provide a yardstick for companies to assess the efficiency of their own data centres, and also to gauge the effectiveness of energy-saving techniques employed by other facilities.

AT&T plans to invest approximately US$1 billion in 2010 to scale its delivery of applications, mobility and cloud services for global companies, to expand small business services within the United States and to continue extending its network globally.

Specific areas of AT&T's planned investment in hosting/Cloud infrastructure services in 2010 include opening an additional internet data centre in London and completing expansions of the Ashburn, Virginia and Piscataway, New Jersey data centres.

Source: PR Newswire

Many of those heading up technology departments - even in major industries and enterprises - do not have a full understanding of their data centre systems' security effectiveness, new research has shown. The study, conducted by Forrester, also concluded that many CIOs placed too much confidence in their existing security controls.

For data centres requiring more floor space and high-performance physical layer connectivity, CommScope Enterprise Solutions has introduced its new SYSTIMAX 360 Ultra-High Density fibre optic solution for data centre environments.

NetApp is planning to acquire Bycast, a storage virtualisation vendor, in an attempt to improve its object-based storage capabilities. "Object-based storage is a new and emerging approach to storing and accessing data based on object names and rich metadata that describes the content in greater detail, which simplifies the task of large-scale object storage while improving the ability to quickly search and locate data objects," NetApp said in an announcement of the acquisition.

A data centre’s uptime has no impact on its energy efficiency, according to findings from a recent study from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Alexandra Sullivan, an engineer in the EPA’s Energy Star program for commercial buildings, said that the data didn’t show a significant relationship between tier and energy use. Energy Star collected data on energy use and operating characteristics from more than 100 data centres between March 2008 and June 2009 to determine their energy efficiency as part of its effort to develop an Energy Star Standard for data centres.

Cloud computing users are shifting their focus from what the cloud offers to what it lacks. What it offers is clear, such as the ability to rapidly scale and provision, but the list of what it is missing seems to be growing by the day.

Equinix has launched the Equinix Carrier Ethernet Exchange, a global service that provides a multi-carrier environment for the exchange of data traffic between providers of Ethernet services. Originally announced in October 2009 as a service development program, the Equinix Carrier Ethernet Exchange is the first service of its kind to be successfully deployed globally, enabling carriers to meet the worldwide demand for Ethernet services, an expanding industry that is expected to reach US$40 billion by 2014.

Cisco has announced that Intelsat. a provider of fixed satellite services worldwide, has launched IntelsatONE, a first-of-its-kind global platform consisting of an IP/MPLS-based network, fibre, teleports and points of presence -- fully integrated with Intelsat's global satellite fleet to better serve its media, network services and government customers.

Orange Business Services has signed a three-year contract extension with Cirque du Soleil, the world-renowned entertainment provider, for a next generation IP network. The global infrastructure will streamline Cirque du Soleil's customer-facing applications for ticketing and concession sales; improve access and collaboration among Cirque du Soleil's 25 sites around the world; and aim to reduce its overall mobile communications costs.

Mellanox Technologies has rolled out its second generation of InfiniBand switches and the latest version of its associated FabricIT chassis management application -- as well as a proprietary cabling package -- to support a wider range of users, specifically in the data centre, networking and management, "Next Gen" network, and servers and storage channels.

Results of a survey on virtualisation practices by the Independent Oracle Users Group didn't unearth a lot of new information, but it did put the spotlight squarely on where the main problems lie when it comes to virtualising an IT system. The survey of 381 enterprise data centre decision makers supported already well-known ideas about the continual increase in structured and unstructured enterprise data and that virtualised systems invariably save time, power and money once they're deployed.

IBM and BG Group have announced a five-year global deal for information technology services. IBM will build a globally consistent delivery model for BG Group's operations in more than 25 countries.

An online poll recently conducted by Unisys shows that enterprise users are ready to move a broad set of workloads to the cloud, although they remain wary of moving their most critical business-application workloads there. Answering the question "What parts of enterprise workloads would you choose to move to the cloud first?" 46 % of the 120 respondents said that they would choose to lead with development/test and support workloads. Another 17% would move quality assurance and pre-production systems first.

Twitter will move into its own data centre soon as it seeks to scale its social messaging service, according to a presentation by John Adams, one of the messaging service’s operations engineers. Speaking at the recent Chirp developer conference, he laid out Twitter’s strategy to keep the fail whale at bay — which included plans to soon move to its own data centre.

Capital constraints during this economic downturn have led many CIOs to lease data centre space instead of constructing their own facilities. In turn, businesses like Digital Realty Trust Inc. - which offers move-in-ready enterprise data centres that include security and rack-ready raised floor space - have found that they can't prepare new space fast enough to meet demand. These businesses, sometimes called wholesale data centre facility operators, typically cater to large organizations and high-tech companies that need large amounts of data centre floor space.

Thomson Reuters has launched a global, high-speed network for financial firms to access real-time data as well as share information with each other directly. The company's new network, called Elektron, includes hosting centres in New York, Chicago, London, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Singapore, with more to come in Hong Kong, India and Brazil later in the year, all connected by a fibre optic ring. The company is operating the system in partnership with data centre company Savvis.

CDC Global Services, a business unit of CDC and a provider of IT and IT-enabled services and consulting, has appointed Chung Wong as its CEO.

Mr Wong replaces Peter Yip as CEO of CDC Global Services. Mr Yip continues to serve as CEO of CDC, the parent company of CDC Global Services. Mr Wong, who has served on the boards of directors of CDC Software International since 2007 and CDC Software since 2009, has more than 30 years experience in the technology industry in the US and China.

Source: Trading Markets

VMware's revenue jumped 35% in the first quarter, the company said, another sign that businesses are opening their wallets again for enterprise IT purchases. Profits climbed more modestly, but the virtualisation software vendor still managed to report better numbers than expected. The results were driven by "pent-up customer demand" and strong sales in Europe, China and Japan, Chief Financial Officer Mark Peek said in a statement.

Force10 Networks has announced that the company plans to incorporate 40 Gigabit Ethernet into its switch/router solutions to provide the most economical incremental step from 10 GbE for dynamic data centres. From the uplink at the server edge to the network core, Force10 plans to take a leadership role and develop solutions focused on this important emerging IEEE standard.

Equinix, a provider of global data centre services, today reported quarterly results for the quarter ended March 31, 2010.

Revenues were US$248.6 million for the first quarter, a 3% increase over the previous quarter and a 25% increase over the same quarter last year. Recurring revenues, consisting primarily of colocation, interconnection and managed services were US$237.2 million for the first quarter, a 2% increase over the previous quarter and a 25% increase over the same quarter last year. Non-recurring revenues were US$11.4 million in the quarter.

Google is pushing ahead with making its data centres more efficient and less reliant on external sources such as power from the grid. As well as researching and funding the development of renewable energy sources, Google is now starting to push for 100% recycled water at its data centres.

Small- and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) decrease power consumption and reduce utility bills when switching to cloud-based communication services, according to Intermedia, the world's largest Microsoft Exchange hosting provider. Intermedia delivers Exchange, the business email platform, from its cloud infrastructure - four data centres - direct to nearly a quarter million business people.

Chloride Group, the British power protection firm, has rejected a £723 million, 275p-a-share hostile approach from Emerson Electric, the giant US manufacturer. The board of Chloride said in a statement that the indicative offer, which was "subject to a number of pre-conditions, including due diligence and the unanimous recommendation of the Chloride board, "significantly undervalues the company".

Unisys has reported a first-quarter 2010 net loss of US$11.6 million. The results included approximately US$35 million of pre-tax foreign exchange losses in Other Income/Expense, including $20 million relating to the January 2010 currency devaluation in Venezuela. In the first quarter of 2009, the company reported a net loss of US$24.4 million, which included approximately US$7 million of foreign exchange losses in Other Income/Expense.

Avaya, a global leader in enterprise communications systems, software and services, has announced the results of a global survey indicating enterprises today prefer networking solutions that are more resilient, efficient and scalable in supporting the growing bandwidth demands of their communications technologies. These findings validate the technological strategy of Avaya's "Fit for Purpose" data networking solutions that were announced earlier this week at Interop Las Vegas 2010.

Fujitsu has launched its global cloud strategy – a strategy developed through the company’s real experience in working with customers on cloud computing services and the trialling and delivery of solutions across the world. The strategy is rooted in Fujitsu’s view of cloud computing as having four modes of consumption. Customers will be offered non disruptive ways of joining any, some or all of the four modes of infrastructure, application, activity and content.

Market research firm Infonetics Research has released the fourth quarter edition of its new Data Center Network Equipment market share and forecast report.

According to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Virtualization Tracker, 18.2% of all new servers shipped in the fourth quarter of 2009 were virtualised, an increase from 15.2% in 4Q08.

Global Crossing has reported a first-quarter consolidated net loss applicable to common shareholders of US$120 million compared to a loss of US$59 million last year. On a year-over-year basis, net loss widened principally due to unfavourable foreign exchange impacts, an increase in interest expense and higher depreciation and amortization.

Consolidated revenue was US$648 million compared to US$609 million last year.

Source: RTT News

 Lerwick is set to be the location for the UK’s most northerly cloud computing data centre as developer Alchemy Plus announced plans for a 10,000 ft2 facility powered entirely by renewable energy. The Shetland climate is one of the coolest and most stable in the UK and the data centre facility will have one of the smallest ‘energy footprints’ in the world. It is proposed that excess heat generated by the 4 Megawatt data centre be fed in to Lerwick’s district heating scheme to allow it to expand and satisfy a backlog of demand.

Siemon, a global manufacturer of IT network cabling and infrastructure systems, has announced the release of their new tool-less quarter-turn D-ring cable managers. These easy to use cable managers are compatible with standard 9.5mm square mounting cut-outs common to EIA/CEA industry standard cabinets and racks - Siemon’s simple quarter turn twist-locking feature is all it takes to quickly and easily secure the cable managers.