data center – Digital IT News

Expansion of Capacity in 7 U.S. Data Centers by DataBank

Digital IT News Editors — Fri, 18 Aug 2023 22:04:37 +0000

DataBank announces the completion of seven data center expansions in Dallas, Las Vegas, San Diego, Irvine, and Kansas City as well as two in Atlanta.

With the expansions, these DataBank facilities have added 15+ megawatts of power and 114,000 raised square feet of floor space during the past 12 months to their existing capacities. Customers also won’t have to worry about the cost of building out their existing facilities or migrating applications to a new data center—which helps avoid risk. With these expansions, the seven data centers now enable customers to consume more power and leverage abundant raised floor space.

“For organizations planning to deploy, or for existing customers already set up in these data centers, these expansions give them more room to grow,” said Tony Qorri, the DataBank Vice President of Construction. “They can avoid the hassle of moving to a new data center when it’s time to scale their compute resources.”

Each data center features advanced power designs and cooling systems for redundancy as well as modern dual-factor authentication for client access to the facilities. For onsite security, DataBank provides 7x24x365 staffing and CCTV. The data centers also comply with SSAE18, SOC1, SOC2, HIPAA, GLBA, and PCI-DSS.

The seven data centers are strategically located in top U.S. metros and serve as major interconnect hubs to extend customer network infrastructure to today’s edge—where end-users demand low latency. Across the entire country, DataBank has established 74 data centers less than 50 miles from 70% of the U.S. population that offer a combined 2.79 million square feet of raised floor space and 378 megawatts of power for critical IT loads.

For more information about 65+ “HPC-ready” data centers in 27+ markets, 20 interconnection hubs, and on-ramps to an ecosystem of cloud providers, visit the website here.

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Data Center Launches Expanded Capabilities and Capacity Upgrades

Taylor Graham — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 16:28:14 +0000

1623 Farnam announces Arelion has upgraded its network capacity and capabilities at 1623’s interconnected edge data center in Omaha. This network expansion also enables access to Arelion’s new multi-terabit optical fiber route, which delivers high-capacity bandwidth from Chicago to Denver and leverages Infinera’s latest ICE6 800G coherent transponder technology. This robust, diverse open line system from Arelion offers 1623 Farnam customers rapid deployments and an ideal foundation for superior network performance and next-generation applications and connectivity requirements. 1623 Farnam is a regional leader in network-neutral edge interconnection and data center services. Formerly Telia Carrier, Arelion is a leading light in global connectivity services ranking #1 as the global internet backbone.

Arelion delivers more than 70,000km of optical fiber and 1,700 MPLS endpoints connecting customers in 125 countries worldwide to deliver digital services to the edge. The company’s presence within the 1623 Farnam carrier and cloud ecosystem has been augmented by its recently completed 800G fiber route spanning from Denver to Omaha, Des Moines and Chicago. This route provides readily available capacity options for organizations looking to leverage on-demand, innovative technologies that span 5G, IoT, AI, AR, cloud gaming, and beyond. Arelion performed successful field validation tests from the 1623 Farnam data center late last year and is now providing general availability of capacity.

The new route utilizes transponder systems with coherent lasers and detectors capable of transmitting 800G waves across the system, which can be broken down into smaller bandwidth interfaces such as 400G, 100G, and 10G according to customer capacity requirements. This, along with 1623 Farnam’s robust connectivity ecosystem, strategically centralized location, and an array of trusted data center services, helps tenants in the data center utilize the latest technologies with competitive commercial costs and a greater availability by avoiding supply chain challenges using multiple supplier options on the open line system.

“Customers that are looking to digitally transform need ample network capacity for their applications and systems to thrive — and it’s clear we have a tremendous amount of capacity in Omaha. At 1623 Farnam, we’re proud to offer access to Arelion’s leading global backbone,” comments Todd Cushing, President, for 1623 Farnam. “Many vendors are dealing with 25-30 week lead times, and people don’t have that kind of time anymore. We have the capacity available and ready to go. As an edge expert and a connectivity connoisseur, we’re glad that we can continue to improve our ecosystem with wonderful partners and tenants, creating a rising tide that lifts all boats.”

Learn more about 1623 Farnam and Arelion

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DC BLOX’s Greenville Data Center is Open for Business

Taylor Graham — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 00:50:15 +0000

DC BLOX announces the opening of its Greenville, South Carolina data center. The data center, designed to Uptime Institute’s Tier III standards, is the first-of-its-kind multi-tenant data center located in South Carolina. The initial 25,000 square foot facility can accommodate more than 400 cabinets of IT equipment and 3 MW of power. Additional capacity will be developed as demand requires. DC BLOX’s facility is designed to Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) standards, providing enterprises, healthcare institutions, universities, managed service providers and government entities throughout South Carolina access to a highly efficient, secure and interconnected data center – for the first time in this market. DC BLOX is a provider of interconnected multi-tenant data centers that deliver the infrastructure and connectivity essential to power today’s digital business.

“We are excited to announce that our new Greenville data center is ready and open for business. As promised, this first Tier III-designed data center in this market was built specifically to accelerate the deployment of critical infrastructure and interconnected cloud services throughout South Carolina. We have seen robust pre-leasing activity as the Upstate is thriving, and we are thrilled to be able to contribute to the region’s future growth,” comments Jeff Uphues, CEO of DC BLOX.

DC BLOX’s purpose-built data center facility is located in Greenville’s Global Business Park off of Interstate 85 and will have a capacity of 54,000 square feet of white space and 18MW of power at full build-out. The multi-tenant data center was designed to meet the need for local, reliable, world-class colocation to enable the region’s future growth. Previously, companies in the region looking for this class of facility were forced to house their IT infrastructure in Charlotte or Atlanta.

“Prospective companies who are considering Greenville for new or expanded operations are increasingly interested in our information technology, data storage and data transmission capabilities, with cybersecurity a critical concern as well,” said Mark Farris, President and CEO of the Greenville Area Development Corporation, the county’s economic development arm. “Having DC BLOX’s high-capacity and secure Tier III data center in our community is yet another key selling point for businesses considering investment in the Upstate.”

The new data center is also an access point on the DC BLOX Connectivity Exchange offering local organizations private network access to carriers across DC BLOX’s footprint, regional Internet Exchanges, public cloud providers, and any entity in the company’s data centers throughout the Southeast including Atlanta, Birmingham, Huntsville, Chattanooga, and an upcoming facility in High Point/Greensboro, NC.

“DC BLOX’s investment in our community supports and encourages continued growth to keep the Greenville community thriving. Building strong communities is our passion and we’re grateful to partner with DC BLOX who shares that same commitment,” said Brasfield & Gorrie Vice President and Division Manager, Ben Barfield.

Learn more about the Greenville Data Center, designed to Uptime Institute’s Tier III standards or Colocation Services.

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CPowered Performance Solutions for Data Centers

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CPowered Performance Solutions for Data Centers

Taylor Graham — Thu, 21 Oct 2021 22:49:08 +0000

Leading national energy solutions provider CPower Energy Management announced new CPowered Performance Solutions to help data centers maximize the value of their distributed energy resources (DERs) through demand-side energy management programs.

Digital Realty and Digihost Technology, Inc. are among several data centers across the U.S. leveraging CPower’s experience managing hundreds of MWs of capacity. CPowered Performance Solutions for Data Centers helps mission-critical sites achieve power reliability, reduce emissions to help achieve sustainability goals and energy cost savings through:

an engineer-level facility assessment that looks at when, where, and how often a site uses energy in its daily operations;
a comprehensive curtailment action plan covering the full range of possible event and test curtailment scenarios a facility may encounter;
a 24/7/365 grid monitoring team who acts as the link between a data center site and the wholesale and utilities responsible for maintaining the electrical grid, who can give advanced notice when there is an imminent grid emergency;
the CPower App, which delivers data for individual facilities across different energy markets and offers access to vital historical usage data by year, month, week, day or minute; and
facilitating the enrollment procedures for each utility program or wholesale power market to ensure cost savings and new revenue streams are realized.

Data Centers Become ‘Virtual Power Plants’ that Unlock Operational, Community Resilience
With technology companies becoming the largest purchasers of green power, many in the data center industry have the opportunity to leverage demand-side energy management programs that optimize idle DERs – such as energy efficiency, generator sets, uninterruptible power supplies and solar PV – to maintain reliability during extreme weather or other grid stress-tests. In doing so, a data center campus can become a Virtual Power Plant (VPP), generating revenue by being a flexible resource to help balance the grid, ensuring no downtime to a site’s operations or to its customers’ businesses as well as increasing the resilience of homes and businesses in the surrounding community.

“Qualifying and broadening energy programs to include demand-side energy management participation means ensuring the safety and security of a site, and of a community, by reinforcing grid reliability during peak demand events,” said KC Mares, Director – Data Centers, CPower. “CPowered Performance Solutions ensures that we have a granular understanding of a site and what’s most important, making energy management programs easy to implement and goals easier to achieve, all without causing disruption to a site or its customers’ businesses.”

Data Centers Can Now Report Carbon Emissions Reductions through Demand-side Management
In addition to achieving resiliency benefits, data centers can leverage demand-side energy management to help achieve their sustainability targets. CPower can analyze the marginal carbon reduction – the emissions savings as a result of a site’s decision to reduce electricity load at a particular time – to help data centers who participate in demand-side energy management programs report the resulting emissions avoided.

The company announced that Digihost, a blockchain technology company primarily focused on bitcoin mining, avoided nearly 150 metric tons of marginal CO₂, with just 29 hours of demand response participation at its facility in Buffalo, New York. This is the equivalent of mitigating more than 164 tons coal burning avoidance or sequestering 182 acres of US forests for one year. Digihost’s site reduced marginal carbon emissions by 5.1 tons per hour of demand response participation – the equivalent of 5,637 tons of coal burned per hour. CPower works with Digihost and other data center and critical sites through its partner, EnergyMark.

“Digihost, through its DigiGreen initiative as well as being a signatory on the Crypto Climate Accord, is committed to achieve net-zero emissions from electricity consumption by 2030. Partnering with CPower to participate in Demand Response programs has been a great way to reduce carbon emissions, while also providing reliability to the electric grid on peak days of demand. At Digihost our goal is to be a part of the transition to 100% renewably powered blockchains, and accelerate the growth of renewables throughout North America,” said Luke Marchior, Chief Renewable Energy Officer, Digihost.

“As an industry, data centers have prioritized energy efficiency. While this has demonstrated modest progress in reducing emissions, there is more that can be done for data centers to use energy more responsibly and drive decarbonization,” said Mares. “The size of the data center industry alone is large enough that reducing its power demand can drive a meaningful emissions reduction, as we work towards a cleaner and more dependable energy future. Measuring the impact of demand-side energy management programs offers a straightforward way for data centers to further demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.”

The analysis was conducted by CPower in partnership with WattTime, an environmental tech nonprofit that empowers all people, companies, policymakers, and countries to slash emissions and choose cleaner energy.

To learn more on CPowered Performance Solutions for Data Centers, visit:
https://bit.ly/2XoIGMR.

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Sustainable, Cost-efficient, Adaptable: ServerDomes Disrupts Data Center Design at Pivotal Moment in Global Data Needs

Leigh Porter — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 15:00:36 +0000

When one thinks about data centers, words like dark, sterile, and “boxy” may spring to mind. Row upon row of non-personable machines humming along as they receive continuous data from the outside world. What if, however, an engineer literally thought outside the box for a more sustainable, hyper-efficient, and flexible solution? Perry Gliessman was that someone, and in 2014, he built a better center.

“My goal was to design a data center that would meet the challenges of a ‘technology revolution’ while promoting the reduction of the global carbon footprint and eliminating unnecessary infrastructure and associated resource consumption,” said Perry Gliessman, ServerDomes inventor. The ServerDomes design is the resulting data center ecosystem that meets those challenges via innovations in efficiency and sustainability.

By challenging the boundaries of industry standards, Gliessman created a data center sorely needed with today’s global climate crisis. For context, data centers worldwide used 500 Tera Watts of electricity in 2019 and approximately 350 million metric tons of CO2 were released into the atmosphere.

“5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT) are no longer on the horizon – they’re already here,” said Ken Patchett, CEO, ServerDomes. “This is a critical time for our planet, and we need to make significant changes. ServerDomes unequivocally disrupts the status quo and solves the environmental and cost barriers to the increasing data center capacity needs.”

Sustainability without sacrifice
One big downfall of the data center industry is its voracious use of water for cooling. In fact, data centers worldwide use 900 billion liters or 2.3B gallons of water every year. However, the ServerDome shape and design enhance natural airflow, eliminating the need for ductwork, fans, chillers, air conditioners, and humidifiers. Outside air is drawn into the data center across a vegetative “bioswale” that encircles the dome to provide additional cooling and air filtration. The ServerDomes water usage effectiveness or WUE is a mere 0.14 L/kwh vs. the industry standard of 1.6 L/kwh.

The structure itself is recyclable, with no sheetrock or other typical, non-recyclable building materials. It’s made of 60 percent recycled aluminum with a 25-plus year life span.

Cost-efficient, by design
A ServerDome is less expensive to operate than the average data center – by up to 40 percent. The sustainable aluminum dome in the prototype has close to zero maintenance costs over a six-year period. And while most data centers require traditional air conditioning and cooling methods, ServerDomes does not, translating to lower utilities, maintenance, and labor costs. With annualized PUE of 1.13-1.17, the ServerDome is simply less expensive to operate.

Adaptable for climates, and climate change
The exponential growth of severe weather and natural disasters is officially a reality. This was not lost on Gliessman during the design process. The entire ServerDome is constructed from non-combustible materials making them both fire and lighting resistant. Based on principles established by Buckminster Fuller, the geodesic dome is exceptionally stable during seismic events and unphased by winds of more than 100 miles-per-hour.

This past summer, another real element of climate change kicked in with full force. Wildfires lit up the west coast, creating the worst air quality in the world. Yet inside the ServerDome, the filtration system worked perfectly resulting in zero disruption. That is one of many examples of why ServerDomes is especially adaptable to different climates – even some as extreme as the polar arctic or the dry desert climate of Dubai.

ServerDomes is the next evolution of data center design; the future has landed.

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Palo Alto Networks Launches NextWave 3.0 to Help Partners Build Expertise in Dynamic, High-Growth Security Markets

Leigh Porter — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 17:00:56 +0000

Palo Alto Networks, the global cybersecurity leader, unveiled NextWave 3.0, a significant set of enhancements, incentives and training to its award-winning NextWave Partner Program. Designed to help partners leverage all of Palo Alto Networks technologies, NextWave 3.0 will help partners differentiate their services, build new security expertise and grow profitable businesses as they meet customers’ needs in a dynamic security market.

Enterprises everywhere are expanding connectivity, growing their cloud capabilities and turning to automated solutions to protect themselves against sophisticated cyberattacks. Palo Alto Networks continues to expand its integrated platform of cloud, network and AI-driven threat protection capabilities to meet these market and customer dynamics. Its partner ecosystem has been instrumental in providing complementary solutions to help customers implement the best security architectures.

As digital transformation fuels the demand for specialized security expertise and creates a new economy of services, Palo Alto Networks is committed to delivering the products, programs and resources to enable its NextWave partners. Developed in consultation with the company’s partners, NextWave 3.0 will:

Enable differentiation with new specializations. Partners can build their security expertise through three new Prisma SASE (Prisma Access and Prisma SD-WAN, formerly CloudGenix), Prisma Cloud and Cortex XDR/XSOAR specializations. These new specializations include corresponding partner training and certifications.
Enhance partner profitability with three new specialization incentives for Prisma SASE, Prisma Cloud and Cortex XDR/XSOAR deals, along with other new incentives, deal boost and new rebates for its NextWave Diamond Innovator partners.
Expand partner opportunities by boosting existing deal referral incentives on all Palo Alto Networks products, extending partner-delivered support across more of Palo Alto Networks’ technologies and offering new education credits. Further, NextWave partners can now resell Prisma Cloud via a two-tier go-to-market strategy.
Empower partner success. NextWave 3.0 includes a host of new enablement resources and ways for partners to earn or maintain NextWave status, expanding Certified Professional Services certification to include the new specializations, Technology Education credits and technology adoption discounts.

“The future of our business and that of our partners are fundamentally linked,” said Karl Soderlund, senior vice president of Worldwide Channels. “The NextWave partner of tomorrow will enable digital transformation for our customers by embracing new technology, offering product-specific expertise, and leading with services. NextWave 3.0 helps our partners do just that. It is the most sweeping set of enhancements we have done to help our partners become security experts across our entire technology portfolio.”

About the NextWave Partner Program

Palo Alto Networks NextWave partner program includes approximately 6,500 partners who help 80,000 customers around the world succeed with the company’s technologies. In FY’20, 900 NextWave partners doubled their business through Palo Alto Networks.
In the company’s most recent Partner Satisfaction survey, more than 3,300 NextWave partners ranked Palo Alto Networks No. 1 in Partnership, Growth, Enablement and Profitability, when measured against top competitors.
Today, more than 18,000 partner engineers hold over 40,000 Palo Alto Networks technical certifications.

Partner Quotes

WWT

“As enterprises accelerate digital transformation, the need for agile and adaptable security solutions has never been greater,” said Mike McGlynn, Vice President and General Manager of Global Security, World Wide Technology (WWT). “Palo Alto Networks’ NextWave 3.0 offers a comprehensive security suite that enables WWT to help organizations construct and evolve their security infrastructures in the cloud, at the edge, and through AI-driven automation, tailored to their unique transformation needs.”

Sirius

“As a national integrator of technology-based business solutions that span the enterprise, including the data center, Sirius builds solutions on products and services from the world’s top technology companies through our dedicated teams of highly-certified experts,” said Deborah Bannworth, Senior Vice President of Partner Alliances, Inside Sales, Maintenance Sales & Services, Sirius. “NextWave 3.0 supports Sirius in aligning its world-class expertise to the Palo Alto Networks platform of technologies and will help us continue to meet the needs and priorities of its customers, which have shifted in 2020.”

Presidio

“More than ever, our customers in every industry are looking for IT to transform businesses with advanced technologies – to drive innovation, connectivity, lower costs, and optimize processes,” said Chris Barney, Senior Vice President, Cyber Security Practice, Presidio. “We are very pleased to partner with Palo Alto Networks, and to leverage NextWave 3.0, which will help us build our security services and expertise across the lifecycle of security needs for our customers.”

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