Data Center

Cloud Security Hinges on IP Addressing

In the first part of this trilogy, I discussed the importance of automatically provisioned second generation DNS in connection with Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Software Defined Data Centre (SDDC). In the second post, I talked about IP addressing, private enterprise networks, and how DHCP does not meet the requirements of multitenant Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud environments. I will now wrap up this trilogy by putting these two thesis into real-life context. more

Hurricane Sandy Causes Major Impact on Internet Infrastructure in New York City and Beyond

The super storm has caused major power and Internet outages in a region that is home to more than 60 million people. Unsurprisingly, the impacts on Internet connectivity have been severe, reports Renesys. more

Tracking Outages

The idea of tracking data outages spawned from an early discussion on the outages forum including feedback from an outages survey about having a status page for (un)planned outages as a central resource. The purpose of such effort is to have a wider focus that one could view as opposed to having to check dozens of provider status pages. There were many ideas put forth but nothing really panned out and things kinda fell on the back burner. more

Why CDNs Are Critical to Future of R&E Networks, Big Data and the Internet

Netflix has announced that they are deploying their own Content Delivery Network (CDN) for delivery of their video streams to Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) around the world. More importantly they are making the hardware and software design of their CDN servers freely available. That means any network can deploy Netflix CDN boxes deep into their network to significantly reduce traffic volumes and improve performance for users. more

Critical Role for R&E Networks+Commercial Clouds in US Government “Big Data” Initiative

It is great to see US and European governments undertake initiatives to promote the development of research into Big Data utilizing commercial clouds. Many cloud providers are offering free resources to support these initiatives. R&E networks will play a critical role in linking researchers to the commercial clouds and developing collaboration platforms and portals. more

White House Launches Big Data Research and Development Initiative

The Obama Administration has announced today a "Big Data Research and Development Initiative." The initiative, has committed to more than $200 million in new funding spearheaded by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and National Science Foundation (NSF), along with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Department of Defense (DoD), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Department of Energy (DoE) Office of Science, and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), seeks to "advance state-of-the-art core technologies needed to collect, store, preserve, manage, analyze, and share huge quantities of data; harness these technologies to accelerate the pace of discovery in science and engineering, strengthen our national security, and transform teaching and learning; and expand the workforce needed to develop and use Big Data technologies." more

Green IT Revolutionizing UK Cyber-Infrastructure via Networks, Cloud, Outsourcing, Finan. Incentives

As readers of my blogs may know I have long argued that advances in research and education through cyber-infrastructure (or eInfrastructure) can be largely justified, if not entirely paid for through the energy savings of using clouds, networks or outsourcing. But a big impediment in adopting cyber-infrastructure in most jurisdictions is the lack of financial incentives. The energy savings of cyber-infrastructure are usually earned by the facilities or estates department or rarely based on to researchers and educators. more

Privacy Rules to Change in the EU, But What If ...?

In a presentation EU Commissioner Viviane Reding gave a preview of the new Privacy regulation her DG is preparing. As she states, privacy rules need to be brought up to date and harmonized. With all 27 member states having the same rules and tools to enforce, a company only will deal with one privacy commissioner... So, what if we, for the sake of this blog, take this initiative towards spam and cyber crime. What would this do to spam enforcement? more

In an Internet Minute

Intel sent an interesting infographic: What Happens in an Internet Minute. Looking at the traffic data, Intel asks if there is sufficient attention being paid to investment in infrastructure. Imagine the state of the network in three years, when the number of connected devices is projected to be double the world's population. Can our networks scale to handle predicted traffic and meet consumer expectations for immediate access from multiple devices? more

Advantage of Commercial Clouds vs. HPC for Scientific Research

The Department of Energy (DoE) recently came out with an excellent report, called the Magellan report, on the advantages and disadvantages of using commercial clouds versus in house High Performance Computers (HPC) for leading edge scientific research. The DoE probably supports the largest concentration of HPC facilities in the world. I agree with the report that for traditional applications such as computational chemistry, astrophysics, etc. will still need large HPC facilities. more

Cloud Computing Traffic Expected to Grow 12-Fold by 2015

Global cloud computing traffic is expected to grow 12-fold from 130 exabytes to reach a total of 1.6 zettabytes annually by 2015 -- a 66% compound annual growth rate -- according to Cisco's Global Cloud Index. 1.6 zettabytes is approximately equivalent to 22 trillion hours of streaming music; 5 trillion hours of business Web conferencing with a webcam; 1.6 trillion hours of online high-definition (HD) video streaming. more

Critical Data Belongs in the Cloud, Not Under It - Lessons Learned from Irene

"As flood waters from Tropical Storm Irene swamped the Waterbury state office complex, seven employees from the Vermont Agency of Human Services rushed inside to rescue computer servers that are critical for processing welfare checks and keeping track of paroled prisoners living around the state," according to a story by Shay Totten on the 7days blog Blurt. Two of the employees - network administrator Andrew Matt and deputy chief information officer Darin Prail - lost their cars in the parking lot as the river rose but kept on working to assure that our servers were not lost. "We didn't know how much time we had," Matt said, "and our job was to save the servers." more

Building Caribbean Internet Infrastructure… One IXP at a Time

Encouraging the development of Internet-based services and accelerating the development of local content are often touted as noble objectives. It is also widely acknowledged that reaping the benefits of technology is dependent on reducing Internet connectivity and bandwidth costs, improving infrastructure, and improving quality of service to all Internet users. Yet in a region with over 20 million potential Internet users and great ambitions to create a "knowledge-based society" and develop "technology-driven economies", the cost of access remains prohibitively high and there is a glaring absence of critical Internet infrastructure. more

Cloud Services Drive Data Center Markets

Research from Infonetics shows that last year was a strong year for data centre network equipment sales, due to a rebound from bare-bones 2009 spending levels and, more importantly, fundamental trends favouring investments in the data centre, such as the explosion of content and traffic, use of virtualization, and increasingly, cloud-based services and architectures. more

Will the Cloud Kill Telecom Vendors?

There are many big questions in telecom these days, and this is one that's on my mind right now. Over the past few months, I've participated in events or briefed with leading vendors in our space, namely Avaya, ShoreTel, BroadSoft, Aastra, Metaswitch, Mitel, Interactive Intelligence, and this week Cisco. Every analyst has their own core circle of vendors they stay close to, but I'd say that's a pretty fair representation of who's driving telecom. To varying degrees, all of these vendors have a cloud story, and the more I hear it, the more I start to wonder what it really means. more