Arch Rock Launches Monitoring Tool « Data Center Knowledge

Arch Rock Launches Monitoring Tool « Data Center Knowledge. - Very interesting product...it makes a lot of sense.  Cabling in data centers can be a complex game of rip and replace and sometimes even the best layed out data centers have issues tracing cables.  The interface is clean and intuitive and good monitoring of environmentals in the data center is a important cost saving element.

Via Data Center Knowledge

The New Data Center - Consolidate and Bring on the Virtualization

Caught this article from CIO Magazine through a post on Doug McClure's Blog titled "Defining the next generation data centers", in the article is discusses how data centers are changing and redefining their approach.   One area of the article that leaped out at me though was the author's thoughts on consolidation and virtualization.   We continue to hear more and more about these two IT drivers but I have also been hearing from many is the confusion on how to make them work for them sand provide value into their organizations.   The article mentions using frameworks such as ITIL and ITSM to organize their approach, but for any of us that have been through consolidation and virtualization efforts, we know it requires more than frameworks and good efforts.   I think it requires two things more than anything else  from the top layer of abstraction and those are:

1.  Strategy - Frameworks can assist in deploying the strategy, but the IT management must come to grips with ensuring that a cohesive strategy that incorporates input and feedback from the functional areas and their leaders within the organization are incorporated into the strategy.  So many IT teams choose to move forward without doing this and the results suffer greatly from it.  Yet those IT organizations that work hand in hand with the business disciplines within their organizations continue to help their companies perform better and build momentum in the marketplace....repeat after me "IT can be strategic and profitable".   Sorry....couldn't resist.  :)

2.  Commitment - From the Executive Suite through the Support function all employees, stake-holders and leaders must come to a consensus and then support the  rollout of the strategy, otherwise as many organizations have found out...the results will be mixed at best and mor elikely disastorous.  Remeber it has been reported that more than 60% of all IT projects have sub-par results or completely fail.   Usually you will find a lack of commitment  is one of the reasons for this.

These two items when done correctly can have a profound effect of the strategic results of the organization.  Hope this helps....

11.38 petabits per second? Really?

It is true...according to an article on CNET online titled "Inside the Lucasfilm data center", their datacenter has the total capacity of 11.38 petabits per second.  Of course this is theoritical...but impressive none the less.  In the story "Kevin Clark, Lucasfilm's director of IT operations, said, the data center "far exceeds" the computing power of any other production house in the world."  It is a great article with views inside the data center...so get your computing envy on.