NYI

The Cloud has been forefront in our minds for the past several years. What started as a friction-free solution to all our problems and some of the most tortured metaphors in recent marketing history has gotten a lot more realistic as of late.

For those of you paying attention, the Cloud has picked up an interesting adjective. Now, it’s the “Hybrid Cloud,” with “hybrid” here standing for any number of things, from a mixed facilities-based deployment to a public/private Cloud offering to all the above.

We applaud this disruption. It shows what we’ve known all along: That there is no magic solution. The key to success, now and when we began in this business seventeen years ago, is listening to customers and using the most current hardware and software to get as close to what the customer needs as possible.

Charlie Babcock, one of our favorite infrastructure reporters, has an interesting piece from Cloud Connect last week. Apparently developers, in their age-old battle against IT, have been bypassing normal (read: “slow”) procurement processes in favor of quick Cloud instances.

We don’t condone such shenanigans. But we understand how they arise. To us, the solution is not just to go rogue with Cloud, but to work with the right IT folks to create an on-demand Cloud infrastructure. We don’t know about you, but it always gives us a kick to discover how people are actually using technology, as opposed to how the marketing folks want us to use it.

In any case, that Babcock piece over at InfoWeek makes for informative reading. Along with the latest in the Developers vs. Hardware Engineers Wars, it includes Cloud projections for the coming year.  Also for you unfamiliar with this conflict between Developers and Hardware of which we speak, you should have a look at Phil Koblence’s column on the subject over at TheWHIR.

Yesterday, the Internet was abuzz with the news that Google was shutting down Google Reader and several other apps whose popularity was waning. Some would call this an unnecessary move by a company with more money than God; others, NYI included, would see it as some early Spring cleaning.

In the course of our technical lives, we accumulate a lot of junk. Photos, more songs than we will ever listen to, email dating back to the AOL days. Similarly, in our network lives, files build up, specs are changed, needs change. The result is that what seemed necessary only last quarter now needs to be repurposed or perhaps even removed entirely.

When was the last time you took a cold, hard look at your infrastructure? Uptime is only half the story. You owe it to yourself and your bottom line to have a look at power-consumption, disk-space – in short, all the housekeeping items that make for a clean, effective deployment.

At the same time, you also need to ask yourself if this would be a good time to add some managed services to your offering. Would you benefit from additional backup and storage solutions? Have you considered a managed firewall, load balancing or perhaps a VPN? If you’re looking for a better account of your infrastructure spend, the inclusion of monitoring tools is the best way to go.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter where you stand on Google’s decision. But it’s as good a reminder as any that a periodic evaluation of one’s footprint is a good idea.

AFCOM President Tom Roberts contributed a wonderful opinion piece to Data Center Knowledge the other day, “A Great Time to be in the Data Center Industry.”

Here is our favorite part–in the final section, Partners Abound:

“The good news is you won’t have any problem finding companies that not only speak our language, but do it fluently. The challenge is to find one that will work with you, and at the same time, bring fresh ideas to the table. I recommend you zero in on those that not only understand, listen, and contribute, but that fit your culture too—a major factor in the selection process.

Your company is likely one of three types: A process culture defines a company that likes to follow the letter of the law and doesn’t want to bend or break any; a normative culture that has very stringent procedures and very high standards of ethics, and procedures match ethics; or a cross between the two – a collaborative culture – that suggests a higher threshold for creativity and willingness to combine efforts.”

As a company that proudly self-identifies as a collaborative culture, we would like to add that the true joy and excitement of our new age of the data center is that it brings customization to a new level.

As a first-party provider that both owns and operates all its facilities, NYI has spent the past 17+ years working with customers to craft highly customized deployments. What has made the current ecosystem the rich and exciting place it’s become is the tools.

For instance, with the recent rise of the enterprise Cloud, powered by VMware, customers can combine traditional facilities-based Colocation with Cloud instances that can be migrated between the real and the virtual at a moment’s notice, all the while maintaining real-time consistency with back-office business processes is not something that could be imagined even a few years ago.

Where this new environment will take us, is anybody’s guess. We would like to think that in the future even the most rigid, process-minded data center firms will be on notice to Collaborators like NYI.

What are you going this week? If you’re in the infrastructure business in the New York area, you will be joining NYI and more than 300 executives, analysts and industry-insiders at the second-annual Greater New York Data Center Summit & Expo on Wednesday, February 27 at the New York City Bar Association.

(NYI’s Phillip Koblence second from left. Photo courtesy of CRE.)

Presented by CRE, the event’s aim is “to bring together the most active and innovative firms for important discussion, debate and networking. 40+ speakers will participate in 10 provocative panel discussions, aimed at informing executives with the necessary market intelligence and networking opportunities for new business development in today’s environment.”

As presenters at the inaugural event in 2011, we can attest that that the Greater New York Data Center Summit & Expo is both money and time well-spent. But you don’t have to take our word for it. See for yourself.

Looking for a place to house your infrastructure? There doesn’t seem to be a better place these days than New Jersey, according to a story this past Sunday in the Bergen Record.

Along with a spurt of new construction, third-party datacenter owners like NYI report a vacancy rate of less than 20 percent.  While some might claim that the market is already crowded, the growth speaks for itself, as the economy continues to improve and companies add capacity in the wake of superstorm Sandy.

As one of the pioneers of the Central New Jersey datacenter market, NYI is proud to be right yet again on where the growth and the opportunities lie. We also urge everyone who wants to understand the market better to read what Rich Miller from Data Center Knowledge has to say.

As a New Jersey resident and a longtime industry observer who was among the folks to welcome NYI to the Garden State, Rich gives both sides of the story, while offering keen insight into the rich complexity of the market.

Another alternative, of course, is to come see for yourself.

NYI Customers:

Please be advised that NYI Site Operations personnel have taken precautionary measures to assure optimal performance of customer services during Winter Storm Nemo. Per our standard practices, NYI will send Incident Notifications in the event there is an interruption of service.

Current Status

At this time, all NYI facilities are operating under normal conditions, which includes system uptime, transport, utility power, and full fuel tanks. No incidents have been detected or reported.

According to the National Weather Service as of Noon EST Friday, Feb. 8, the Metro New York area should expect snow accumulation in the next 24 hours of 10 to 14 inches, with Blizzard Warnings in effect until 1pm EST Saturday, Feb. 9.

Site Operations has increased staffing and will continue to closely monitor the storm. Please refer to local news sources for additional weather-related information or www.noaa.gov.

The next update will be if there is a significant change to the current situation.

Sincerely,

NYI Service Team
Phone: 1-800-288-7387

Remember:

If you have a question about this incident or would like to upgrade your current service or report a system issue, please contact the NYI HelpDesk at 1-800-288-7387 or open a service ticket at: http://my.nyi.net

Unigroup, the oldest and largest Unix User’s Group (Unix/Linux/BSD) serving the Greater New York City Regional Area since the early 1980s, is holding a Hurricane Sandy War Stories and Aftermath discussion at their January 2013 meeting.

Among the topics to be discussed will be how the storm effected our area, our members, and their respective homes and businesses; discuss the effectiveness of disaster preparedness and business continuity plans; discuss how the storm effected different parts of our area differently, and how quickly/slowly services were restored (power, infrastructure, transportation, Voice/Data/Internet/Cellular/WiFi/Satellite communications, etc); effectiveness of systems and equipment dealing with the storm and its consequences (UPS/surge, electrical/backup power, flood prevention, communications primary/backup links, etc); unexpected problems post-storm (such as strange printer issues);how can things be handled better/differently going forward; availability of correct and timely information or lack thereof; mass notification systems and did they actually work; etc.

When:  Thursday, January 17th, 2013    (*** 3rd Thursday ***)

Where:  The Cooper Union  <http://www.cooper.edu>
School of Engineering    (*** New Building ***)
41 Cooper Square      (3rd Ave @ 7th St, bet. 6th & 7th Sts)
East Village, Manhattan
New York City
Meeting Room: LL101_CS   (LL=Lower Level)
** Please RSVP **        (Note: Room Changes Month-to-Month)

Time:  6:15 PM – 6:30 PM  Registration
6:30 PM – 6:45 PM  Ask the Wizard, Questions,
Answers and Current Events
6:45 PM – 7:00 PM  Unigroup Business and Announcements
7:00 PM – 9:30 PM  Main Presentation

Speakers: Panel Discussion,  featuring various Unigroup Board Members and Members,
meeting attendees, and special guests from the NYC Technical Community.

Moderator, Storm Background and Information:
Robert Weiner, President,
Programming Plus <http://www.progplus.com>.
Executive Director of Unigroup of NY, Inc.

Special Guest:
Bob Hunt, Sr. IT Pro Evangelist,
Microsoft

Featured Guest:
Phillip Koblence, VP of Operations,
NYI

RSVP: http://www.unigroup.org/unigroup-rsvp.html

RTL Dutch TV Interview with NYI – Phillip Koblence at 1:24.

Great piece from Dutch TV about where the Internet lives. Contrasted is the remote locales that many associate with datacenters with NYI’s presence in Lower Manhattan offering sub-millisecond access to all the major exchanges.

NYI’s Phillip Koblence was interviewed Thursday by RTL Dutch TV about how datacenters power the Internet. Among the topics discussed were the role of datacenters in highly concentrated urban areas like NYC and why financial services in particular choose NYI for its proximity to all the major markets and exchanges.

We’re told that the piece will be airing next week. Stay tuned!

A recent piece in Ephemeral New York finds that incline along William Street in the Financial District is not only the best place in Manhattan to build a datacenter, it’s also the probable location of Golden Hill, a Revolutionary-era enclave which was the site of the first bloody conflict of the Revolutionary War.

The conflict at Golden Hill took place two months prior to the Boston Massacre, according to Old World NYC. The source of the conflict was the presence of liberty poles, which didn’t sit too well with British forces. These days, a similar disagreement might arise, but we would like to think it would be over who offers the best sub-millisecond access.