Disaster Recovery Journal

Columbus, Ohio – Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson (NYSE:EMR) and a global leader in maximizing availability, capacity and efficiency of critical infrastructure, today announced the availability of its Dynamic Cooling Assessment for data centers in the United States. The service employs sensors and wireless communications to track environmental temperature and humidity in order to effectively apply industry-leading engineering expertise to the management of the data center environment. The assessment service is a cost-effective, long-term approach to gaining the benefits of a data center cooling and efficiency assessment.

 

“Managing the ideal environment in a data center is a never-ending challenge,” said Brian Humes, vice president and general manager, Emerson Network Power’s Liebert Services business. “IT loads change and grow as equipment is replaced or upgraded; airflow and cooling effectiveness are altered when infrastructure ages, moves or gets enhanced with new technologies. The Dynamic Cooling Assessment provides real-time engineering analysis of the cooling infrastructure.”

 

Continuous, real-time performance tracking enables trends and problems with temperature and airflow to be identified before they jeopardize IT load availability. When issues are identified, solutions are recommended to prevent environmental problems such as hot spots, over-cooling and cooling system inefficiency.

 

The Emerson Network Power Dynamic Cooling Assessment includes installation of wireless transmitters, Liebert Sensor Network and Ntegrity Gateway without disruption to data center operations. Quarterly reports can be generated to provide trending analysis, identification and prioritization of potential problems affecting availability or efficiency, and detailed recommendations for corrective action. An annual Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model is also generated allowing end-users to plan and optimize future data center changes.

 

For more information on any other Liebert technologies and services from Emerson Network Power, visit www.EmersonNetworkPower.com.

COLUMBUS, OHIO – Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson (NYSE:EMR) and a global leader in maximizing availability, capacity and efficiency of critical infrastructure, today introduced Energy Logic 2.0, a vendor-neutral roadmap of 10 strategies that can reduce a data center’s energy use by up to 74 percent. The approach, detailed in a new e-book, updates the original Energy Logic, introduced in 2007, to incorporate the advances in technology and best practices that have emerged in the past five years. The company also launched the Energy Logic 2.0 Cascading Savings Calculator, an online tool that allows data center managers to calculate the approximate energy savings they would capture by employing strategies in the updated approach.

With the inclusion of new technologies and best practices, Energy Logic 2.0 illustrates how the energy consumption of a 5,000 square-foot data center could be cut by up to 74 percent using available technologies. It accomplishes this by leveraging the cascade effect, the cornerstone of the Energy Logic approach.

The cascade effect quantifies how savings at the IT component level are magnified in the supporting systems, recommending an overall approach that focuses on optimizing the efficiency of core IT systems to drive the greatest savings. In a data center with a PUE of 1.9, a 1 W savings at the server processor creates a 2.84 W savings at the facility level as a result of the cascade effect. At higher PUEs, the savings is even greater.

What’s New in Energy Logic 2.0

The original Energy Logic approach in 2007 was designed and tested on a 5,000-square-foot model data center. This year, Emerson Network Power again used a model data center of the same size to build the Energy Logic 2.0 roadmap. This time, however, recent technological advancements have enabled even greater energy savings.

For instance:

• Energy Logic 2.0 shows how the energy consumption of the base data center can be reduced from 1,543 kW to 408 kW.
• Key strategies, such as high-efficiency server components, power architecture improvements, and temperature and airflow management have been updated to reflect recent technological advances.
• The base data center takes into account the rapid adoption of server virtualization. The optimized Energy Logic data center in 2007 assumed 20 percent virtualization, whereas the un-optimized data center in 2012 assumes 30 percent virtualization. In addition, server consolidation and virtualization are now treated as one strategy because they typically happen in concert.
• Information and Communications Technology (ICT) architecture is highlighted as an emerging best practice that delivers energy savings by optimizing IT and networking architecture.
• The emergence of data center infrastructure management (DCIM) is incorporated throughout the Energy Logic strategy, because DCIM provides the visibility and control required to fully leverage multiple Energy Logic strategies, including server power management, virtualization, power architecture, and temperature and airflow management.

In addition to the cascade effect, Emerson Network Power has quantified the “reverse” cascade effect: the total energy wasted by stranded capacity. Just as 1 W of savings at the server component level can save 2.84 W at the facility level, 1 W of energy wasted on an unproductive server creates an additional 1.95 W of waste at the facility level.

“Energy Logic 2.0 clearly shows there still are great opportunities to optimize the data center,” said Jack Pouchet, vice president of business development and director of energy initiatives for Emerson Network Power. “Energy efficiency remains a priority, and a new generation of management technologies that provide greater visibility and control of data center systems has arrived. The data center industry is better positioned than ever to make a serious impact in reducing overall data center energy consumption.”

Using the Cascading Savings Calculator

Data center managers can use the Cascading Savings Calculator to explore the impact Energy Logic 2.0 strategies might have on their facility. Users enter their compute load and facility PUE, then adjust sliding scales for nine strategies to show percent utilization. Based on this information, the calculator will approximate a strategy’s impact on compute load, PUE, and total energy and cost savings. The strategies data center managers can explore are:

• Low-Power Components
• High-Efficiency Power Supplies
• Server Power Management
• ICT Architecture
• Virtualization and Consolidation
• Power Architecture
• Temperature and Airflow Management
• Variable-Capacity Cooling
• High-Density Cooling

By trying out the Cascading Savings Calculator, data center managers can see how implementing each strategy – and varying degrees of each strategy – might impact their savings.

Energy Logic 2.0: New Strategies for Cutting Data Center Energy Costs and Boosting Capacity and the Cascading Savings Calculator can be accessed at www.EfficientDataCenters.com.

San Francisco, CA – Nimbus Data Systems, Inc., the leader in Sustainable Storage®, today introduced its Gemini flash memory arrays, setting new industry standards in solid state resiliency, performance, and data center efficiency. In unveiling this new platform, Nimbus debuts several patent-pending design achievements in hardware and software that offer compelling operational and economic advantages for virtualization, database, and cloud initiatives:

• 10 year endurance that supports up to 1 PB of weekly data writes without performance loss
• No-single-point-of-failure with hot-swap redundant controllers and self-healing flash drives
• Patent-pending Parallel Memory Architecture capable of 12 GBps and over 1 million IOps
• Software-configurable ports to support the highest Ethernet, Infiniband, and Fibre Channel speeds
• Up to 48 TB of flash capacity in 2U, achieving 1 PB and 20 million IOps per rack

“The new Gemini flash memory array from Nimbus certainly sets a high bar in terms of completeness and vision for flash storage arrays,” stated Mark Peters, senior analyst at ESG. “Gemini stands out from the crowd with its architecture designed from the ground up and seamless multiprotocol versatility. The flexibility, performance and efficiency needs of contemporary and future applications will increasingly require data centers to deploy capabilities inherent in designs such as those demonstrated by Nimbus.”

The new Gemini system meets the rigorous availability and performance requirements of server virtualization, databases, VDI, and IO-intensive data processing applications. The fully-redundant “hot-swap everything” design offers dual controllers, non-disruptive software updates, and intuitive lights-out management in one system – no bulky external controllers, gateways, or cabling required. Unlike IO-bound off-the-shelf servers and disk arrays that fail to harness the performance potential of solid state technology, Gemini offers 6x more bandwidth through a non-blocking design. This Parallel Memory Architecture (PMA) enables all flash drives to operate at full speed in unison, providing superior scalability for virtualized infrastructures that depend on low-latency, high throughput storage.

Gemini supports all major storage networking technologies at their fastest available data rates, including Ethernet (1/10/40 GbE), Infiniband (20/40/56 Gb), and Fibre Channel (4/8/16 Gb). Gemini’s ports are also software-programmable, switching instantly from Ethernet to Infiniband or from Fibre Channel to Ethernet simply by changing transceivers. This dual-personality capability offers flexibility should storage networking requirements change in the future. All major block and file storage protocols are supported in-the-box, including iSCSI, FCP, SRP, NFS, and SMB, giving customers choice and the investment protection to adapt to changing needs effortlessly.

To enable service providers to defer data center capital expenditures, Gemini packs 8x more capacity per rack than 15K RPM disk arrays, without resorting to cumbersome top-loading designs that complicate field service. Gemini also utilizes a fraction of the power and generates significantly less heat than 15K RPM disk arrays, slashing power and rackspace costs by 85%. Delivering up to 20 million IOps in one rack, Gemini flash memory arrays enable a 30:1 consolidation in rackspace on a performance basis, giving customers a powerful weapon against unrelenting data growth.

Gemini incorporates Nimbus’ new Flash Lifecycle Management technology, which builds on over two years of production deployments of Nimbus solutions at some of the most demanding Global 5000 customers. Wear-leveling is performed system-wide, not just at the drive level, eliminating hot-spots and delivering consistent performance. This technology enables Gemini flash arrays to deliver up to 10 years of endurance, surpassing disk arrays in reliability. An intuitive graphical dashboard displays real-time and historical flash utilization, offering customers unique insight into the health of the storage infrastructure.

Gemini flash memory arrays feature Nimbus’ HALO software stack, a total system management solution offering thin provisioning, deduplication, replication, snapshot, and encryption capabilities. Included without any licensing fees, HALO is easy to use, enabling complete system setup in minutes.

“The ground-breaking advances in Gemini are the culmination of two years of nonstop hardware and software engineering and extensive feedback from our loyal customer base,” stated Thomas Isakovich, CEO and founder of Nimbus Data. “We believe that we have set the new standard in flash memory storage, enabling efficiency and performance that unequivocally redefine data center infrastructure.”

Gemini flash memory arrays are available in single and dual-controller configurations with either 4 x QSFP ports per controller (for Ethernet and Infiniband) or 4 x SFP+ ports per controller (for Ethernet and Fibre Channel). Capacity ranges from 6 to 48 TB per 2U system, before data reduction. The new Gemini flash memory arrays will be generally available in Q4 2012.

About Nimbus Data Systems

Nimbus develops award-winning Sustainable Storage® systems, the most intelligent, efficient and fault-tolerant solid state storage platform engineered for server and desktop virtualization, databases, HPC, and next-generation cloud infrastructure. Combining low-latency flash memory hardware, comprehensive data management and protection software, and highly-scalable multiprotocol storage features, Nimbus systems deliver dramatically greater performance at a significantly lower operating cost than conventional disk-based primary storage arrays, all at a comparable acquisition cost. For more information, visit www.nimbusdata.com, or follow Nimbus at twitter.com/nimbusdata.

Natick, Mass. –– TwinStrata, Inc., the leading innovator of cloud-based data storage, backup and disaster recovery solutions, today announced that customers can now purchase both Google Cloud Storage and TwinStrata CloudArray® through a single subscription-based bundle. CloudArray Subscription delivers both management simplicity and payment flexibility to resource-strapped IT organizations and complements existing “bring-your-own-cloud” options.
“Expanding our global storage strategy to include the cloud makes a lot of sense from both a financial and a maintenance perspective,” said Jerry Bogart, Infrastructure Manager, at ChemPoint.com. “However, we really needed a solution that was simple to buy, simple to implement and simple to maintain. We found this with the TwinStrata CloudArray Subscription – we get easy, secure access to unlimited cloud storage for each of our offices globally without having to deal with multiple vendors or big upfront costs.”

Designed to address the needs of both small and large organizations, CloudArray Subscription delivers accessibility, security, performance and simplicity, enabling organizations to support multiple concurrent use cases and seamlessly use cloud storage as another tier of storage.  Already organizations such as ChemPoint.com and CoreIP Solutions have begun using CloudArray Subscription.
In addition to obtaining a robust storage infrastructure, premium support, cloud snapshots and multi-tenant capabilities, customers of the new offering get tiered pay-as-you-go pricing and access to CloudArray software or hardware cloud storage gateways for the same flat monthly rate, without upcharges for bandwidth usage or other variable fees.

“Our customers turn to TwinStrata because we make cloud storage easy, painless and worry-free,” said Nicos Vekiarides, CEO of TwinStrata. “The introduction of CloudArray Subscription builds further on our vision. Now we can accommodate you no matter how you want to buy cloud storage – as a complete offering or by bringing your own cloud – through a monthly subscription or a perpetual license – ultimately giving you peace of mind.”
Pricing and Availability
The CloudArray Subscription is offered in addition to TwinStrata’s perpetual license cloud storage gateways. With a starting price of just $0.19/GB, CloudArray Subscription is available now and includes both Google Cloud Storage and TwinStrata’s software and/or hardware gateways. More information about CloudArray Subscription can be found at www.twinstrata.com/subscription. Download a 14-day free trial of CloudArray Subscription at: http://www.twinstrata.com/subscription-trial

Follow TwinStrata
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TwinStrata
Facebook: http://facebook.com/TwinStrata

About TwinStrata CloudArray
CloudArray virtual or physical appliances take minutes to configure and integrate public cloud, private cloud and local or remote storage devices into flexible “Cloud SANs” that provide unlimited storage, continuous data protection, tapeless offsite backup, instant disaster recovery, and branch office storage consolidation. CloudArray appliances are available from TwinStrata with software appliances available for immediate free download at www.twinstrata.com/CloudArray-download.

About TwinStrata, Inc.
TwinStrata is an innovator in enterprise-class data storage, data protection and disaster recovery/business continuity solutions using cloud storage. With TwinStrata CloudArray®, companies of all sizes can simply and economically leverage the scalability and efficiency of cloud storage while maintaining the availability, performance and security of local storage. CloudArray software and hardware solutions support all file and operating systems, and deliver substantial advantages over traditional off-site storage solutions, including a pay-as-you-go model, unlimited elastic capacity, local performance, in-cloud snapshots and disaster recovery, dynamic caching, automated policies, AES256 encryption, and continuous access to data. For more information visit TwinStrata.com or call +1 508-651-0199.

Wayne, Pa. — Virtualization technology has changed the landscape of IT and data centers, delivering substantial benefits to not only production environments but also in disaster recovery. However, while data centers are becoming increasingly virtualized, most IT operations are a mix of physical and virtual systems – a hybrid environment. According to Gartner, “as of early 2012, 50 percent of all installed workloads were running in VMs.”*

 

While newer applications may run exclusively on virtual workloads, there are still many mission-critical applications running on a combination of mainframes, Windows servers, Linux/Unix systems and virtual machines. And managing a recovery site requires enterprises to purchase a whole new set of costly application software licenses for the secondary location.

 

This reality has created an IT issue that is still flying “under the radar” of many IT organizations: How to best protect and recover applications in hybrid environments – and do it a way that works within business and cost constraints?

 

“The challenge of recovering production operations that support heterogeneous mixes of business applications, virtual and physical computing platforms, supporting middleware, storage systems and database managers, all of which have complex interdependencies upon each other, is an extremely complex one,” said John Morency, research vice president, Gartner. “Ensuring that the entire recovery execution is 100 percent consistent with the operations restoration expectations of the business across all recovery tiers raises this bar even further. Currently, there is no one single technology that completely addresses this challenge. This means that world class execution, coupled with the right set of technologies, will continue to be required in order to make recovery management both effective and sustainable.”

 

The three top challenges for enterprises looking to recover hybrid environments are addressing their needs to:

• Recreate a multi-layer, multi-platform hybrid stack for each mission-critical application.
• Recover mission-critical applications within the time requirements needed to avoid unacceptable consequences to the business (recovery time objective – RTO).
• Avoid busting the IT budget on CAPEX for building a secondary site for recovery and OPEX for maintaining the site.

Why Recovery in Hybrid Environments is So Difficult

 

To better understand the complexity and difficulty in managing recovery in hybrid environments, let’s examine a typical three-tier web application – for instance, an e-commerce application. The application may have a database layer that runs on two different systems – a Linux system running Oracle and a Microsoft Windows server running SQL. Next, the middleware – or business logic – of the application could be on a Win2K server running WebLogic, and its job is to aggregate data from the Oracle and SQL servers. Lastly, the application has a web layer on an ESX server running Apache.

 

Add into this scenario some of the hardware supporting the application. For example, the web and middleware tiers are stored on an EMC SAN device, with the Oracle database on a NetApp SAN device and the SQL server on a Dell storage device.

 

Here is what this enterprise faces: multiple storage platforms, multiple compute platforms, multiple operating systems, and a mix of physical and virtual environments. So when a disaster or outage hits, if the enterprise has not created the identical physical and virtual stacks in its recovery environment to accommodate all three layers, the recovery will fail.

 

If the enterprise has the wrong version of VMware’s hypervisor running in the recovery environment, the recovery will fail. If it has the wrong hypervisor running in the recovery environment (say, Xen), the recovery will fail. If the enterprise only has the ability to recover the database layer by itself, or both the database and middleware layers without the web layer, the recovery will fail.

 

And now add in another level of complexity. The previous scenario is just one application. What if the organization has 50, 80 or even more than 100 applications to recover?

 

As enterprises examine the challenge of recovering a large number of important applications – all with aggressive recovery time objectives – the reason why recovery in hybrid environments is so difficult becomes very clear.

 

SunGard Availability Services recommends organizations address the following set of questions when developing a recovery strategy for hybrid environments:

 

• Is your production environment 100 percent virtualized, or do you run a hybrid environment with multiple platforms, operating systems, hypervisors and storage technologies?
• Do you have a full understanding of your recovery environment? Is it compatible from a platforms, operating systems, hypervisors, storage and application data point of view with your production environment? Do you understand all the interdependencies within your mission-critical applications?
• Do you have the diverse skills and the automation technologies to be able to recover all of your applications in an application-consistent way and be able to meet the RTOs and recovery point objectives (RPOs) for all of your applications?
• Have you created the processes and procedures to recover your hybrid environment? Have you tested your ability to meet your RTOs?
• Is your disaster recovery runbook current? In particular, have all production configurations been captured in the recovery environment – addressing change management?

What’s Needed to Achieve Recovery in Hybrid Environments

 

In order to support recovery of a hybrid environment, an enterprise needs to have in place:

• The right technologies for each platform and operating system at a secondary site.
• A well-documented disaster recovery playbook that contains all recovery processes.
• The right staff and expertise (a multi-discipline team skilled in VMware, Oracle, Windows, storage technologies and more) – trained and tested in running the playbook.
• Change management processes in place so all changes in production configurations – which happen frequently in enterprises – make their way into the recovery environment.

 

The challenges created by the complexity of applications-based recovery of hybrid environments often drive enterprises to turn to specialized assistance, such as SunGard Availability Services. SunGard has unmatched operations staff expertise to plan, implement, test and operate recovery processes in multi-layer, multi-platform hybrid environments.

 

SunGard Site Recovery Manager-as-a-Service is a new SunGard offering launching in Fall 2012 that delivers VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager as a service to provide vSphere Replication or storage-based replication of applications to a secondary SunGard site.

 

SunGard Recover2Cloud is a Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) offering that delivers cloud-based managed recovery services backed by guaranteed service levels.

 

“As a company which has successfully recovered thousands of environments in the last thirty years, we've seen the range of things that can go wrong, and we try to plan ahead for future issues,” said Michael de la Torre, vice president of product management for recovery services, SunGard Availability Services. “Today, we're seeing the need to recover multiple applications running in complex production environments, on both physical and virtual workloads, across multiple geographies, with multiple interdependencies, within specific RTOs, is the primary challenge. Our ability to recover complex, hybrid environments is absolutely a key differentiator for us.”

 

* Gartner, Inc., Top Five Trends for x86 Server Virtualization, Thomas J. Bittman, March 22, 2012.

 

About SunGard Availability Services

SunGard Availability Services provides disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software.  With approximately five million square feet of datacenter and operations space, SunGard Availability Services helps customers improve the resilience of their mission critical systems by designing, implementing and managing cost-effective solutions using people, process and technology to address enterprise IT availability needs.  Through direct sales and channel partners, we help organizations ensure their people and customers have uninterrupted access to the information systems they need in order to do business.  To learn more, visit www.sungardas.com or call 1-800-468-7483.  Connect with us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

 

About SunGard

SunGard is one of the world’s leading software and technology services companies.  SunGard has more than 17,000 employees and serves approximately 25,000 customers in more than 70 countries.  SunGard provides software and processing solutions for financial services, education and the public sector.  SunGard also provides disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software.  With annual revenue of about $4.5 billion, SunGard is the largest privately held software and services company and was ranked 480 on the Fortune 500 in 2011. For more information, please visit www.sungard.com.

Collection of resources available to help residents reduce wildfire risk

Firewise logoAugust 27, 2012 – The National Fire Protection Association’s (NFPA) Firewise® Communities Program launched a new Firewise toolkit, available at no cost online. Firewise is a national program that emphasizes community involvement and provides important information for residents to reduce the risk of wildland fire igniting homes.

The materials in the toolkit can be found in one easily-accessible place on the Firewise website and are designed to meet the needs of several audiences, including homeowners, fire service professionals, community leaders and others interested in learning how to reduce wildfire risk.  Whether it’s a homeowner who makes use of the checklist to create defensible space around their home, a community member interested in working with their neighbors to establish a Firewise Communities/USA®-recognized site, or a representative from one of the more than 780 nationally recognized Firewise communities looking for downloadable materials to support their continued mitigation efforts, the toolkit is the place to start.

The entire toolkit or its separate pieces can be downloaded and printed for meetings, presentations and for individual use. The toolkit consists of the following:

Facts about NFPA’s Firewise Communities Program
A Guide to Firewise Principles
Firewise Tips Checklist for Homeowners
Firewise Communities/USA® Recognition Program Checklist
Guidelines for Spelling/Usage of Firewise
Guidelines for Using the Firewise/NFPA Logo

The toolkit can be found on the “information and resources” page of the Firewise website.

More information about the toolkit or the Firewise Communications Program can be found on the Firewise website, by contacting the Wildland Fire Operations Division at 617-984-7486, or through the “contact us” page on the Firewise website.

About Firewise
The Firewise Communities Program encourages local solutions for wildfire safety by involving homeowners, community leaders, planners, developers, firefighters and others in creating fire-adapted communities – places where people and property are safer from the risk of brush, grass and forest fires. Firewise is a program of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and co-sponsored by the USDA Forest Service, the US Department of the Interior and the National Association of State Foresters.

About the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
NFPA is a worldwide leader in fire, electrical, building, and life safety. The mission of the international nonprofit organization founded in 1896 is to reduce the worldwide burden of fire and other hazards on the quality of life by providing and advocating consensus codes and standards, research, training, and education. Visit NFPA’s website at www.nfpa.org for more information.

SUNNYVALE, CALIF. – The Cloud Advisory Council, an
innovative not-for-profit organization dedicated to develop and
enable the next-generation cloud architecture, today announced the
organization’s formation and directive to provide cloud designers
and IT managers with the tools needed to enable computing in the
cloud, to strengthen the qualification and integration of cloud
solutions and to provide best practices.

The Cloud Advisory Council is an industry collaboration of original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs), strategic technology suppliers,
independent software vendors (ISVs), and end-users across the entire
range of the Cloud market segment. Founding members include: AMAX,
AMD, Atlantic.Net, Check Point Software, Colfax, DDN, Eucalyptus,
Mellanox Technologies, Nanjing Standard Communication, ProfitBricks,
SGI, Sugon, Supermicro, and Xeround.

Through this organization, new cloud architectures will be
researched, defined and specified as a basis for next-generation
cloud infrastructures. The council main objectives are:

Definition of the next generation of cloud architecture
Providing open specification for cloud infrastructures
Publications of best practices for optimizing cloud efficiency
and utilization
Enable ease-of-use with comprehensive cloud management and tools

“The Cloud Advisory Council has been established by industry
leaders to develop a cloud specification and best practices for
building the most efficient cloud infrastructures. This is critical
for vendors as well as for the cloud users,” said Eli Karpilovski,
chairman of the Cloud Advisory Council. “The Cloud Advisory Council
will assist and provide resources for industry and community
organizations to better leverage their infrastructure and improve
productivity and efficiency.”

“AMAX shares the vision of the Cloud Advisory Council and is
dedicated to developing the next generation of cloud architectures in
an effort to strengthen the qualification and integration of cloud
solutions and give cloud architects and IT managers the tools they
need to enable computing in the cloud,” said Jean Shih, President
of AMAX. “Our 30 years of award-winning x86 engineering and
manufacturing expertise, along with our open architecture approach,
affords us maximum flexibility to establish best practices &
reference architectures for designing, building and deploying
high-quality, cost-effective cloud infrastructures.”

“The Cloud Advisory Council represents the best technology vendors
and we are excited to be a part of the future. With our twenty years
of industry experience being a service provider, this forum will
enable us to work closer with leading technology hardware vendors to
define the next generation of cloud, “ said Marty Puranik,
President of Atlantic.Net, Inc. (
http://cts.vresp.com/c/?Atlantic.NetInc/9528ec45b9/49fb288163/fecb669b6d ) “Being a leading cloud hosting provider, we have already
developed one of the fastest cloud platforms on the market. Now,
working with this elite group of hardware vendors will provide
collaborative opportunities to further enhance and strengthen our
massively scalable and industrial grade cloud infrastructure.”

“For over 13 years DDN has been a leader in storage performance,
density and efficiency in the most content intensive storage
environments. That is why we are proud to be a founding member of the
Cloud Advisory Council and join in its mission that so closely aligns
with ours, extending into cloud storage,” said Jeff Denworth, VP of
Marketing for DDN. “Our Web Object Scaler product is the ideal
cloud storage platform designed for today and tomorrow’s web scale
demands and will make a great contribution to the specifications and
best practices for building efficient cloud infrastructure.”

“Mellanox, as a founding member of the Cloud Advisory Council, is
dedicated to develop and collaborate with industry leaders in
developing next generation cloud architectures. Together, we share
the vision of a simplified and a higher efficient cloud
infrastructure that will deliver the best return-on-investment for
cloud providers and users,” said David Barzilai, vice president of
marketing at Mellanox Technologies. “Mellanox’s end-to-end
10/40GbE and FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand cloud interconnect solutions have
been proven to provide the best interconnect technology to enable
cloud deployments of tomorrow.

“ProfitBricks is a second generation Cloud Computing IaaS provider.
Our vision, formed in 2009, of an IaaS 2.0 platform was launched in
2012 and now we look forward to sharing and learning from other
progressive technology providers in the Cloud Advisory Council,”
said Conrad Wood, Deputy CTO, Head of Infrastructure at ProfitBricks.
“Businesses of all sizes are replacing physical data centers with
virtual ones, and it’s key that all of us in the industry deliver
on the promise of performance, flexibility, reliability and data
security in the cloud.”

“SGI is proud to be a founding member of the Cloud Advisory
Council,” said Bill Mannel, VP of Product Marketing, SGI, “We
welcome the opportunity to apply our leadership and expertise in
public cloud solutions to private cloud challenges. SGI has been
powering public and government cloud deployments in traditional and
mobile datacenter environments, leading the market in design-to-order
capabilities, innovative cooling and management software.”

“Xeround is excited to be joining the Cloud Advisory Council and
take an active role in designing the future of database solutions and
data services for the cloud era,” said Razi Sharir, CEO of Xeround.
“Xeround’s unique native cloud database technology, distributed
architecture, and our extensive experience delivering a
zero-management database-as-a-service solution to thousands of cloud
users – all put us at a unique vantage point to lead the way we
transform data management in the cloud.”

The Cloud Advisory Council recognizes also the importance of
establishing metrics for Cloud sustainability and performance. For
this reason, the Cloud Advisory Council will propose the use of a new
metrics, Cloud Center Efficiency (CCE) and Power Consumption
Efficiency (PCE), to address inefficient utilizations associated with
cloud centers. The impact of efficient usage is emerging as extremely
important in the design, location, and operation of current and
future cloud centers.

Become a Member of the Cloud Advisory Council Today:
Help influence the direction of the Cloud by becoming a member of the
Cloud Advisory Council. Membership to the Council is free. More
information can be found on our website:
www.cloudadvisorycouncil.com.

About the Cloud Advisory Council
The Cloud Advisory Council is a not-for-profit organization with the
mission to develop the next generation cloud architecture, to provide
cloud designers and it managers with the tools needed to enable
computing in the cloud, to strengthen the qualification and
integration of cloud solutions and to provide best practices. The
Cloud Advisory Council is led by a broad coalition of industry
practitioners and corporations. For more information, visit
www.cloudadvisorycouncil.com, or follow us on Twitter:
@Cloud_Advisory.

People in Other Gulf Coast States Urged to Prepare for Storm

WASHINGTON, August 26, 2012 —As Tropical Storm Isaac marches north, the American Red Cross opened shelters in Florida today and is prepared for widespread flooding and sheltering a large number of people throughout the state.

“The Red Cross is helping people in Florida who are being affected by the storm, and we urge those throughout the state and the Gulf Coast region who are in Isaac’s projected path to take preparedness steps now,” said Charley Shimanski, senior vice president of disaster services. “The Red Cross is preparing for what could be a large disaster response across multiple states over the next several weeks.”

The Red Cross has deployed more than 1,000 disaster workers throughout Florida and has materials and supplies positioned for use, including pre-stocking 30,000 ready-to-eat meals in Florida and two mobile kitchens sent to the state.

With Isaac’s effects already being felt in parts of the state, people in Florida should stay informed on the storm’s progress from the National Weather Service. As the storm approaches, people should be prepared to evacuate if directed to do so by authorities.

As of noon, the Red Cross has nearly 20 shelters already open in Florida and is poised to open more as necessary. If someone needs to find a Red Cross shelter, they can download the Red Cross Hurricane app, visit redcross.org, call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767), or check their local television, radio and newspaper.

It’s also important to stay in touch with family and friends, and the Red Cross Safe and Well website is a secure and easy-to-use online tool that helps families connect during emergencies. To register, visit www.redcross.org or call 1-800-RED-CROSS (1-800-733-2767). This site also connects with the Twitter and Facebook accounts of users.

Meanwhile, the Red Cross also is mobilizing disaster workers, emergency vehicles, mobile kitchens and relief supplies to Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi as Isaac is expected to move into that area in the next few days. The Red Cross is urging residents in areas that could be affected by the storm to be preparing now.

Isaac is expected to cause serious flooding throughout the region, and people can donate by visiting www.redcross.org, calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or texting the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

About the American Red Cross:
The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies more than 40 percent of the nation’s blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org or join our blog at blog.redcross.org.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), through its Caribbean Area Office in Puerto Rico, is closely monitoring Tropical Storm Isaac and is in close coordination with emergency management officials in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The National Weather Service has issued a hurricane watch and tropical storm warning for both Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.  FEMA and its federal partners urge residents of the commonwealth and territory to closely monitor the storm and to follow the direction of local officials as potential severe weather approaches.

 

In advance of the storm, FEMA proactively deployed Incident Management Assistance Teams to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to coordinate with commonwealth/territory and local officials, should additional support be requested, or needed. Additionally, FEMA has liaisons in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands emergency operations centers, to further strengthen coordination. These assets supplement federal resources and personnel that are staged, year-round, at FEMA's Caribbean Area Office and Caribbean Area Distribution Center located in Puerto Rico.  Other teams have been identified and will be mobilized as needed and requested.

 

"FEMA, along with the entire federal family, is closely monitoring Tropical Storm Isaac and coordinating with our commonwealth and territorial partners that could potentially be affected by this storm.  We strongly encourage residents to listen to the instructions of their local officials," said FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate. "For residents in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands who may be affected by this storm as early as Thursday, in some areas, it's critical that you take this storm seriously and take steps now to prepare your families, homes and businesses. Visit Ready.gov or Listo.gov to learn how."

FEMA encourages everyone, regardless of whether they live in a hurricane-prone area, to take steps to ensure their family, homes and businesses are prepared for a possible emergency.  Important items to have ready in case of an emergency include a battery-powered radio (like a NOAA Weather Radio), flashlight, extra batteries, medicines, non-perishable food, hand-operated can opener, utility knife and first aid supplies. Important documents, such as medical records, contracts, property deeds, leases, banking records, insurance records and birth certificates should be copied and kept in a safe place.

 

As is always the case, local officials make decisions on issuing evacuation orders, so FEMA advises residents to remember to listen to the direction of their local officials, and to learn where evacuation routes and sheltering locations are located, in case evacuation orders are given.

 

At this time, it is still too early to know whether the storm could pose an immediate threat to the U.S. Coast.  History shows that storm tracks can change quickly and unexpectedly, so FEMA encourages coastal residents to monitor weather conditions, follow the direction of local officials, and visit Ready.gov to learn about a few simple steps they can take now to be prepared.

 

FEMA's mission is to support our citizens and first responders to ensure that as a nation we work together to build, sustain, and improve our capability to prepare for, protect against, respond to, recover from, and mitigate all hazards.