Carbonite Opens Data Center in China

Online backup provider Carbonite Inc. has opened a data center in Beijing to establish a foothold in the Chinese market, the company said this morning. The company said the facility will eventually support “millions of users.”

“China presents a very big opportunity in online backup,” said David Friend, co-founder and CEO of Carbonite. “But it’s also a market that requires a substantial commitment of resources to be successful. To succeed in this market, we felt it was essential to have a physical presence in China, so we picked Beijing as the site for our first China data center. Having a data center in China allows us to be closer to our Chinese partners, and it allows Carbonite to provide far superior backup performance for everyone in the country.”

Indian IT Hub Bangalore Hit By Bombings

The Indian IT hub Bangalore has been hit by a series of seven bombings this morning, which have killed one person and injured others. Bangalore is the capital of India’s outsourcing industry and home to more than 1,500 top firms, including Infosys Technologies and Wipro. Many U.S. tech firms also have significant operations there, including Intel, Microsoft and HP.

Om Malik at GigaOm reflects on the implications of the Bangalore bombings for the IT industry:

Despite the breakneck growth, the city in Southern India was viewed as a laid back and progressive place, devoid of the terrorist activity that had pockmarked India’s major destinations such as Delhi and Bombay. Today all that changed. … It’s not clear who might be behind these terrorist attacks, but one thing is clear, this is going to have an impact on Silicon Valley and U.S. companies. Bangalore has become integral to Silicon Valley’s life, as indicated by the packed flights that go directly into the city.

Will the bombings have a chilling effect on Bangalore’s IT industry? It’s too early to say how these events will resonate in the data center industry, where risk reduction plays a large role in the selection of sites and providers.

Prior to the bombings, the leading concern in Bangalore had been a shortage of diesel fuel. Many data centers in Bangalore rely upon diesel generators as their primary power because of the unreliability of local power supplies. HP’s new data center in Bangalore is supported by generators.

Rumor Patrol: Huge Chinese Cloud Data Center?

Reuven Cohen, the CTO of cloud platform provider Enomaly, discusses several interesting rumors on his ElasticVapor blog (link via John Rath). Reuven cites “multiple credible sources” on these, but notes that they’re still rumors, to take with the usual grain of salt. This one is new:

I also got wind of a Chinese cloud project rumored to be currently in development “under a hydro dam” which when complete may exceed one million servers.

This sounds like a different project than the new data center in Guangzhou we wrote about in May.

Reuven also mentions Microsoft’s developer-focused cloud computing project code-named Red Dog. LiveSide unearthed some information about Red Dog back in April, based on a job listing which described the platform and mentioned a first version for external customers “in the coming year.” While this sounds like it’s still some way off, Cohen notes that “a Microsoft cloud could pose a serious threat for any companies looking to build their own Windows-based cloud offerings.”

Digital Beijing: The Olympic Data Center

Digital Beijing, the data center for the 2008 Olympics, is one of the most interesting pieces of data center architecture you’re ever likely to see. The enormous building spans 1.05 million square feet (98,000 square meters) and has been designed to resemble a huge integrated circuit board when viewed from the side, and a bar code when viewed from either end. The design was the result of an international competition won by Chinese architects Studio Pei-zhu. Plans call for the building to be lit in a spectacular fashion during the Games in August (see the image above, an artist’s rendition from Studio Pei-zhu), and seems likely to become a familiar image during TV coverage of the Games, which begin on August 8.

The building is 11 stories high, towering 187 feet above Olympic Park. Here’s an actual picture of the building’s exterior:

Digital Beijing will provide communication, information security and IT services during the Olympic Games, and then be used by the Beijing municipal government’s data storage and emergency-response command.

The facility has a rainwater collection system and uses LED lighting that can reduce energy use for lighting by 60 percent. Here’s more on the concept for the facility’s design, from the architect:

The concept for Digital Beijing was developed through reconsideration and reflection on the role of contemporary architecture in the information era. Resembling that omnipresent symbol, the bar code, the building emerges from a serene water surface. The fa

Read More »

Large Data Center Opens in China

A large new data center is open for business in a technology park near Guangzhou, China. China Telecom and Guangzhou Tianhe Software Park have jointly developed Asia-Pacific Information Engine, which opened for business on May 17.

Asia-Pacific Information Engine covers a total area of 16,000 square meters (about 172,000 square feet) and involves an investment of up to $58 million, according to China Tech News. The facility has space for more than 30,000 client host computers and provides 320GB of bandwidth.

Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong Province in the southern part of China, and was once known as Canton. The city has a population of 6 million.

Salesforce.com Plans Singapore Data Center

Salesforce.com (CRM) is building its first international data center in Singapore, the company said today. The data center, which is expected to go live before the end of year, will service the rapidly growing international customer base for Salesforce.com, a leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications and hosting.

Salesforce.com also announced plans to establish a Network Operations Center (NOC) in Singapore to implement 24×7, follow-the-sun monitoring of the company’s data centers in North America and Singapore. To support this, it is investing in additional facilities and headcount at its Asia Pacific headquarters.

“The decision to build our first data center outside of the U.S. is clear evidence that companies globally are abandoning the failed client-server software model and are looking for a new model that allows them to focus on innovation as opposed to infrastructure,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, Salesforce.com.

China Earthquake Hits High-Tech Region

This morning’s major earthquake in China, which registered 7.8 on the Richter scale, affected an area known for high-tech development. The epicenter was about 55 miles northwest of Chengdu, where the Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone is home to facilities for IBM, Symantec and Microsoft. News.com updates the status of a large Intel facility:

On Monday, Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said none of its employees in Chengdu were injured, nor was its facility damaged. The chip giant immediately evacuated its roughly 2,000 workers from the plant when the earthquake struck, Mulloy said. The plant has no power or water and is currently running on back-up power. Intel hopes to have the test-and-assembly center running again by Wednesday. “We are geographically diverse, so there is no near-term impact to the business,” Mulloy said.

The damage is clearly worse elsewhere, with the death toll at 7,600 and climbing. The other tech angle being discussed is the use of Twitter to aggregate early accounts of the earthquake. The microblogging service has been touted by many, including the Department of Homeland Security, as a useful communication tool in disasters.

$55M in Data Centers Planned for Vietnam

Here’s an indicator that Internet infrastructure is spreading everywhere there are web surfers. While much of the Asia-Pacific rim is well wired with data centers, Vietnam has been the exception, as many of the country’s web sites are hosted in the U.S. or Australia.

But not for much longer. Vietnamese technology company Quang Trung Software City (QTSC) and a U.S. company called DOT Vietnam have announced plans to build a $10 million data center in Ho Chi Minh City. The partners say they will invest an additional $45 million in building two additional data centers in other Vietnam cities by 2010.

Mongolia Wants Data Centers

The global demand for data centers is prompting construction in places well beyond the “usual suspects” for international Internet growth. The Mongolian government is building a data center in Ulaanbaatur to house the government’s IT systems and Internet infrastructure. KT Corporation, a leading South Korean internet provider, has been hired to build the new government facility.

“The project will help the two countries to improve technology co-operation and accelerate South Korean companies’ foray into the Central Asian country,” a KT official told the Yonhap news agency.

The Mongolia project follows the news that Microsoft is considering building a data center in Siberia. The demand for data centers in the Asia-Pacific market clearly has grown well beyond the major Internet markets like Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney.

Sun Partners in $400M Data Center in Japan

Sun Microsystems (JAVA) is part of an 11-company joint venture building an underground data center in Japan that will use groundwater for cooling and consume 50 percent less power than traditional facilities, according to a report from The Nikkei. The data center, which will be built 100 meters underground in a former mine, will cost about $409 million (45 billion yen).

The facility in central Japan’s Chubu region will be the country’s first underground data center. The first phase of development will feature enough space for 10,000 servers, with the opportunity to expand to hold 30,000 servers. Other firms involved in the project include a major Internet service provider, Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ), U.S. consulting firm BearingPoint Inc. (BE), and Japanese IT firms Itochu Techno-Solutions Corp. and NS Solutions Corp.