Where Apple’s ‘Secret Cloud’ Will Live

TechCrunch has a post this morning from digital music veteran Michael Robertson on Apple’s “Secret Cloud Strategy” and the importance of the software technology that it acquired from Lala.  “An upcoming major revision of iTunes will copy each user’s catalog to the net making it available from any browser or net connected ipod/touch/tablet,” Robertson writes, adding that more than 100 million iTunes users will be able to upload their catalogs to the net with a simple “An upgrade is available…” notification dialog box.

Software is dandy. But as we’ve previously noted, that kind of storage requires a ginormous data center – which Apple is already busy building in Maiden, North Carolina. For those just joining this story, here’s a summary of our reporting on Apple’s move into the clouds.

• Is an iTunes “Reboot” Driving the iDataCenter Project?
• The iDataCenter and the Cloud
• Maiden iDataCenter Will be 500,000 Square Feet
• It’s Official: Apple Data Center to North Carolina
• The Apple-Google Data Center Corridor
• Apple iDataCenter set for Maiden
• Apple Moving Quickly on NC Project

Will Apple have anything to say about its cloud computing ambitions in its hotly-anticipated product announcement Jan. 27 in San Francisco? Who knows. Speculation is already out of control, with most of the focus on the expected rollout of a tablet computer. But Apple’s plans for its huge new data center won’t remain secret forever.

Cloud background from SoraZG via Flickr.

Is iTunes ‘Reboot’ Driving iDataCenter Project?

What would it mean if Apple wanted to take all the songs in all the iTunes libraries sitting on all the hard drives of its users and host them in the cloud? It would probably require Apple to build an enormous data center to house the operation. There are widespread reports that Apple is contemplating such a shift.

As it happens, Apple is also building a major new data center in Maiden, North Carolina that will span 500,000 square feet. The enormity of the new facility - which will be nearly five times the size of the company’s 109,000 square foot Newark, Calif. data center – has raised questions about Apple’s ambitions. Why would it need all that data center space?

A Shift to the Cloud?
I discussed this question in an August interview with Leander Kahney at the Cult of Mac blog. A recap: The most interesting question is whether Apple needs a much larger facility to support growth in its existing services, or is scaling up capacity for future offerings.  One of the leading theories about the size of the NC project is that Apple is planning future cloud computing services that will require lots of data center storage.

This fits neatly with Apple’s purchase last week of the streaming music service LaLa. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple is planning to “reboot” its iTunes service as a browser-based service that would allow users to stream their music from anywhere.

Roundup: Force 10 Networks, Avocent, Facebook

Here’s a roundup of news announcements from the data center and hosting industry:

• Force 10 demonstrates at Interop. Force 10 Networks partnered with AFORE Solutions and Sun Microsystems at INTEROP in New York last week to demonstrate data center virutalization products and cloud computing initiatives focused on driving greater network agility. The 3 vendors demonstrated virtualized resource allocation for cloud-oriented applications as well as the AFORE ASE3300 Virutalization Extension Platform.  The ASE3300 and Force 10 switch and router solutions combine to enable a multi-site, virtual data center enabling migration to cloud computing environments.
• Avocent upgrades data center management software. Announced at Interop last week, Avocent is upgrading its MergePoint Infrastructure Explorer to include several new management capabilities.  The company said these enhancements will provide a unique view into capacity planning, bringing additional return on investment and total cost of ownership benefits.  Avocent CTO Ben Grimes said that the software will allow “customers to know where their assets are, as well as plan for different ‘what if’ scenarios, and manage their data centers to reduce risk -  all while bringing improved ROI and total cost of ownership benefits to customers.”  New features include rack timeline and an enhanced change management and capacity search capabilities.

Company X Plans Oregon Data Center

The city of Prineville, Oregon is negotiating with a large, secretive company that wants to build a data center in its enterprise zone.

A “well-funded, well-known company” is negotiating to build a large data center in central Oregon, and the secrecy surrounding the negotiations has folks in the town of Prineville wondering who it might be. Officials in Prineville have been negotiating with Vitesse LLC, a company performing site selection for the unnamed end user that would build operate the data center, according to local media reports.

The site is several hours from an existing Google data center in The Dalles and a Boardman site where Amazon is said to be resuming construction on a major data center project. Like those projects, the process in Prineville has been cloaked in secrecy.

Google-Style Secrecy
“The only thing I could tell you is this is not unlike what the city of The Dalles went through when Google sited their data center in their community,” Prineville City Manager Steve Forester told the Bend Bulletin. “A very similar process. They had a code name for an LLC that did their preliminary work with the city and the county, and it turned out to be Google. And up in Moses Lake, Washington — where they have several of these things — same pattern.” Local economic development officials told the paper that a non-disclosure agreement prevents them from discussing the project.

Hosted Solutions Goes Hybrid, Links Clouds

Managed hosting provider Hosted Solutions today expanded its Stratus Trusted Cloud offering, adding a hybrid option for companies that want to blend public and private cloud offerings. Stratus was introduced earlier this year, and can be used as either a multi-tenant infrastructure platform and a private/dedicated cloud.

The Stratus hybrid cloud option allows customers to cross-connect their existing back-end resources such as databases and other supporting applications to the Stratus Trusted Cloud, where they can host front-end computing power and other resources like network, firewall, load balancing and web servers. Customers can also cross connect Stratus cloud computing resources directly into their environment to handle overflow situations such as seasonal spikes that require excess compute capacity.

Roundup: CSC, SOASTA, Cisco, Gartner

Here’s a roundup of news announcements from the data center and hosting industry:

• CSC and SOASTA announce integration. Cloud testing company SOASTA and IT Services company CSC announced Tuesday that SOASTA CloudTest will be integrated into CSC’s Trusted Cloud Services and testing and development methodology.  The SOASTA CloudTest solution provides load and performance testing solutions for web applications and services.  The CSC Trusted Cloud Services offering delivers ‘Testing as a Service’ (TaaS).  “It has been cost-prohibitive to simulate real world traffic using traditional testing methods,” said Gartner VP Ben Pring. “With cloud-based testing, enterprises of all sizes can now affordably test to identify performance issues and validate website reliability.”  SOASTA will be at the SYS-CON Cloud Computing Conference and Expo in Santa Clara November 2-4.
• Cisco introduces borderless networks architecture. On Tuesday Cisco announced the second generation of its Integrated Services Router (ISR) and a five phase plan to help deliver services and applications seamlessly, reliably and securely.  The ISR G2 combines routing, switching, wireless and security technologies into a tightly integrated networking infrastructure and offers as much as five times the performance of the previous generation.  The Cisco ISR router has sold more than 7 million units since its introduction in 2004.  The ISR G2 is a full portfolio of routers including 3900, 2900, and 1900 series.  Cisco is also introducing a new platform for its Aggregation Services Router via the ASR 1002-F.  Cisco held a Borderless Networks Experience event Tuesday to showcase new innovations for video, service delivery business growth, and more.
• Gartner’s top 10 strategic technologies for 2010. Gartner, Inc. analysts identified the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic in 2010.  A strategic technology is defined as “one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years.”  2010 technologies include cloud computing, advanced analytics, client computing, IT for Green, Reshaping the Data Center, social computing, security – activity monitoring, flash memory, virtualization for availability and mobile applications.  In reshaping the data center Gartner notes that “costs are actually lower if enterprises adopt a pod-based approach to data center construction and expansion”.

Roundup: Cisco, SGI, Eaton, Colo5

Here’s a roundup of  news announcements from the data center and hosting industry:

• Cisco Acquires Starent Networks. The Cisco acquisition spree picks up steam as Tuesday a definitive agreement was made for Cisco to acquire Starent Networks, a IP-based mobile infrastructure solutions provider. According to Cisco’s own Visual Networking Index the Mobile Internet market is expected to more than double every year through 2013.  Under the terms of the agreement Cisco will pay $35 per share in cash in exchange for each share of Starent.  They will also assume outstanding equity awards for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $2.9 billion.  The aquisition is expected to close during the first half of 2010.  The Starent solutions enable Service Providers to scale their mobile infrastructure and provide the multimedia intelligence, core network functions and services to manage access from any 2.5G, 3G and 4G radio network to a mobile operator’s packet core network.
• SGI Announces InfiniteStorage Total Control Suite. On Wednesday SGI introduced InfiniteStorage NAS and LiveSAN, new storage offerings within the SGI InfiniteStorage Total Control Suite.  The suite includes solutions ranging from block-level virtualization, global namespace solutions, Data Migration Facility (DMF) for tier virtualization, and a digital asset management framework.  These components are available individually or as a part of an integrated, scalable solution set.  Jose Reinoso, vice president for storage products said “With increasing storage demands, data center managers are looking for storage solutions that enable them to tailor their data environment to the specific needs of their users without being locked into expensive, on-size-fits-all scenarios.”

Roundup: Savvis, NaviSite, Emerson

Here’s a roundup of more news announcements from the data center and hosting industry:

• Savvis Selects Compellent for Virtualized Storage. On Tuesday Savvis announced that they have selected Compellent Technologies to provide the virtualized storage platform for their cloud infrastructure platform, Project Spirit.  The project was established to power the company’s enterprise-class Virtual Private Data Center with multi-tiered Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities.  “As a key component of Savvis’ Project Spirit, Compellent will help us drive down the cost of lifecycle storage while preserving application performance for our customers’ mission-critical applications.” said Savvis CTO Bryan Doerr said. The Compellent storage platform allows Savvis to apply Project Spirit’s multiple grades of service and apply the concept to storage functions by offering customers choices of performance, cost and data protection.
• NaviSite Announces NaviCloud. Navisite announced its next-generation cloud computing platform Tuesday called NaviCloud.  NaviCloud is based on VMware vSphere 4 and vCloud, and the Cisco Unified Computing System.  The NaviCloud offering is targeted at enterprise IT-hosting and application service needs.  NaviCloud’s virtualized infrastructure is deployed in NaviSite’s U.S. and U.K. data centers and allows customers to buy compute, memory and storage from the underlying resource pool and configure them in for use in either self-managed or fully-managed modes.

Twitter is Frozen, and Then Thaws

What if the real-time Internet gets stuck? That seems to be what happened for several hours today with Twitter, as a large number of users reported that their timelines were not updating. The problems appeared to clear up around 3 pm Eastern time, when updates returned to a more normal pattern.       

Twitter acknowledged the unusual problems. ”Timelines remain stale for users,” the service reported on its status page. “We are deploying fixes to address the problem.” During the episode, users were able to tweet, and some of those messages appeared on Twitter search and third-party services like FriendFeed, according to TechCrunch.

Who cares if a few million Tweets get stuck in the space/time continuum? As we’ve previously noted, Twitter has become an important secondary support channel for many hosting and data center providers. As such, the service’s continued reliability problems have business implications.