/* A business continuity,disaster recovery,disk storage,disk recovery consultant!So boring?: February 2007*/ A business continuity,disaster recovery,disk storage,disk recovery consultant!So boring?: February 2007

Monday, February 26, 2007

Data centers electricity consumption-Amazing facts

Data centers electricity consumption-Amazing facts from AMD


AMD has released some amazing data center facts- servers,data center infrastructure and cooling infrastructure consumed around 1.2% of the electricity consumption of the entire US market


Alternatives to lowering electricity consumption in data centers


Data centers need to seriously look at data center options such as server consolidation and virtualization, in the aim to use data center server CPU as a service


  • Data center server consolidation:In a survey of data centers across the US, I can state with confidence that 80% of servers are operating at below 20% capacity. Data center server consolidation will not only save money for data centers in server cost but also help in reducing precious energy resources such as electricity consumption

  • Data storage server virtualization:Data storage server virtualization assists data centers in optimally switching between blade servers to create a true CPU and data storage as a service data center. This server virtualization will also mean that optimal electricity consumption is taking place in the data center


Full AMD data center electricity consumption findings

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Google publishes hard drive expose!

Hard drive expose by Google-A hard drive white paper study from Google


Google has published a document on hard drive failure rates based on the study of hard drives at Google's data centers


Google's hard drive study makes for very interesting reading-and cannot be taken lightly since the sample size of Google's data centers is very huge


Google's hard drive collapse surprise finding 1:Hard drive failure not correlated highly with temperature


Google's hard drive failure study finds that there is no one on one correlation of temperatures with hard drive failure


Per Google's hard drive research,new hard drives prefer higher temperatures and older hard drives prefer lower temperatures and are susceptible to reverse temperatures


Google's hard drive research is in short suggesting that we shouldn't assume that all drives are equally susceptible to manufacturers


Google uses cheap and a variety hard drives from various manufacturers


Google operates one of the largest data centers in the world, and amazingly uses cheap hard drives with a combination of serial and parallel hard disk drives, with speeds from 5400 to 7200 rpm.


Incredible, that Google's large data centers uses hard drives that may be obsolete elsewhere


Google's hard drive research suggests that SMART hard drive parameters are not the only symptoms that aid in preventing hard drive failures


Firstly,Google extensive use of SMART hard drives (self-monitoring drives) is interesting


Further,Google's conclusion about SMART hard drives is a signal to SMART drive manufacturers that the data monitored is not good enough


Google's hard drive research summary


Get rid of hard drives after the

  • Hard drive first scan error

  • First hard drive sector reallocation error

  • The first hard drive probational count error

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Disaster recovery-Should disaster recovery centers be local or geographically dispersed?

Should disaster recovery center be local or geographically dispersed


Disaster recovery centers are typically near shore-close to the geographic region where the core operations data centers are located.

Is this near-shore disaster recovery location a good idea?


Disaster recovery centers at near shore locations to data centers have the disadvantage of being used for actual data center operations as a supplementary data center site


The typical data center scenario: More and more normal operations data center stuff gets pushed to the disaster recovery data center and as a result, the disaster recovery data center begins to resemble a supplementary data center

Disaster recovery disaster-This supplementary data center scenario defeats the very purpose of having a separate disaster recovery data center

Monday, February 12, 2007

Funny disaster recovery job posting

Funny disaster recovery,IS security job posting


An unintentionally funny disaster recovery , IS security job posting,I came across today


Great job for Manager,Disaster recovery,IS security.Great compensation.Bonuses based on number of disaster recovery systems handled through the year


Organizations reward "creating" IT disaster recovery situations


As you can see on the disaster recovery job posting above,organizations reward people for "creating" IT disaster situations and handling the disaster recovery operations as a result


Wonder why there are no IT disasters and disaster recovery situations on Fridays?


There are no IT disaster recovery situations on Fridays :-)


All IT disaster recovery situations tend to occur on Mondays/Tuesdays so that the disaster recovery can be completed by the end of the week. IT Security and disater recovery managers can then "claim credit" for resolving the IT disasters before the weekend and of course celebrate with a blast


No business continuity,disaster recovery situations in December


Do you wonder why there are no IT disaster recovery situations in December and all the IT disasters converge in the second week of January? Well, its after all a question of priorities,would you rather spend time with your family or save the organization millions of dollars due to IT disater recovery,business continuity situations?


From a cynical business continuity, disaster recovery consultant

Monday, February 05, 2007

Spam Thru botnet threaten data centers

A recent article,titledSpam thru Botnet- Biggest threat to cyberspace security talks about the threat to data centers due to the Spam Thru botnets


Botnets are now universally recognized as the biggest security threats to data centers. What is intriguing about the Spam Thru botnet is apparently Spam Thru botnet's own antivirus system. The Spam Thru botnet's antivirus system ensures that Spam Thru remains the dominant botnet on the compromised computer and is not susceptible to other botnet attacks


This Spam Thru botnet story is quite incredible and as fascinating as science fiction


Tackling botnets such as the Spam Thru botnets-Where are the antivirus and antispyware vendors?


Its rather sad that the antivirus and antispyware vendors dominating the market are incapable of detecting and destroying botnets such as the Spam Thru botnet which mock the commercial antivirus vendors by having their own antivirus systems


Data centers are now really vulnerable to cyberspace security issues due to botnets such as the Spam Thru botnet


The only people who will rejoice with the new botnet based internet vulnerabilities are the internet security consultants who will make a fortune 'advising' companies on dealing with botnets such as Spam Thru