Speak with a Data Center Expert

Cloud computing has absolutely changed the landscape of the modern business. Data center and cloud partners help organizations compete more efficiently, deliver rich experiences, and enable the ever-digital end-user. When selecting the right cloud partner, managers and IT administrators must know who will be accessing their environment, in what quantities, and when there may be spikes. This holds true for any cloud-based deployment.

Let’s discuss the right and wrong approach to some different cloud use cases and provide deployment strategies to keep in mind when you are planning your next steps into the cloud.

CLOUD USE CASES | WEBSITES, E-COMMERCE, PORTALS & DATA SERVICES

A very common way to partner with a cloud provider is to create some type of online presence, and when it comes to cloud, retail, and online shopping, speed is everything. Amazon found that every 100ms of latency cost them 1% in sales. And, to put that into further perspective, Amazon calculated that a page load slowdown of just one second could cost $1.6 billion in sales each year. Google has calculated that by slowing its search results by just four tenths of a second, they could lose 8 million searches per day–meaning they’d serve up many millions fewer online adverts.

Although every business is different, you don’t have to be the size of Amazon or Google to feel the real-world impacts of latency and network slowness. During the planning stages, ensure that the partner has the right type of components to support your organization’s needs.

QUICK CHECK LIST:

• Underlying hardware and software
• Solid support
• International domain support (as needed)
• Backup and redundancy
• Compliance and regulation needs
• Growth capability
• Support for latency-sensitive applications
• Edge and caching capabilities
• Network and carrier options

CLOUD USE CASES | APPLICATION & DEVELOPMENT (DEVOPS) HOSTING

Another common way to use a cloud and data center partner is to deliver applications either through a portal or directly through a website. In these cases, ensure that the provider is able to support this type of infrastructure. Application delivery isn’t always as easy as just building a website. There are several serious considerations that must be understood prior to any application deployment in a cloud environment. Furthermore, if you’re planning on creating a development platform in the cloud, there are a few other considerations you need to understand. A big one with DevOps in the cloud will revolve around your partner’s capabilities to support advanced use cases. Can they provide a hyperscale ecosystem to support DevOps data requirements? What about hosting things like containers and microservices? Although the following list isn’t all-encompassing, it does outline some of the more important elements in selecting the right partner.

QUICK CHECKLIST:

• Application delivery security
• User load on the application servers
• User load-balancing
• International application access
• Latency and Wide Area Network requirements
• Database capabilities
• DevOps platform support
• Integration and API capabilities
• Multi-cloud access

CLOUD USE CASES | VIRTUAL MACHINE (VM) DELIVERY

This has become a growing trend among many organizations looking to streamline their virtual machine and desktop delivery process. Aside from just hosting websites, some providers will also allow customers to host VMs or desktops for use and access. Although not available with every cloud provider, many will offer the right type of infrastructure to support VM and desktop delivery processes. Remember, in most cases, you are given the hardware and are expected to build out this infrastructure internally. Some providers will offer professional services to help with the process. Take note, poor planning around desktop or VM delivery can result in a bad end-user experience. There are several considerations in selecting the right type of partner for this specific type of deploying. In working with cloud-based desktops and VMs, remember the following:

QUICK CHECKLIST:

• Resource utilization
• User access loads
• Latency between the user and the cloud provider
• VM and desktop load-balancing
• Expansion capabilities
• Desktop, VM and application compatibility
• Hybrid and multi-cloud access
• Multi-tenancy capabilities

WHEN IS CLOUD THE WRONG APPROACH?

The vast nature of the cloud can also be a drawback. Aside from the standard public, private, and hybrid cloud options – there are even more micro-cloud and specific cloud services to choose from. That said, it really is important to note that cloud is not just one option. Rather, it’s a part of a bigger design picture. So, when is cloud the wrong approach?

• Latency-sensitivity. If you’re working with an application or service that’s very latency sensitive, working with a public cloud provider may not be the way to go. Or, if anything, it’ll turn out to be very expensive. A major challenge for larger cloud providers is being able to deliver data close to the source.
• Data control and sovereignty. In some cases, data locality is critical. And, in those situations you may need to work with a data center partner that can keep data safe within a very specific location. Yes, major cloud providers have regions, but they can’t always isolate data points down to a city or even state. Data center partners can help geo-fence information while still helping other parts of the business scale into the cloud.
• Cost vs Benefit for specific workloads and applications. Some applications are just more expensive to run in the cloud. Or, some data warehousing services don’t make sense with a given cloud provider. The point is that with application and data requirements, you need to take into consideration what it’ll cost to run these resources in the cloud. Oftentimes a split, or hybrid, approach will give you the best of both worlds.
• Vastly distributed systems and data points. This is basically talking about the edge. Large cloud providers are great at hosting applications, large sets of users, and even complex systems. However, they’re not always great at data or service proximity. If you’re trying to reduce latency, focus on content caching, or are doing things like data analytics for IoT, a large cloud instance may not perform well. Instead, focus on good data center and edge partnerships that’ll allow you to process data closer to the source and faster than your competition.

FINAL THOUGHTS
Remember when selecting the right partner for your organization, you must know the capabilities of the underlying provider infrastructure. This means that just because they offer a certain technology or tool does not mean they are always capable of handling the needs of the customer. The selection process must take into consideration current and future trends for any organization since growth and expansion are expected outcomes of a growing business. The right partner will be able to scale as your business needs evolve. That said, know that you have options in how you deploy your cloud architecture. This is a big reason why so many are looking more closely at multi-cloud and hybrid designs. Where cloud can’t handle everything, your data center partner can help offload the rest.

The post Cloud Deployment Strategies, The Right and Wrong Approach appeared first on Switch.

The post Protected: The Hyperscale Cloud: Industry Benefits and Real-World Use Cases appeared first on Switch.

Speak with a Data Center Expert

The new ‘oil’ of our generation is data. This data isn’t benign, it’s extremely valuable, and it’s also a big target. However, to support growing data, application, and digital requirements, leaders in the tech and business space are turning to cloud for improved scalability, performance and user experience. Today, organizations are deploying more cloud platforms to support an ever-growing distributed user-base.

DDoS ATTACKS

Let’s start here – Over the past few years, there have been more DDoS attacks against more IT infrastructures all over the world. These attacks have evolved from simple, volumetric attacks to something much more sophisticated. Basically, these attacks are downright vicious against our networks.

Now, attackers are using application-layer and HTTP attacks against certain targets within an organization. Consider this, DDoS attacks are larger than ever before. Arbor Networks 13th annual Worldwide Infrastructure Security Report illustrates this point very clearly:

• The largest attack reported by a service provider was 600 Gbps. Ten years ago, the largest attack was 8 Gbps.
• Complex, multi-vector attacks are experienced by 59 percent of service providers.
• Demand for managed DDoS mitigation services is strong across the board. The top five verticals requesting managed services are financial, government, cloud/hosting, e-commerce and education.

Remember, service providers aren’t the only target. Even though Arbor reported that the largest attack against a service provider was 600 Gbps; some enterprises aren’t as lucky when they become direct targets. Just about a year ago, in 2018, 1.35 terabits per second of traffic hit the developer platform GitHub. All at once. This was the most powerful distributed denial of service attack ever recorded to date.

It’s important to point out that it’s not just DDoS. Although you should be working with a partner that can mitigate a DDoS attack, cloud security goes beyond link saturation and denial of services. You also need to worry about the physical aspect of securing your cloud and ensuring data security.

SAFELY SECURING YOUR CRITICAL APPLICATIONS

CLOUD & VM-LEVEL SECURITY

CLOUD MEANS MULTI-TENANCY, SERVICES, USER EXPERIENCES & MANAGEMENT

ENFORCING COMPLIANCE & SECURITY FOR YOUR CLOUD

NEVER FORGET THE PHYSICAL ASPECT OF CLOUD SECURITY

Again, threats against cloud and data center operators are only getting more advanced, persistent, and targeted. In the latest AFCOM State of the Data Center report we saw the top 5 infrastructure threats facing today’s data center. This includes:

• Ransomware: 56%
• Outside threats (human): 48%
• Advanced Persistent Threats (Theft of IT and/or company data): 44%
• Inside threats (human): 42%
• Loss of PII (personally identifiable information): 40%

When it comes to deploying a cloud, your strategy really does need to be holistic. That is, be sure to look at all security design aspects as you architect your own cloud model. This may even mean hiring a security team to do things like pen and vulnerability testing.

Cloud security doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, a good partner will actually help guide the design to simplify management while still helping the organization grow. Security solutions can now be deeply integrated into the visualization, cloud, and even physical layers. All of this translates to better user experiences, simplified and centralized management, and greater capabilities to respond proactively to evolving threats.

Ultimately, a good design also gets you user and customer confidence. Remember, mitigating risk not only helps with brand image and your stance in the market, it will absolutely help your organization leverage more cloud options in a digitally-connected world.

The post CLOUD SECURITY: Securing Your Data in a Digital Age appeared first on Switch.

Switch SOLAR GENERATION IN NEVADA

Nevada, with access to the nation’s best solar window generates new renewables in the state to power Switch’s 100% renewably powered data centers. Switch’s issued and pending patent innovations in design, power, cooling and density results in significant efficiencies and outstanding annual PUE ratings.

In 2016, Switch began construction of two solar power stations in Las Vegas, Nevada with a combined 179MW of capacity. These facilities have the ability to:

• Power Switch’s Nevada data centers with 100% renewable energy
• Remove the equivalent of 50,000 cars off the road
• Eliminate 265,000 carbon tons of emission from the environment

Leading Power and Cooling Efficiency
Switch’s power and cooling technologies allow us to provide a density of up to 55kW per cabinet and achieve annual PUE ratings of 1.28 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and an estimated 1.20 in Reno, Nevada.

Switch’s efforts have been recognized by Greenpeace in their 2017 Clicking Clean Report where Switch scored all A grades, the highest rating for any class of company – and was identified as the definitive leader among colocation operators.

“The leaders—Apple, Google, Facebook, and now Switch—have shown a commitment and ability to remain focused on longer term plays to open monopoly markets to renewables.”
– Greenpeace | The Clicking Clean Report

The post Green with NV® – Sustainable Data Center Designs appeared first on Switch.

Switch was able to retire over 835 geothermal and solar renewable energy credits in 2016, and expects to retire over 850 in 2017, on behalf of Wynn Las Vegas. Independently tracked and verified, each renewable energy credit is proof that one megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity was generated from an eligible renewable energy resource and delivered to the energy grid.

“Switch shares the same commitment to protecting our planet’s resources, and provides us with smart and eco-friendly energy solutions as the resort continues to grow,” said Erik Hansen, Director of Energy Procurement for Wynn Las Vegas. “Working with the world’s highest-rated and greenest data center allows us to responsibly scale our IT framework while ensuring that no harm is being done to the environment.”

“We are pleased that Switch’s commitment to clean energy aligns with our important clients like Wynn Las Vegas,” said Adam Kramer, Switch EVP of Strategy.  “Having their data running in our data centers helps Wynn achieve its own sustainability goals.”

The news comes on the heels of Wynn’s latest major advancements in clean energy use, including the installation of 103,000 square feet of solar panels on its rooftop, and the debut of the Wynn Solar Facility, a new 160-acre solar complex located in Fallon, Nevada.

Dedicated solely to Wynn Las Vegas, the Wynn Solar Facility offsets up to 75 percent of the resort’s peak power requirements. This is the largest percentage of renewable energy used by any resort in Las Vegas, and an industry first for a gaming operator in Nevada. The Facility will eventually power Wynn’s newest 280,000 square foot meetings and conventions expansion with 100 percent renewable energy, making it one of the most environmentally conscious developments in Las Vegas.

Wynn Las Vegas remains committed to increasing sustainable design practices, creating and sourcing renewable energy, and exceeding LEED Gold Building Certification standards for projects in Las Vegas as well as Wynn Boston Harbor, currently under construction in Everett, Massachusetts.

ABOUT WYNN LAS VEGAS
Wynn Resorts is the recipient of more Forbes Travel Guide Five Star Awards than any other independent hotel company in the world. Wynn Las Vegas opened on April 28, 2005 and was once again named the best resort in Nevada on Condé Nast Traveler’s 2018 “Gold List,” a title received for the tenth time. Wynn and Encore Las Vegas feature two luxury hotel towers with a total of 4,750 spacious hotel rooms, suites and villas, approximately 192,000 square feet of casino space, 21 dining experiences featuring signature chefs and 11 bars, two award-winning spas, approximately 290,000 square feet of meeting and convention space, approximately 110,000 square feet of retail space as well as three nightclubs, a beach club and recreation and leisure facilities. In addition to two luxury retail esplanades, a Strip-front expansion, Wynn Plaza, is currently under construction and is scheduled to be completed in 2018. For more information on Wynn and Encore Las Vegas, visit www.wynnpressroom.com, follow on Twitter and Instagram at and Facebook.

ABOUT SWITCH
POWERING THE FUTURE OF THE CONNECTED WORLD^®

Switch, the technology infrastructure corporation headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada is built on the intelligent and sustainable growth of the internet. Switch founder and CEO Rob Roy has developed more than 500 issued and pending patent claims covering data center designs that have manifested into the company’s world-renowned data centers and technology solution ecosystems. Visit switch.com for more information.

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The debut of the SuperNAP data center in 2009 put Switch on the map in a big way. At more than 400,000 square feet, the SuperNAP offered unprecedented scale and the ability to support extreme power density. The facility hosts servers and storage for many of the world’s leading technology companies, including more than 40 cloud computing companies and a dense concentration of network carriers.

The company’s newest creation, known as SuperNAP 8, builds on that foundation with a number of innovations in cooling and reliability. The building has just become the first multi-tenant data center to earn Tier IV Constructed Facility certification, the highest rating possible under The Uptime Institute’s ratings for mission-critical reliability.

For Switch founder and CEO Rob Roy, SuperNAP 8 is the culmination of a decade-long effort to rethink the data center. The design for SuperNAP 8 can operate effectively in any climate, providing an ultra-efficient template for global growth. Switch is finalizing plans for an international expansion, with details to be announced later this year.

“We’ve really been focused on creating the world’s best data center,” said Roy, who has patented many of the design innovations at Switch. “SuperNAP 8 is the end game of that effort. I’ve wanted to see if we could create one global standard for our data centers.”

First Tier IV Colocation Facility

The effort has made an impression on The Uptime Institute, which has evaluated data centers around the world for its Tier certification program. Only four finished data centers in the U.S. have ever earned Tier IV for a finished facility, the highest certification level, and until now all have been single-tenant financial services data centers.

“The first Tier IV Facility Certification in the colocation sector speaks for itself: another world-class accomplishment,” said Ed Rafter, Vice President of Technology for The Uptime Institute. “Switch SuperNAP 8 has incorporated a number of well-planned and innovative solutions for their facilities infrastructure requirements.”

SuperNAP 8 is the next step in Roy’s vision for a massive technology ecosystem in Las Vegas. Switch now has more than 1,000 customers and 315 employees, and its projects keep 1,000 construction workers employed. The 300,000 square foot SuperNAP 8 facility is built several hundred yards from the original SuperNAP (now known as SuperNAP 7).

SuperNAP 8 was built using pre-fabricated modular components manufactured by Switch. The major building block is known as a MacroMOD, and includes two data halls. Switch is installing customers in the first two data halls, which represent half of the building’s total capacity.

Rows and rows of high-capacity Teradata enterprise storage inside customer cages within the SuperNAP, the huge Switch data center in Las Vegas. The arrays are housed in Switch’s containment systems, known as T-SCIFs.

So what’s different about SuperNAP 8? Data Center Knowledge recently had a tour of the new facility, which features the same combination of density and efficiency seen at SuperNAP 7, which operates at a full-year Power Usage Efficiency (PUE) of 1.18. That puts its efficiency nearly on par with Google, which has a full-year PUE of 1.12 for its fleet of data centers.

This level of efficiency is unusual for a multi-tenant facility, which has less flexibility in pushing the boundaries of server inlet temperature. Switch operates the SuperNAPs’ server halls at 69 degrees and 40 percent humidity, while hyperscale players like Google and Facebook can push temperatures closer to 80 degrees.

A high-level change in the new design is how the data center is organized. At SuperNAP 7, a massive power spine runs down the center of the building, with data halls and power rooms on each side. At SuperNAP 8, all the power rooms are together along the perimeter of one side of the building, with the power spine alongside.

A view of the power spine inside SuperNAP complex in Las Vegas, showing the large number of conduits housing power cabling. SuperNAP 7 features 100 megawatts of power capacity, while SuperNAP 8 currently offers 50 megawatts.

The data halls are now together in the remainder of the interior space, with the exterior cooling units lining the far side of the building. This diagram provides a cross-section of the facility, showing the placement of (from left to right) the generators, power rooms, power spine, data halls, and cooling units.

The exterior of SuperNAP 8 in Las Vegas.

For SuperNAP 8, Switch has super-sized its versatile custom cooling units, which now each provide 1000 tons of air handling (as opposed to 600 tons for the units at SuperNAP 7). The units are slightly narrower so they can all fit on one side of the building, but the overhead ductwork within the SuperNAP has been widened to accommodate more cubic feet per minute (CFM), as have the cold and hot aisles of Switch’s custom containment system.

The cooling units, who are housed outside the building, are unusually versatile, supporting six different modes of cooling. The software that manages the system selects the most efficient cooling method based on the exterior temperature and other conditions. The new units at SuperNAP 8 feature distinctive hoods, a reflection of Switch’s ambitions for expansion into new geographic markets. The hoods will protect the units from ice and snow accumulations in colder climates, and also allow Switch to use exhaust air from the data center’s hot aisles to melt snow.

Flywheels Boost Cooling Reliability

A new wrinkle at SuperNAP 8 is the Rotofly system, which uses 2,000 pounds of rotary flywheels to provide extended runtime for each HVAC unit. In the event of a power outage, this capability ensures that the cooling units will continue to move air through the data halls.

The cooling improvements extend inside the data center, in the form of a steel framework known as the Black Iron Forest. The steel serves a dual role, providing physical support for Switch’s aisle containment system (known as a T-SCIF) and helping to cool the data centers by serving as thermal storage, chilling the air around it to help cool the room and provide a cushion during cooling failures.

The “Black Iron Forest” is a framework of extra-thick steel that supports Switch’s containment systems, but also serves as a thermal storage system, retaining temperature to help keep the room cool in the event of a power outage.

“When it’s 69 degrees, that iron stays at 69 degrees for a long time,” said Roy. “They’re like thermal radiators for cold. They’re heavier than they need to be on purpose so they can retain that temperature. That steel keeps that environment much cooler.”

Roofs may not seem like a sexy data center feature. But Roy says that roofing will play a critical role in the life span of a data center. “Ninety-nine percent of data centers will need to have their roofs replaced during their useful life, and the data center is incredibly vulnerable while that’s happening,” said Roy.

That’s why SuperNAP 8 features SwitchSHIELD, a double-roof system that can protect the data center from wind speeds of up 200 miles per hour. The two roof decks are located nine feet apart and are attached to the concrete and steel shell of the facility and contain no roof penetrations. This allows Switch to replace either roof level without any loss of protection for the servers housed in the data hall.

The SwitchSHIELD double-roof provides two levels of protection, with a second roof nine feet below the exterior roof. Both are rated to survive a 200 mile per hour wind.

SwitchSHIELD is another feature that has been added with geographic expansion in mind. Tornadoes are exceedingly rare in Las Vegas, and the region has never had a recorded wind speed that would require this level of protection. The double-roof will be a more significant differentiator in markets that are prone to hurricanes and tornadoes.

No Plans to Slow Down

“Rob Roy has set the bar for the industry’s performance and standards,” said Missy Young, Executive Vice President of Colocation at Switch. “With his direction, Switch SUPERNAP will continue to change the landscape of the world’s data center and technology solutions industry to keep businesses running with elite resiliency and innovating within the SUPERNAP ecosystems.

“We’ve never had a client experience an outage, and never had to issue a service credit,” said Young. “We have no plans to slow down at all. Our biggest challenge has been getting the buildings up fast enough to meet customer demand.”

Indeed, just down the street from SuperNAP 8, construction teams are beginning work on SuperNAP 9, which will be Switch’s largest project yet at 600,000 square feet, and is expected to be completed in the first half of 2015.

The post Inside SUPERNAP 8: Switch’s Tier IV Data Fortress appeared first on Switch.