Cambridge University have recently completed a PhD study into Internet security, focusing on what happens to your data that is stored by the numerous social networking sites and Web 2.0 websites.
The study, which was focusing on the process of information removal after you delete an item or account, found that 3 of the biggest social networking sites, Myspace, Facebook and Bebo retained the information after it was deleted. It is possible to gain access to this information though direct links to the pages which have been cached. The big photo sharing websites like Flickr and Photobucket are very careful with this loop hole, ensuring that all your information is deleted when you ask it to be.
The implication for data centres is that all that extra information has to be stored somewhere. For example, on average Facebook receives 250,000 new registrations a day. If we presume that 5% of this number delete their accounts everyday, 12,500 people's personal information and photo's are still held. As Cambridge University showed, the information must still be stored on a Facebook server somewhere, and if the average account takes up 15 MB of room on a server, that is 183 GB a day of information that should be erased. 65.2 TB a year is a lot of data and a significant amount of storage space. Utilising a modern server and storage running at 1.44 kW, this would use over 12MW of power a year and would increase by the same amount each year.
This does not take into account the security risks and personal information protection, but certainly asks a big question; do you know who has your personal data? and more importantly do they actually delete it when requested? Apparently not, and the only people that suffer are you and the environment.
Migration Solutions are data centre specialists. They recently won the Information Age Data Centre Innovation Award for ERA, an environmental report and assessment. ERA investigates all the elements that affect a data centre's operation and gives advice on how to be more environmentally friendly, more efficient and save on energy consumption. For more information visit www.migrationsolutions.com
Showing posts with label server. Show all posts
Showing posts with label server. Show all posts
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Friday, 20 March 2009
How well labelled is your computer room?
If a third party came to visit, could you identify a server by looking at it in the rack? Would you know where its network cabling terminated? Many computer room and data centres that Migration Solutions have visited have had a distinct lack of labelling, which makes auditing a long and painful process. Do you have a Change Management Database (CMDB)? If you do, is it up to date? How many times has someone gone into the computer room to make a quick patch and then left it there without recording it. Multiply this by a 10 year life span and it is more than likely that there are large amounts of unrecorded patching.
The maintenance of a CMDB is a very important part of computer room management. Using the best practice guidelines set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) a Data Centre Manager (DCM) should have a strict process by which new equipment is labelled, installed and patched but most importantly, recorded in a CMDB.
Asset management should be part of the processes and procedures implemented by the DCM. All equipment within a computer room from racks to routers should be labelled and recorded. Any person should be able to walk into your computer room, find a piece of equipment and either identify what its function is from its labelling, or be able to look up its asset number on a CMDB, and find out what it’s connected to, what service(s) it affects, when it was installed and information about power consumption and heat output, along with details of any support arrangements whether internal or external.
This is, of course, on the face of it, a large overhead. But IT is critical to the running of any modern business. Change Management, along with other ITIL best practice of Service Desk and Incident Management are essential in running an efficient computer room. ITIL is a guide. It does not force any of its practices to make a ‘once size fits all’ solution, but understands that parts can be used and adapted to fit the organisation.
If best practice is followed, with clearly documented process, when it comes to consolidate or migrate your assets, all the required information should be to hand, and the change management process in place to handle it.
Migration Solutions are data centre specialists who focus on the operation, migration and design of new and existing data centres and are vendor independent. Migrations Solutions provides computer room and data centre operational staff on long and short-term contracts, and believe strongly that the only way to build a data centre effectively is to also operate them. For more information visit www.migrationsolutions.com.
The maintenance of a CMDB is a very important part of computer room management. Using the best practice guidelines set out in the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) a Data Centre Manager (DCM) should have a strict process by which new equipment is labelled, installed and patched but most importantly, recorded in a CMDB.
Asset management should be part of the processes and procedures implemented by the DCM. All equipment within a computer room from racks to routers should be labelled and recorded. Any person should be able to walk into your computer room, find a piece of equipment and either identify what its function is from its labelling, or be able to look up its asset number on a CMDB, and find out what it’s connected to, what service(s) it affects, when it was installed and information about power consumption and heat output, along with details of any support arrangements whether internal or external.
This is, of course, on the face of it, a large overhead. But IT is critical to the running of any modern business. Change Management, along with other ITIL best practice of Service Desk and Incident Management are essential in running an efficient computer room. ITIL is a guide. It does not force any of its practices to make a ‘once size fits all’ solution, but understands that parts can be used and adapted to fit the organisation.
If best practice is followed, with clearly documented process, when it comes to consolidate or migrate your assets, all the required information should be to hand, and the change management process in place to handle it.
Migration Solutions are data centre specialists who focus on the operation, migration and design of new and existing data centres and are vendor independent. Migrations Solutions provides computer room and data centre operational staff on long and short-term contracts, and believe strongly that the only way to build a data centre effectively is to also operate them. For more information visit www.migrationsolutions.com.
Wednesday, 11 February 2009
Safety First
How safe is your data centre? A full populated 42U cabinet is 2.2 metres tall and IT servers can be 30kg. Would you lift the equivalent of half a teenager above your head without putting some kind of measures in place to protect yourself? Would you ask anyone else to do it for that matter? Health and Safety in the UK has become an area that businesses have to look at more and more carefully to protect their staff, their equipment, and themselves.
Data centres are dangerous places with high density power. Raised floors left open, leaving half a metre deep hole in the floor, are equally dangerous. In fact, there is virtually a trip hazard at every corner.
Do your staff know what to do in case of electric shock? Do your staff know how to lift a floor tile correctly? Is protective footwear used? How many times are removed floor tiles left at the side of of a gaping hole in the floor? Not only causing a trip a hazard, but a trip into the newly created floor void.
In 2007 35.3 in every 100,000 workers in the UK had a slip or trip injury at work. In an ideal world you would always have two people doing every physical job to minimise risk and strain but is this a practical measure?
What about lone working? Do you have man down alarms for lone workers? Do you allow lone working out of business hours?
Data centres are dangerous environments and they are relatively new to the employment world. HSE does cover working in them, but at the moment it seems that not enough data centre managers know their responsibilities as well as they should.
Migration Solutions are experienced data centre operators with a number staff working in a range of facilities in the UK. Migration Solutions also offers vendor independent consultancy and data centre migration.
Data centres are dangerous places with high density power. Raised floors left open, leaving half a metre deep hole in the floor, are equally dangerous. In fact, there is virtually a trip hazard at every corner.
Do your staff know what to do in case of electric shock? Do your staff know how to lift a floor tile correctly? Is protective footwear used? How many times are removed floor tiles left at the side of of a gaping hole in the floor? Not only causing a trip a hazard, but a trip into the newly created floor void.
In 2007 35.3 in every 100,000 workers in the UK had a slip or trip injury at work. In an ideal world you would always have two people doing every physical job to minimise risk and strain but is this a practical measure?
What about lone working? Do you have man down alarms for lone workers? Do you allow lone working out of business hours?
Data centres are dangerous environments and they are relatively new to the employment world. HSE does cover working in them, but at the moment it seems that not enough data centre managers know their responsibilities as well as they should.
Migration Solutions are experienced data centre operators with a number staff working in a range of facilities in the UK. Migration Solutions also offers vendor independent consultancy and data centre migration.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
