Roundup: Switch & Data, Internap, Level 3

Internap expands to Switch & Data's New Jersey Site. On Monday Switch and Data announced that Internap Network Services has expanded its footprint to offer its Performance IP Services in Switch and Data's North Bergen, NJ site.  The expansion to North Bergen continues Internap's strategy to deliver value-added IP capabilities to businesses.  Switch and Data and Internap currently work together in Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Philadelphia, New York, Toronto and Vienna.

Level 3 Expands in Philadelphia, Links to Large Hadron Collider. Level 3 had two announcements Monday. The company is  expanding operations in the Philadelphia area in an initiative that will give mid-market companies locally-focused customer service and greater access to Level3's voice, Internet and data services.  Local sales and support teams for Level3 will consult with local businesses.  Level 3 also announced an expanded relationship to provide trans-Atlantic and U.S. network connectivity for U.S. LHCNet.  The network will transport data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to more than 1,700 scientists at 94 institutions across the United States.  The network will also connect the U.S. and Europe to many universities and laboratories where researchers will analyze LHC data.  The network will link to the Internet2 national backbone, allowing scientists worldwide to access and analyze the large volumes of LHC data to be processed within the U.S.

Emerson Electric VP interviewed by Wall Street Journal. Steve Hassell of Emerson was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal Monday. Mr. Hassell is the vice president and chief information officer for St. Louis-based Emerson and discussed why he decided to build data centers instead of outsourcing or cloud computing.  The interview discusses that Emerson views the data center as a 10 to 20 year life cycle, that they manage 1.5 petabytes of storage and manage around 6,800 applications.  Mr. Hassell also offers their view on legacy applications and system, saying that they looked at the total cost of IT projects when evaluating options.

Greenest country for a data center? Matthew Wheeland at Greenercomputing.com has an excellent article reviewing criteria set forth by Ronald Bowman of Tishman Technologies for the 10 best countries in which to build your next data center.  The article covers locations in Iceland, the U.S., China/Vietnam, Latvia, India, Russia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates.  The BBC also ran an article recently about the Iceland data center market and Verne Global, a data center company working in Iceland.  While the carbon and cooling savings could be tremendous, many companies discount it because of the lack of network connectivity options. Iceland has been busy laying fibre optic cables to connect the country with North America and Europe.  Rob Powell from Telecom Ramblings recently added a network maps page for Transatlantic cables - including the DANICE map showing Iceland connectivity.