Have you been hearing a lot about Bitcoin lately? Do you have absolutely no idea what the hell people are talking about? Are you in the least bit troubled by your lack of understanding?
Here, watch this video. It’s an incredibly well-made primer on the decentralized digital currency that’s grabbing a lot fo attention right now.
Afterward, if you’re still wondering if you should use Bitcoin, read this.
AOL announced the launch of a new sell-side platform called Marketplace by AdTech today.
With the offering, premium publishers can leverage AdTech’s technology and AOL Networks’ cross-platform ad serving platform, mange blocks and transparency settings at an inventory level, and get “high-touch client service from setup all the way through yield evaluation.”
“Our goal at AOL Networks is to simplify digital advertising at scale and now, with the addition of Marketplace, publishers have a one-stop solution to manage every piece of inventory they have,” said David Jacobs, Senior Vice President, AOL Networks. “If you don’t have both supply and demand solutions, you are disadvantaged in this increasingly complex digital advertising ecosystem. With Marketplace, we give publishers a connected programmatic platform that is transparent and efficient as well as pre-loaded with demand.”
“Marketplace was built with an in-depth understanding of publisher needs – after all, we based it off of the needs of one of the largest publishers in the world: AOL,” Jacobs added. “Having partnered with thousands of premium publishers for over a decade on the buy side, we have developed significant experience and insights into how to drive demand and yield for publisher partners who are seeking to increase their revenues. We are excited to offer our Marketplace solution to drive value for our partners on a global basis.”
The announcement was made at ad:tech San Francisco by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong.
It’s just a teeny, tiny question: How did the universe begin?
Today, TED-Ed has unveiled a new lesson that answers this in less than four minutes, “The beginning of the universe, for beginners.” This is the first of five animated lessons developed by CERN scientists and brought to life by TED-Ed’s talented animators. The other four animations – which tackle the topics of Dark Matter, Anti-Matter, Big Data and the Higgs Boson — will premiere at TEDxCERN on May 3rd and will be shared on TED-Ed that same day.
The lesson above, “The beginning of the universe, for beginners,” was conceived by CERN physicist Tom Whyntie. It explains how cosmologists and particle physicists explore questions like, “How is the universe expanding?” by replicating the heat, energy and activity of the first few seconds of our universe — immediately following the Big Bang.
To see the premiere of the next four lessons in real time, tune in to the TEDxCERN live webcast on May 3rd, from 14:00 to 20:00 (CEST). It will be available to the public here »
TEDxCERN will feature talks from scientists and big thinkers of all kinds. For more information on TEDxCERN, visit their website, or follow them on Facebook or Twitter.
It’s a given that joining the military can mean putting one’s life in danger. However, that danger isn’t generally assumed to be great while training on home soil.
Two U.S. Navy divers recently proved that even training is dangerous, and even fatal, as they drowned while training in a Maryland test pond. According to a Baltimore Sun report, Diver 1st Class James Reyher and Diver 2nd Class Ryan Harris accidentally drowned at a test pond at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in February. Details of the incident have not been released.
Another soldier, an engineering technician, also died at the test pond in January while performing maintenance. The facility has now been closed indefinitely.
The pool where the soldiers drowned is, according to the Sun, also known as the “Super Pond.” The structure is 1,070 feet long and 150 feet deep. It is used by the U.S. Defense Department and researchers for training and to test the effects of explosives on marine vessels.
The investigations of the soldiers’ deaths are still ongoing, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has stated that more information about the incidents could be released in the future, when the office issues its final report.
Soon, AdWords advertisers will be able to set a mobile bid adjustment at the ad group level in enhanced campaigns. This functionality will become available sometime in the middle of next month.
“We think this may be useful if you’ve been operating large scale campaigns and found that your optimal bids for some keywords would require significantly different mobile bid adjustments within an enhanced campaign,” says Group Product Manager Bhanu Narasimhan.
“Example: A nationwide retail chain currently uses mobile-only campaigns to optimize bids for several hundred thousand keywords,” Narasimhan continues. “They’ve found that 95% of their keywords in mobile-only campaigns have bids that are 10% lower than in the equivalent desktop campaigns. The remaining 5% of their keywords have very different bid ratios (ranging from 40% lower to 100% higher) based on differences in performance and competition on mobile and desktop. By using the new ad group bid adjustments for mobile, this retailer can better maintain their desired bids and ROI on different devices as they upgrade to enhanced campaigns.”
Google says most advertisers will see the most value in using the existing campaign level bid adjustments.
API access for the new feature will be available first, in early May.
Enhanced campaign upgrades will start happening automatically on July 22.
To say that AT&T is stealing Google’s thunder isn’t really the right way to put it, but Ma Bell is using the buzz surrounding Google Fiber’s big launch into Austin as a way to springboard its own plans for a ultra-high speed network.
Today, AT&T has announced intentions to build its own advanced fiber optic infrastructure “capable of delivering speeds up to 1 gigabit per second” in Austin, Texas.
No other details – like the when and how much – have been divulged. We’re guessing that AT&T will be unwilling to offer anything like Google Fiber’s free internet (with construction fee, of course). But as far as the pricing goes, it remains to be seen.
No surprise here, but AT&T makes a point to say that they don’t expect the project to “materially alter their anticipated 2013 capital expenditures.”
Also, AT&T expects to be given the same terms as Google in the city of Austin:
AT&T’s expanded fiber plans in Austin anticipate it will be granted the same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives.
Of course, all of this comes on the heels of Google’s announcement that they will be expanding their Google Fiber initiative to Austin in mid-2014. Google says the price will be similar to what it is in Kansas City, and that they will be giving the service free to public institutions like schools, libraries, and hospitals.
No matter what, this is great for the residents of Austin, who now have multiple companies looking to give them crazy fast internet. Some cities have all the luck.
What do you do when you see a male duck attempting to have sex with a dead male duck? Most would probably be a little weirded out and walk away. One biologist, however, saw a rare occurrence in nature, and decided to publish a study on it. That study earned him the prestigious Ig Nobel Prize, and a place in history.
The discovery of “gay dead duck sex” is the focal point of a recent TED talk that’s more fascinating than it sounds. In it, Dutch biologist Kees Moeliker, talks about his strange discovery, and how it has changed his life.
The moral of this story is that you might just win an award for writing studies about necrophilia in animals.
[h/t: LiveScience]
Late last week rumors surfaced that Google Play store would update, which according to the APK file is officially version 4.0.25, and sporting a whole new look. Today that news becomes official as Google confirmes that the latest version is beginning its slow, but steady, march to Android smartphones and tablets.
Michael Siliski, group product manager for Google Play, announces that “today we’ve started rolling out a redesigned Google Play store on Android phones and tablets that is simple, clean and, most importantly, helps you find great entertainment, fast”.
The complete redesign of the app is focused on content, with larger images, similarly themed content grouped together, new recommendations and simplified purchasing, according to the announcement. Also in my quick look at the the new version, the My Apps page has also changed, with a brand new look. All of these updates are coming to any device that is running Android 2.2 (Froyo) or newer, so almost nobody should be left out. But, remember, while Google Play runs on most devices, the store displays apps your Android version supports.
No need to go rushing to your device yet because Google claims that people around the world will get the latest Google Play over the next few weeks, meaning this is a gradual roll out, though an APK file has already made its way out onto the Internet. So, if you just can’t wait, and do not mind taking your chances, then very little snooping around is required to get the update today, as I have already done.
AT&T plans to build a gigabit network in Austin, Texas according to a company release Tuesday. On any day this would be big news, but Google just announced its own plans to build a fiber to the home, gigabit network in the Texas capital. Looks like Google’s plans to tweak the incumbent broadband players is working — at least at the press release level.
Google’s Kevin Lo said earlier today that the Google network won’t be available until mid-2014 and it’s unclear when AT&T’s network will be rolled out. I’ve contacted AT&T for more details and will update the story when I have them. Currently AT&T provides a fiber to the node product called U-verse that offers speeds of up to 24 Mbps down. However, as Google expanded in Kansas City, it received some concessions around permitting that the incumbents later complained about.
As a result, both Time Warner Cable and AT&T were granted similar benefits in Kansas City. However, in Austin, the agreements that Google has signed with the City of Austin are no different than the ones that AT&T and Time Warner have signed according to Laura Morrison, an austin city councilwoman. Yet, AT&T in it’s release of the gigabit network seems to imply otherwise. From the release:
Today, AT&T announced that in conjunction with its previously announced Project VIP expansion of broadband access, it is prepared to build an advanced fiber optic infrastructure in Austin, Texas, capable of delivering speeds up to 1 gigabit per second. AT&T’s expanded fiber plans in Austin anticipate it will be granted the same terms and conditions as Google on issues such as geographic scope of offerings, rights of way, permitting, state licenses and any investment incentives. This expanded investment is not expected to materially alter AT&T’s anticipated 2013 capital expenditures.
As an Austin resident and broadband lover, I’m ecstatic that I might soon have not one, but two gigabit capable networks. Of course, with so little known about the cost, timing or the locations of either Google’s or AT&T’s network, I’ll wait to get out my party hat.
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I haven’t yet bought a 3D printer although I plan to do so in the not-to-distant future. The main reasons I’ve held back are the printer costs and the fact that I have no experience with the design software needed to create objects. There are now several sub-$1,000 3D printer models available, with some even as low as $200 for printing small items. That reduces the cost issue, but I’m still not an expert in 3D design software.
Photon could be answer for me. This 3D scanner, currently a funded Indiegogo project, helps replicate physical objects so you can print a 3D copy of them. Essentially, it takes all of the design work out of play, provided you want to print a copy of something that already exists. I can live with that while I learn how to use the software to create my own designs, particularly when Photon costs CAD $449.00 (US $442.21), which isn’t too bad for this type of technology.
What I like best is that the Photon will scan hundreds of points on an object’s exterior surface and then convert the captured data into a wire-mesh design.
Other aspects that appeal to me: Although Photon can scan things up to 7.5 inches in diameter and 9.75 inches high, it actually folds up and looks quite portable. Average resolution scans can be completed in about 3 minutes. And a USB port makes it easy to get design files from the Photon to a computer, although I’d also like to see an integrated microSD card slot.
So am I backing this one? I’m going to have to think on it a little more, partly because I don’t yet have a 3D printer and partly because of the software support for Photon. According to the project page:
“We’re aiming to make the 3D files compatible with all major CAD packages, 3D modelling software and 3D printers. Currently, models produced from the Photon, can be saved as .STL, .OBJ, and point cloud .PLY formats. Making it easy to integrate scans within existing systems, such as 3DS max, Maya, solidworks, cinema 4d, google sketchup, rhino, True space, etc.”
Until I see that type of compatibility nailed down, I may hold off on the Photon. However, I like what I see and this device could push me over the edge to purchase a 3D printer sooner rather than later. I should also note that the first batch of Photon deliveries is slated for July and August. That’s an aggressive time-frame that puts the Photon on the market before the MakerBot Digitizer; another 3D scanner which has no price tag yet and is expected this fall.
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The description of last night’s episode of The Colbert Report reads: “At the Clinton Global Initiative University Meeting, President Bill Clinton discusses foreign aid, poverty, TED Talks, Twitter and the Colbert Galactic Initiative.”
Bill Clinton on rebuilding RwandaSo how did TED enter the conversation? Colbert suggested that Clinton, who accepted the TED Prize in 2007 with the talk “On rebuilding Rwanda,” team up with us for “Bill and TED’s Excellent Initiative.”
The moment came right after Colbert asked Clinton why he helps people.
“It’s totally selfish,” Clinton admitted. “I do it because I’m good at it and I’m not good enough to play golf on the senior tour, and I don’t play my saxophone as much as I used to … I [help people] because, I think after the life I’ve been given by the American people, I’d be kind of a slug if I didn’t do it.”
“Have you done TED Talks?” Colbert asked, trying to figure out the difference between TED, the Clinton Global Initiative and Burning Man.
“I have, and I like them,” Clinton said.
“Have you ever thought of having the Clinton Global Initiative and TED Talks team up to make Bill and Ted’s Excellent Initiative?” asked Colbert, to big applause.
“That’s a wonderful idea,” replied Clinton.
Special thanks to QuickMeme.com for capturing the moment:
And another TED-related Comedy Central bonus from yesterday’s The Daily Show: Kees Moeliker was a guest in a segment about pubic lice. Last week, we posted his talk “How a dead duck changed my life.”
While many current drone programs are extremely complex – and costly – cheap drones used for spying, mapping, and even attacks could turn the tables on world militaries by giving terrorists and less well-funded groups access to UAV technology.
A report by the Project 2049 Institute notes that China is hard at work on its own, less-expensive drone program that could end up being marketed to other players on the globe. Iran, for example, already sells simple drones to neighbors in the Middle East, including Syria. An advanced program coming out of China would, at the very least, allow for more powerful devices to percolate out to countries with less-developed UAV systems.
“In whatever future conflict scenario we’re in five or 10 years from now, the proliferation of UAVs is going to complicate things for the U.S. military,” said research fellow Ian Easton to TechNewsDaily. The market for unmanned drones could reach $89 billion over the next decade.
While they may not be as powerful as US, European, or Japanese robotic systems, these cheaper, Chinese drones could level the playing field just a bit when it comes to unmanned warfare in the future.
Well that didn’t take long did it? Google officially announced the redesigned Google Play Store earlier, and the APK is already available to download for manual updating. All phones and tablets with Android 2.2 or higher will get the new update over-the-air, but unfortunately it will take roughly 3 weeks to hit every device. If you’re like me, you’re impatient and don’t feel like waiting around, so all you have to do is grab the APK from the download link below and install it just like any other APK. In case you’re not familiar, just make sure you have “unknown sources” checked under settings/security. Then from your phone/tablet, tap on the download link below, then tap Download (5.9MB) and it will save it to your phone/tablet. Tap on “com.android-vending-4.0.25.apk” in your notification panel, answer OK to replace system application, and tap Install. After it’s installed, just tap open to start enjoying the new card-themed Play Store. Enjoy!!
Thanks to all that sent this in
Come comment on this article: New redesigned Google Play Store (version 4.0.25) now available to download
AOL today announced a new product for publishers called Marketplace, which integrates various elements of its ad tech platforms. The move comes as AOL redoubles its efforts to bring in revenue unrelated to its legacy copper wire business.
“This gets us back into the ad tech game in a serious manner,” said CEO Tim Armstrong, speaking at the AdTech conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.
The new Marketplace product, which will compete with offerings from Google and Adobe, is intended to provide publishers with an alternative to using multiple companies to carry out the process of selling and serving digital advertisements.
“All these companies create a false sense of complexity in industry but also take a lot of money out of it,” said AOL Networks CEO Ned Brody, in a recent interview. Brody claimed that the multiple pieces in ad tech amount to “too many mouths” to feed, and that AOL’s new integrated platform will let publishers keep 80 cents, rather than 50 cents, out of every ad dollar they receive.
Brody also argues that the lion’s share of ad tech innovation has occurred on the buyer’s side, giving brands new tools to obtain ads more efficiently but failing to help publishers. He claims tools like Marketplace will fix this imbalance. Brody also says that AOL’s own media entities, like Huffington Post and Engadget, use its ad tech tools — giving it a perspective on what ad tools other publishers want. An ad manager I spoke with was more skeptical, saying companies are constantly offering magic bullets to make advertising cheaper and easier but that the industry remains much the same.
From a larger business context, the ad tech offerings are also part of Armstrong’s efforts to refashion AOL into a company that no longer has to rely on its legacy dial-up internet subscriptions. This has meant creating two other separate divisions: one dedicated to its media properties, and another dedicated to its ad technology. Recent earnings reports show the two newer divisions are performing well from a revenue standpoint but are still waiting for profits to roll in.
At the conference, Armstrong also says he wants AOL to be like financial firm Goldman Sachs by relying on strong partner relationships, but also innovating in its own right.
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These are interesting times for Care.com, the Reid Hoffman-backed site that wants to be the “Amazon of care.” In the last year, the company has expanded its service to more than 15 countries, acquired a few startups and raised $50 million (bringing its total raised to $111 million).
Now the company has a chief financial officer with a skillset to match.
Care.com hired former iRobot CFO John Leahy Tuesday. LEAHY spent nearly five years at the public company and held CFO positions at three publicly-traded companies prior to that.
Given that the company, which helps people find caregivers for children, seniors, pets and others, is doubling its revenue every year and plans for additional international and vertical expansion, CEO and founder Sheila Marcelo said she wanted a CFO with broad experience.
“It was really important for me to get a partner in crime around helping us manage our growth,” she said in an interview. In addition to online subscription fees from families who pay for a premium membership on the site, the site collects fees from service providers who pay for better visibility and other features. Care.com ALSO charges corporate customers who provide it as a service to their employees.
When the company raised its $50 million Series E round last summer, some speculated that an IPO could be ahead. And Leahy’s familiarity with public company financing would make that kind of an event even more plausible. But Marcelo said the company is open to several different scenarios.
“We’re just keeping all of our options open,” she said. “Certainly with his experience that’s a door we could go down. … We have many options of growth for the company.”
In the near future, Leahy said the company would focus on integrating and scaling its recent acquisitions — which include Parents in a Pinch, a provider of backup child and elder care services, and Betreut, a Samwer brothers-backed European care-giving site. And, over the next couple of years, he suggested that more deals were to come.
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This is the thirds article in the Data Center Knowledge Guide to Modular Data Centers series. The initial black eye for containers and the modular concept was mobility. The Sun Blackbox was seen on oil rigs, war zones and places a data center is typically not found. As an industry of large brick and mortar facilities that went to all extremes to protect the IT within, the notion of this data center in a box being mobile was not only unattractive, but laughable as a viable solution. What it did do however, was start a conversation around how the very idea of a data center could benefit from a new level of standardizing components and delivering IT in a modular fashion around innovative ideas.
Faced with economic down-turn and credit crunches, business took to modular approaches as a way to get funding approved in smaller amounts and mitigate the implied risk of building a data center. Two of the biggest reasons typically listed for the problem with data centers are capital and speed of deployment. The traditional brick and mortar data center takes a lot of money and time to build. Furthermore, the quick evolution of supporting technologies further entices organizations to work with fast and scalable modular designs. Outside of those two primary drivers there are many benefits and reasons listed for why a modular data center approach is selected.
Design
• Speed of Deployment: Modular solutions have incredibly quick timeframes from order to deploy¬ment. As a standardized solution it is manufactured and able to be ordered, customized and delivered to the data center site in a matter of months (or less). Having a module manufactured also means that the site construction can progress in parallel, instead of a linear, dependent transition. Remem¬ber, this isn’t a container — rather a customizable solution capable of quickly being deployed within an environment.
• Scalability: With a repeatable, standardized design, it is easy to match demand and scale infrastructure quickly. The only limitations on scale for a modular data center are the supporting infrastructure at the data center site and available land. Another characteristic of scalability is the flexibility it grants by having modules that can be easily replaced when obsolete or if updated technology is needed. This means organizations can forecast technological changes very few months in advance. So, a cloud data center solution doesn’t have to take years to plan out.
• Agility: Being able to quickly build a data center environment doesn’t only revolve around the abil¬ity to scale. Being agile with data center platforms means being able to quickly meet the needs of an evolving business. Whether that means providing a new service or reducing downtime — modular data centers are directly designed around business and infrastructure agility. Where some organizations build their modular environment for the purposes of capacity planning; other organizations leverage modular data centers for their highly effecitve disaster recovery operations.
• Mobility and Placement: A modular data center can be delivered where ever it is desired by the end user. A container can claim ultimate mobility, as an ISO approved method for international transporta¬tion. A modular solution is mobile in the sense that it can be transported in pieces and re-assembled quickly on-site. Mobility is an attractive feature for those looking at modular for disaster recovery, as it can be deployed to the recovery site and be up and running quickly. As data center providers look to take on new offerings, they will be tasked with stay¬ing as agile as possible. This may very well mean adding additional modular data centers to help support growing capacity needs.
• Density and PUE: Density in a traditional data center is typically 100 watts per square foot. In a modular solution the space is used very efficiently and features densities as much as 20 kilowatts per cabinet. The PUE can be determined at commissioning and because the module is pre-engineered and standardized the PUE’s can be as low as 1.1–1.4. The PUE metric has also become a great gauge of data center green efficiency. Look for a provider that strives to break the 1.25 –1.3 barrier or at least one that’s in the +/- 1.2 range.
• Efficiency: The fact that modules are engineered products means that internal subsystems are tightly integrated which results in efficiency gains in power and cooling in the module. First generation and pure IT modules will most likely not have efficiency gains other than those enjoyed from a similar con¬tainment solution inside of a traditional data center. Having a modular power plant in close proximity to the IT servers will save money in costly distribution gear and power loss from being so close. There are opportunities to use energy management platforms within modules as well, with all subsystems being engineered as a whole.
• Disaster Recovery: Part of the reason to design a modular data center is for resiliency. A recent Market Insights Report 2 conducted by Data Center Knowledge points to the fact that almost 50% of the surveyed organizations are looking at disaster recov¬ery solutions as part of their purchasing plans over the next 12 months. This means creating a modular design makes sense. Quickly built and deployed, the modular data center can be built as a means for direct disaster recovery. For those organizations that have to keep maximum amounts of uptime, a modular architecture may be the right solution.
• Commissioning: As an engineered, standardized solution, the data center module can be commis¬sioned where it is built and require fewer steps to be performed once placed at the data center site.
• Real Estate: Modules allow operators to build out in increments of power instead of space. Many second generation modular products feature evaporative cooling, taking advantage of outside air. A radical shift in data center design takes away the true brick and mortar of a data center, placing modules in an outdoor park, connected by supporting infrastructure and protected only by a perimeter fence. Some modular solutions offer stacking also — putting twice the capacity in the same footprint.
Operations
• Standardization: Seen as a part of the industrialization of data centers the modular solution is a standardized approach to build a data center, much like Henry Ford took towards building cars. Manufactured data center modules are constructed against a set model of components at a different location instead of the data center site. Standardized infrastructure within the modules enable standard operating procedures to be used universally. Since the module is prefabricated, the operational procedures are identical and can be packaged together with the modular solution to provide standardized documentation for subsystems within the module.
• DCIM (Data Center Infrastructure Management): Management of the module and components within is where a modular approach can take advantage of the engineering and integration that was built into the product. Many, if not all of the modular products on the market will have DCIM or management software included that gives the operator visibility into every aspect of the IT equipment, in-frastructure, environmental conditions and security of the module. The other important aspect is that distributed modular data centers will now also be easier to manage. With DCIM solutions now capable of spanning the cloud — data center administrators can have direct visibility into multiple modular data center environments. This also brings up the ques¬tion of what’s next in data center management.
• Beyond DCIM – The Data Center Operating System (DCOS): As the modular data center market matures and new technologies are introduced, data center administrators will need a new way to truly manage their infrastructure. There will be a direct need to transform complex data center operations into simplified plug & play delivery models. This means lights-out automation, rapid infrastructure assembly, and even further simplified management. DCOS looks to remove the many challenges which face administrators when it comes to creating a road map and building around efficiencies. In working with a data center operating system, expect the following:
– An integrated end-to-end automated solution to help control a distributed modular data center design.
– Granular centralized management of a localized or distributed data center infrastructure.
– Real-time – proactive – environment monitoring, analysis and data center optimization.
– DCOS can be delivered as a self-service automa¬tion solution or provided as a managed service.
Enterprise Alignment
• Rightsizing: Modular design ultimately enables an optimized delivery approach for matching IT needs. This ability to right-size infrastructure as IT needs grow enables enterprise alignment with IT and data center strategies. The module or container can also provide capacity when needed quickly for projects or temporary capacity adjustments. Why is this important? Resources are expensive. Modular data centers can help right size solutions so that resources are optimally utilized. Over or under provisioning of data center resources can be extremely pricey — and difficult to correct.
• Supply Chain: Many of the attributes of a modular approach speak to the implementation of a supply chain process at the data center level. As a means of optimizing deployment, the IT manager directs ven¬dors and controls costs throughout the supply chain.
• Total Cost of Ownership:
– Acquisition: Underutilized infrastructure due to over-building a data center facility is eliminated by efficient use of modules, deployed as needed.
– Installation: Weeks and months instead of more than 12 months.
– Operations: Standardized components to sup¬port and modules are engineered for extreme-efficiency.
– Maintenance: Standardized components enable universal maintenance programs.
Information technology complies with various internal and external standards. Why should the data center be any different? Modular data center deployment makes it possible to quickly deploy standard¬ized modules that allow IT and facilities to finally be on the same page.
The complete Data Center Knowledge Guide to Modular Data Centers is available for download in a PDF format and brought to you by IO. Click here to download the DCK Guide to Modular Data Centers.
LSI announced that it has entered into an expanded original equipment manufacturer (OEM) relationship with Intel (INTC), whereby the LSI Nytro MegaRAID technology will be available as part of the Intel RAID product family. The LSI Nytro tMegaRAID takes server-side PCIe flash and dual-core RAID-on-Chip (ROC) technology and integrates intelligent caching software, to enable transparent application acceleration and RAID data protection for directed attached storage (DAS) environments.
“Customers in virtually every industry are facing competitive pressures to increase data center efficiency and lower IT costs,” said Noury Al-Khaledy, General Manager Intel Enterprise Platforms and Services Division. “Through our expanded relationship with LSI, we’re able to offer customers a single, integrated solution that enables exciting levels of application performance, data protection and a low TCO.”
The Nytro MegaRAID technology will help to provide Intel server board and systems customers with high levels of random IOPS performance for data-intensive and latency-sensitive workloads such as databases and big data applications, Hadoop implementations and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). It integrates LSI SandForce Flash storage processors to delivery performance, reliability and energy efficiency. Benchmark testing using Nytro MegaRAID cards have achieved up to a 33 percent improvement in the time it takes to complete Hadoop jobs and delivered support for up to twice as many VDI sessions compared to a non-caching storage implementation.
“Intel’s selection of LSI Nytro MegaRAID technology is another significant validation of our strategic focus and investments in flash-based server acceleration technology,” said Gary Smerdon, senior vice president and general manager, Accelerated Solutions Division, LSI. “We’re excited to be working closely with Intel to bring the powerful performance, data protection and TCO benefits of Nytro MegaRAID technology to Intel customers.”
Intel will offer LSI Nytro MegaRAID technology within their Intel RAID SSD Cache Controllers RCS25ZB040 and RCS25ZB040LX which include embedded flash of 256GB and 1TB, respectively.