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VMware’s new vCloud Hybrid service, now in beta and due to ship mid year, is the company’s public Infrastructure-as-a-Service play, according to VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger.

This may be one of the industry’s worst kept secrets, with stories surfacing about the plan last summer on GigaOM and CRN. But it is nonetheless important. VMware will make all the relevant code available to its existing  VSPP partners, Gelsinger told analysts at a New York investor event held by VMware, parent company EMC and the Pivotal Initiative spinoff. That may reassure some of those service providers and VARs who were already implementing vCloud Director in data centers of their own.

The selling point is that vCloud Director running customers’ private clouds  will interoperate will with vCloud running in public clouds and will facilitate work loads moving back and forth easily. That’s pretty much been VMware’s story for years. But clearly VMware has Amazon and its public cloud might on the brain, as evidenced by VMware’s recent  ”Amazon will kill us all” comments .

Gelsinger said all the vCloud Hybrid intellectual property will be made available to the company’ s partners — which may reassure them that VMware will not build out its own Amazon-like public cloud infrastructure. Time will tell. VMware CFO Jonathan Chadwick tried  to lay that fear to rest. “We will leverage other people’s infrastructure” rather than building out VMware’s own data centers, he said.

Forrester cloud analyst James Staten in a research note wrote: “VMware said its public cloud will be aimed at its existing customer base and sold through its existing VAR and SI [system integrator] channel. This explains CEO Gelsinger’s strong comments from last month’s Partner Exchange – it wasn’t public clouds he was worried about but non-VMware public clouds. But for this channel fulfillment strategy to come true, its partners will have to get with the cloud program too and like the [infrastructure and operations] clients they serve, many don’t see more revenue at the end of the public cloud rainbow.”

Staten makes a point. It’s also by no means clear that VMware’s vCloud push is gaining traction. Most service providers that offer it also offer other, non-VMware options. One big hurdle for vCloud adoption issue is price. One IT consultant summed it up last week:

“I did a cost analysis for a big [integrator] last week – VMware is $6 per GB ram per month – adds about 30% in some cases to price – and do you think customers care what the hypervisor is? I can’t see how VMware’s core revenue maintains in any shape or form.”

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Asked several years ago to describe the most important argument taking place at Walmart, then-CEO Lee Scott immediately replied, “The size of our stores.” The world’s largest retailer was debating just how small its footprints and formats could be while still serving customer needs and its own brand equity promise. That conversation, Scott said, provoked a lot of new thinking and analysis.

The most important argument at a fast-growing Web 2.0 services provider revolved around its “freemium” offer. Should the firm aggressively test multiple ways to hybridize its free and fee services? Or would prizing and positioning simplicity above all make the most sense? For a prestigious publisher, the essential — and vociferous — disagreement cut to its entrepreneurial core: Should its popular conferences reinforce the firm’s “countercultural” vibe? Or should they comfortably embrace the world’s biggest, richest, and most established firms, as well?

All firms have strategies and cultures. But sometimes the quickest and surest way to gain valuable insight into their fundamentals is by asking, “What’s the most important argument your organization is having right now?”

The more polite or politically correct might prefer “strategic conversation” over “argument.” But I’ve found the more aggressive framing most helpful in identifying the disagreements that matter most. Of course, there’s frequently more than one “most important argument.” And arguments about which arguments are most important are — sorry — important, as well. (If people insist there are no “most important arguments,” the organization clearly has even bigger unresolved issues.)

The real organizational and cultural insights — and payoffs — come not just from careful listening but recognizing that, as always, actions speak louder than words. What role is leadership playing here? How is the CEO listening to, leading, or facilitating the argument? Is disagreement viewed as dissent? Or is it treated as an opportunity to push for greater clarity and analytical rigor?

Sentiment is as important as situational awareness. Some arguments stir organizational emotions in ways others do not. Similarly, some disagreements energize the enterprise just as surely as others drain the life out of people. Having the same most important argument for years tends to be a very bad sign.

Responses to most important arguments typically fall into one of three rough interrelated categories: strategy, values, or people. Strategic arguments tend to be the most straightforward: Do we compete in this space or not? Are we going to be a leader or not? On the other hand, values arguments are understandably more complex: Does attempting to serve a new customer base compromise who we (think) we are? Do we want to make ourselves even more data-and-analytics-driven in our decision making? Does our intense customer focus risk violating their privacy? Values arguments, even more than strategic disagreements, tend to engage a greater portion of the firm. Healthy arguments around conflicting values demand smart facilitative leaders and leadership at all levels.

Intriguingly, the worst most important arguments I hear usually revolve around people. The CEO or a particularly intrapreneurial business unit leader exhibits behaviors or makes comments that polarize. What did the CEO mean by that? Can you believe the company lets that manager get away with that? What might be called gossip in some organizations mutates into strategic or values arguments. Values and strategic arguments are played out through people and personalities. Corporate characters are alternately heroes, knaves, wizards, and fools. There’s often a fine line between strong and powerful leaders and personality cults. If you think the most important arguments going on in your organization revolve around particular individuals and their unusual mix of style and substance, watch out.

But that affirms one of the great virtues of the question: Are you having the kind of most important argument you want your organization to have? Are you having the right kind of arguments in general? Are your arguments illuminating the path forward or providing the organizations with even better rationalizations and excuses for inaction?

And if you’re not having the right kind of important arguments, then just how much is consensus and alignment really worth?

The AFCOM Data Center World Spring 2013 conference will bring together data center professionals in a dialogue about real-world events and needs. In response to feedback from data center and facilities management professionals, new AFCOM President and Data Center World Chairman Tom Roberts has put together an educational program of more than 60 sessions that addresses topics such as disaster recovery, cloud, management, data protection, data center design, among other areas.

Slated for April 28 – May 3, 2013 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, thought leaders and subject matter experts from across the industry will host the educational sessions and make presentations that will address those issues.

Brian Janous
Microsoft

Brian Janous, Utility Architect, Data Center Advanced Development, Microsoft, will deliver the keynote address, “Commoditization of the Cloud: Ensuring Sustainability and Resiliency for Data Centers,” which will focus on how data center operators must become well versed in the dynamics of commodity markets for power, water, carbon and materials and develop strategies to mitigate the long-term impacts on operating costs.

Other session topics and speakers include:

Avoiding Data Center Disasters: What Professionals Need to Know
James Nelson, President BCS & Chairperson ICOR
The International Consortium for Organizational Service (ICOR)

Finding the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
Paul Schlattman, VP Mission Critical Facilities
Environmental Systems Design, Inc. (ESD)

Impact and Learning from Hurricane Sandy (Panel Discussion)
Donna Manley, IT Senior Director
President AFCOM Midlantic Chapter, DCI Board Member, University of Pennsylvania
Alex Delgado, Global Operations and Data Center Manager
International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF)

The Future of Disaster Recovery
Pete Manca, President & CEO, Egenera

Building IT Resilience: Why Systems and Data Need Full Protection
Ralph Wynn, Sr Manager, Product Marketing
FalconStor

Does Your Cloud Really Need Its Own Data Center? (Panel Discussion)
Margaret Dawson, Vice President of Product Marketing & Cloud Evangelist
HP Cloud Services
Mark Thiele, EVP of Data Center Technologies
Switch

Intelligent Modular Design and Build–A Case Study
Martin Olsen, Vice President
Active Power
Dave Rotheroe, Senior Technologist, Global Data Center Services
HP IT

See full program on Data Center World website.

Increased Roundtables, Unconference Sessions

This year, there’s more open roundtable discussions on tap, focused on providing practical, real-life solutions organized around specific topics including disaster recovery/business continuity, energy efficiency rebates, DCIM, and data center builds.

Unconference Sessions, which are educational sessions organized for attendees from distinct industries, will be available for a variety of areas including health care, education, government, colocation and finance. Unconference meetings allow for peers to share best practices, benchmarks, and provide problem identification and resolution. Subject matter experts from each industry segment are available for Q&A and networking.

There’s also opportunities to network with peers at a variety of venues during the conference. On the expo floor, there’s the chance to demo, discuss and see the latest in data center and facilities management technology.

Data Center World is both an educational conference and an expo for data center and facilities management professionals, which provides real-world solutions, vendor-neutral education, peer-to-peer networking and access to technology service providers. The optional tutorials and virtual data center tours offer an added in-depth experience for areas of particular interest.

For more information and registration, see the Data Center World website.

As we see more and more 8-inch or under tablets produced for all sorts of demographics, the overall demand for those tablets will grow in the coming years. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the 2013 forecast for the worldwide tablet market has increased to 190.9 million units, which is up from its previous 172.4 million units. In fact, research analyst Jitesh Ubrani believes that “one in every two tablets shipped this quarter was below 8 inches in screen size. And in terms of shipments, we expect smaller tablets to continue growing in 2013 and beyond” .

Naturally Android manufacturers were quick to realize the unique niche market and are currently leading the way in terms of overall market share compared to competitors. The IDC believes that Android-based tablets will reach a peak market share of 48.8% for 2013, followed by Apple at 46% and Windows RT-based tablets after that. Of course as the years go by, both Android and Apple-based tablets will see their market shares drop slightly to 46% and 43.5% in 2017, respectively; while Windows-based tablets are expected to grow to 7.4% in 2017 which is significant and all– but probably not going to worry too many people very much.

source: IDC

Come comment on this article: Smaller tablets becoming all the rage and expected to grow worldwide, so sez the IDC

Brian Sauvigne has joined Macquarie Capital as a Managing Director in its Financial Sponsors Group, based in New York. He was previously Head of Corporate Development at Morgan Stanley.

PRESS RELEASE
Macquarie Group (Macquarie) (ASX: MQG; ADR: MQBKY) today announced that Brian Sauvigne joined Macquarie Capital as a Managing Director in its Financial Sponsors Group, based in New York.

Mr. Sauvigne joins Macquarie with a unique scope of experience working with financial sponsors. He was most recently Head of Corporate Development at Morgan Stanley and was responsible for its global corporate mergers and acquisitions activities. He also worked in the firm’s Financial Sponsors Group, where he was involved in a number of equity, debt, and mergers and acquisition transactions. He was previously a consultant at McKinsey, where he provided senior-level strategic advice to a number of financial sponsors and corporate clients.

Mr. Sauvigne has an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Columbia University.

He joins following the appointments of Jorge Mora as US Head of Financial Sponsors and William Baumgart, Managing Directing in Financial Sponsors, in August 2011.

Jorge Mora, Macquarie Capital’s US Head of Financial Sponsors, said: “We continue to grow our business with the financial sponsor community. Brian’s transactional experience and deep relationships across the community is well matched to the needs of our clients, and his consulting background brings an additional dimension of expertise. His appointment adds significantly to our resources and capabilities.”

Year-to-date in the US, Macquarie has committed more than $550 million in equity, preferred equity and mezzanine debt towards client transactions, and underwritten more than $8.5 billion in debt. Recently, the firm advised a number of financial sponsor clients and their portfolio companies, and provided financing solutions to support their strategic goals. Highlighted transactions include:

· Advisor to Kelso on PSAV’s acquisition of Swank Audio Visuals, investing equity and arranging $495 million of senior secured credit facilities

· Joint lead arranger and joint bookrunner on the $450 million financing in support of Platinum Equity’s acquisition of Caterpillar Logistics Services

· Joint lead arranger and joint bookrunner on the $1.5 billion financing in support of Blackstone’s $2.0 billion acquisition of Vivint, Inc.

About Macquarie
Macquarie Group (Macquarie) is a global provider of banking, financial, advisory, investment and funds management services. Macquarie’s main business focus is making returns by providing a diversified range of services to clients. Macquarie acts on behalf of institutional, corporate and retail clients and counterparties around the world. Founded in 1969, Macquarie operates in more than 70 office locations in 28 countries. Macquarie employs approximately 13,400 people and has assets under management of over $US353 billion (as of September 31, 2012).

The post Macquarie Group Adds Brian Sauvigne as MD appeared first on peHUB.

Endgame Inc., a provider of cyber security software, has closed on $23 million in Series B equity financing. The money will be used to expand the company’s customer base. Paladin Capital Group led the round, with participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and TechOperators.

PRESS RELEASE
Endgame, Inc., a leading provider of battle-tested cyber security solutions, announced today that it has closed a $23 million Series B equity financing to fund growth in its existing federal customer base as well as expansion into the commercial market.

Led by new investor Paladin Capital Group, a multi-stage private equity firm providing capital and strategic guidance to growing companies, the Series B includes participation from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and TechOperators. Lt. General (Ret) Kenneth A. Minihan, former Director of the National Security Agency and Managing Director at Paladin, will join the Endgame Board of Directors.

“The cyber domain will be increasingly important across all dimensions of national power – military, economic, and informational,” said Lt. General Minihan. “Endgame’s revolutionary technology allows its customers to use intelligence seamlessly to gain situational awareness and support their end-to-end network operations.”

As part of its expansion, Endgame has recruited several new executives to the company’s management team, including: Nathaniel Fick, who joined as CEO in November, replacing Chris Rouland who remains a Founder and board member of the company; Niloofar Howe, who joined as Chief Strategy Officer to lead the company’s efforts in market and product strategy, as well as business and corporate development; and Matt Georgy, who joined Endgame as CTO after a decorated career as a senior executive at the Department of Defense supporting all aspects of computer network operations. Endgame’s new Chairman of the Board, Christopher Darby, has deep expertise in the intelligence space as the current President and CEO of In-Q-Tel, the independent strategic investment firm supporting the missions of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

“The cyber needs of federal and commercial entities are converging as states look beyond targeting other states to target private companies, and national security thinking must increasingly account for private infrastructure,” said Nate Fick, CEO of Endgame. “I’m excited about leveraging the solutions and technology that our mission partners depend on to help businesses with comprehensive command and control of their network operations.”

About Endgame

Endgame’s cyber operations platform provides real-time command and control, analytics, data visualization and knowledge discovery capabilities that support safety and security in cyberspace by revolutionizing the detection and mitigation of cyber-threats. Founded in 2008, Endgame is backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, Columbia Capital and Paladin Capital Group. The company has offices in Northern Virginia, Maryland, San Antonio, and Atlanta. For more information, please visit http://www.endgame.com.

About Paladin Capital Group
Paladin Capital Group is a leading multi-stage private equity firm providing capital and strategic guidance to growing companies in the IT, telecommunications and alternative energy sectors. The firm focuses on companies with products and services that are “dual use” in nature, serving both commercial and government customers. Paladin has over $950 million dollars of committed capital across multiple funds and has invested in over 50 portfolio companies.

The post Endgame Closes on $23M for Cyber Security appeared first on peHUB.

The Russian International New Agency (RIA Novosti) is reporting that three “killer” dolphins have escaped from their Ukranian handlers. The mammals were engaged in training exercises when they took off for open water.

The publication quoted a former Soviet naval anti-sabotage officer as saying the dolphins probably took in search of mates. The officer stated that it isn’t uncommon for the dolphins to take off during mating season, but that they come back to their handlers “in a week or so.”

The Ukrainian dolphins were being trained to attack (enemy) swimmers and to detect mines. In a statement that invokes the likes of Austin Powers villain Dr. Evil, an unnamed source told RIA Novosti that the dolphins were being trained to use “special knives” and “pistols fixed to their heads. Obviously, that throws the entire report into doubt, but if true it could mean some of the ocean’s smartest animals could soon have the firepower to defend their territory.

The U.S. and Soviet navies began training dolphins in the 60s and 70s. When the U.S.S.R. fell, the dolphin training program was transferred to the Ukrainian Navy, which continued training the mammals for civilian purposes, but restarted military training for the animals in 2012.

Multiven has accused Cisco of espionage, claiming that the networking giant stole thousands of its files.

The Zurich-based IT services company has had a long and often fractious relationship with Cisco. It has sued the networking giant repeatedly – in the U.S. in 2008 and in Switzerland last year – claiming that Cisco’s bundling of network maintenance service plans amounted to an abuse of monopoly. So far, the suits have proven unsuccessful. Cisco also countersued, claiming Multiven CEO Peter Alfred-Adekeye (a former Cisco employee) had broken into its systems and stolen software. Alfred-Adekeye was even arrested at one point, which he claimed was all Cisco’s doing (Cisco denied involvement).

And now Multiven has filed complaints with both the U.S. Department of Justice and the Swiss Cybercrime Coordination Unit, alleging “the theft of thousands of its proprietary and copyrighted data files from its knowledge base, mysolvr.com”. Multiven also claims that this alleged unlawful access “put undue load on Multiven’s server resulting in a degraded service for its legitimate users and customers”.

According to Multiven, the files were stolen using “automated cyber scraping software”, and an internal investigation traced the attack back to IP addresses assigned to Cisco over in California. Customer and user passwords were apparently not taken.

Multiven is looking for a public apology from Cisco, with a deadline of 5pm PT on March 29. If that’s not forthcoming, it says it will launch a civil suit. Here’s what Alfred-Adekeye had to say in a statement:

“Based on the fact that the source IP addresses of these systematic and premeditated theft of Multiven’s intellectual property by Cisco Systems originated from Cisco’s headquarters in San Jose, California, it is clear that Cisco CEO John T. Chambers and General Counsel Mark Chandler or people under their control instigated these thefts. Per standard operating procedure, we have reported these breaches to law enforcement but we will refrain from seeking a civil redress if Cisco issues a public apology immediately and the assurance that none of the stolen data has been used for its advantage and it has now all been deleted.”

I’ve asked Cisco for comment on the allegations and will add it in as soon as I receive it.

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Those of you with a U.S. zip code will be able to buy the HTC One Developer Edition around the same time the standard HTC One is released in the U.S. The Developer Edition features an unlocked SIM and bootloader right out of the box, but everything else is the same. As far as radio frequencies, you get HSPA/WCDMA: 850/1900/2100 MHz, GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, and LTE: 700/850/AWS/1900 MHz (US). Unfortunately you won’t be able to grab this one on contract as it will run you $649 and quantities will be limited.

source: HTC

Come comment on this article: HTC One Developer Edition with unlocked SIM and bootloader coming soon

It appears that Facebook has made a small tweak as a part of the new news feed, which is currently in the middle of a slow, delicate rollout.

It appears that Facebook is putting an obstacle between users and their ability to unlike pages that they follow. Well, Facebook hasn’t really added anything – they’ve removed a shortcut which pretty much amounts to the same result.

Anyway, users of the new news feed are no longer given the option to unlike a page directly after hiding one of the page’s post inside the news feed.

After hiding a post in the old new feed, here’s what it looks like:

Now, here’s what it looks like with the new news feed:

Notice that the unlike link is gone?

Now, if a user wants to unlike a page (and they very well might, since they’re hiding posts from that page), they’ll have to visit the page first and unlike it from there.

This could simply be an accidental removal – the new news feed is still in beta. But if we assume that Facebook has done this purposefully and permanently, it suggests that Facebook is doing all they can to keep people liking things. Because without all of those likes, how would Facebook know anything about users for targeting purposes? Sure, a user can hide a page’s posts – but if that like remains then Facebook retains that specific crumb of data. And every little crumb matters.

As Inside Facebook points out, this could also lead to page owners seeing less reach from their posts, even though likes seem to be staying stable or even increasing.

I’ve reached out to Facebook and will update when I hear back.

Is Google starting to truly exert its influence into upcoming Motorola devices? It sure appears to be the case as a new mystery phone has surfaced for our viewing pleasure. With specs that clearly identify it as a potential high-end phone, the mysterious XT912A features some goodies including a quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro chip, 2 gigs of RAM and a solid 2,200mAh battery. Seeing that this device looks like it has a lightly-customized build of Android, it’s no surprise that most folks are expecting the XT912A smartphone to be the rumored “X” phone that we’ve been hearing about more and more lately— but you may want to calm your expectations down a bit, and for good reason. The XT912A seen above seems to feature what is a 4.7-inch 720p display, while the “X” phone is expected to have anything from a 4.7-inch screen to a 5-inch display, but with a full 1080p display.

Regardless of if this is truly the rumored “X” phone or not, it appears that Google is certainly intent on making some noise in the smartphone wars— and for good reason too.

source: Tinhte
via: pocketnow

Come comment on this article: Motorola XT912A smartphone gets leaked, gives indication it’s not the rumored “X” phone… for now at least

After CISPA returned in February, privacy advocates started a “We The People” petition asking the White House to stand against the controversial legislation. It’s been a month since the petition was created, and advocates are one step closer to a response.

The “Stop CISPA” petition on the We The People petition site has crosses the recently instated 100,000 threshold required for a response from the Obama administration. The petition asks the administration to reject CISPA for its overly broad language:

CISPA is about information sharing. It creates broad legal exemptions that allow the government to share “cyber threat intelligence” with private companies, and companies to share “cyber threat information” with the government, for the purposes of enhancing cybersecurity. The problems arise from the definitions of these terms, especially when it comes to companies sharing data with the feds.

It will be interesting to see if, and how, the administration responds to this petition. President Obama has already signed an executive order that accomplishes what CISPA aims to do without the civil liberty violations. The President acknowledged, however, that an executive order isn’t enough and called upon Congress to pass cybersecurity legislation.

That’s going to be the hard part, though, as Congress proved last year that it can’t agree on cybersecurity measures. Privacy advocates may not even have to bother the White House if the House and Senate can’t come to any sort of agreement. Even if they do, the White House promised to stand against CISPA last year. Unless something changes, the White House will stand against CISPA again.

[h/t: TechDirt]

Vintage automobiles all seem to have their own unique personalities. Some are compliant, others finicky and yet there are those who don’t cooperate at all. In the case of Jim Jones and his 22-year journey with his 1957 Jaguar Mark 1, the story simply unfolds as a great relationship between a willful owner and an old car that just yearned to be restored. Check it out after the jump.

Source: chromjuwelen.com

The Empire State Building stands out as a beacon of light in a darkened Manhattan landscape during the widespread power outages following Superstorm Sandy. (Photo by David Shankbone via Wikimedia Commons).

NEW YORK – Keep your diesel supplier close, and your employees closer. These were among the “lessons learned” from Superstorm Sandy, according to data center and emergency readiness experts at yesterday’s Datacenter Dynamics Converged conference at the Marriott Marquis, which examined the epic storm’s impact on the industry and the city.

The scope of Sandy has altered disaster planning for many data centers, which now must consider how to manage regional events in which travel may be limited across large areas due to fallen trees and gasoline shortages, restricting the movement of staff and supplies. Yesterday’s panel also raised tough questions about New York’s ability to improve its power infrastructure, as well as the role of city policies governing the placement of diesel fuel storage tanks and electrical switchgear.

A clear theme emerged: Data center operators must expand the scope of their disaster plans to adapt to larger and more intense storms, weighing contingencies that previously seemed unlikely. The power, size and unusual storm track for Sandy proved to be a deadly combination, bringing death and destruction  on an unparalleled scale.

Superstorm Sandy caused $19 billion of damage in New York City, leaving more than 900,000 employees out of work at least temporarily, according to Tokumbo Shobowale, the Chief Business Operations Officer for New York. Shobowale said the storm has led FEMA to redraw the storm surge maps and flood zones for the city.

“We have 200 million square feet of commercial space in the flood plain now,’ said Shobowale, who said the city struggled to adapt to unprecedented flooding that damaged critical infrastructure for transit, telecommunications and power. “A lot of our response was figured out on the fly. Now that experience allows you to create standard operating procedures for next time.”

Focus on Fuel and Personnel

The data center industry has begin that process in earnest. New York area facilities experienced both direct and indirect impacts from Sandy. A handful of data centers in the financial district were knocked offline as the storm surge flooded basements housing critical equipment. Nearly all of lower Manhattan was left without power when ConEd was forced to shut down key parts of the power grid, forcing major carrier hotels and data centers to operate on backup generators for three to seven days. Facilities in New Jersey also faced local power outages and road closures, as roads fell across streets and power lines.

Planning ahead is more important than ever, as data centers will need to consider padding their inventories to ride out longer periods in which they must operate independently.

“If you didn’t have your service providers and employees on-site at the time of the storm, they weren’t going to get there,” said Paul Hines, VP of Operations and Engineering at Sentinel Data Centers, which has a data center in central New Jersey. “That’s affected our planning.” That includes keeping more spare parts at the facility, bringing more staff on-site and additional advance planning with maintenance contracts and fuel suppliers.

Several questions for the panel focused on the availability of diesel fuel for emergency backup generators, which was a key concern in the storm’s aftermath. Data center providers typically arrange priority contracts with fuel suppliers. But what happens when a regional disaster tests supply and creates dueling priorities?

Providers in New Jersey reported no problems finding fuel, although some had to go outside the region to ensure a continuous supply. “We had 10 days of fuel, and contracts with two fuel suppliers” said Hines. “You also have to make sure your fuel suppliers can operate with no power, and have gravity-fed systems. We’ve now found an out-of-region supplier as well. But that doesn’t solve the problem of access to facilities.”

That was also a pressing problem in Manhattan, where flooding made some roads impassable. Building owners worked with city officials to ensure the availability of telecom services, for example. One of the city’s largest data hubs, 111 8th Avenue, had a high priority because the building also houses a hospital.

The Role of the City

Audience members at DatacenterDynamics Converged also pressed Shobowale about the city’s response to Sandy, especially the vulnerability of the utility grid. One questioner noted the failure of a major ConEd substation built alongside the East River.

Smart grid company Silver Spring Network’s long awaited IPO is finally here. On Tuesday night the company priced its IPO at the midpoint of its planned range, at $17 per share, and also made 4.75 million shares available, which is 1 million shares more than the company had originally planned. Silver Spring will raise $81 million in the process.

Selling more shares than expected is good news, as it means that the company had more interest than expected from investors. Silver Spring will start trading on Wednesday morning on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SSNI.

The IPO has been over a year and a half in the making, the company first filed to go public back in the Summer of 2011. Back then the maximum IPO was listed as $150 million. Along with the debut today, longtime investor Foundation Capital also plans to purchase $12 million worth of stock at the IPO price in a private placement.

Silver Spring sells wireless networks and smart meters to utilities that can be used to run power grids more efficiently and offer news types of grid services. The company is increasingly looking to sell software and services, and not just infrastructure, to help it boost its margins.

The IPO is one of just a few that has come from a smart grid startup backed by venture capitalists. Foundation Capital owned 32.7 percent before the IPO, while Kleiner Perkins owned 15.6 percent before the IPO.

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Judge Judy may be known for her stern demeanor when deciding court cases, but now America’s most famous judge might find herself on the other side of the bench.

TMZ is reporting that Judge Judy has been sued by a woman named Patric Jones over, of all things, dishes. Jones alleges that her ex-husband, Randy Douthit, a producer on Judge Judy’s TV program, sold the couple’s expensive China to Judge Judy during the divorce process.

Jones estimated that the fine china is work over $500,000, but alleges that Douthit sold the dishes to Judge Judy for a tenth of that price. She alleges that the sale was a revenge plot against her by the judge and Douthit. The lawsuit is asking for the dishes or Jones’ full estimated price for the dishes. Punitive damages have also been tacked on.

The video below shows a short interview with Jones’ lawyer, who was accosted by a TMZ cameraman:

Not that there was a lot of doubt but the Pivotal Initiative spin-off of VMware and EMC, has now officially spun off and will likely go public, according to EMC CEO and Chairman Joe Tucci, speaking at an investors event in New York.

EMC chairman and CEO Joe Tucci

Pivotal is 60 percent owned by EMC, 31 percent VMWare with about 1250 employees in $300 million in revenue, Tucci said. As has been reported, EMC contributed Pivotal Labs, Greenplum and VMware ponied up Cloud Foundry, Spring and Cetas.

“it’s not the riskiest thing we’ve ever done with an experienced executive, Paul Maritz, taking charge,” Tucci said.

Structure 2011: Paul Maritz – CEO, VMware

Maritz is the former CEO of VMWare, and was a long time top executive at Microsoft. Maritz will speak next week at GigaOM’s Structure: Data event in New York City. Maritz is on the agenda later today and will speak more about Pivotal.

“We have a great opportunity to bring EMC and VMware and Pivotal together and create great value for customers who want to deal with a few strategic suppliers,” Tucci said.  But he also emphasized choice and flexibility. “If VMware wants to do something in storage that EMC might not like, they can do it.”

This post will be updated throughout the morning.

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