Virtualization. In talking about how under-utilized data center servers are, and in appearing to limiting himself to less than state-of-the-art facilities, Glanz failed to notice how prevalent virtualization is becoming, which enables an organization to set up numerous “virtual servers” inside a physical server — which, in the process, results in much higher utilization.  ”[V]irtualized systems can be easily run at greater than 50% utilization rates, and cloud systems at greater than 70%,” writes Clive Longbottom in SearchDataCenter.

“[I]n many cases the physical “server” doesn’t even exist since everyone doing web at scale makes extensive use of virtualization, either by virtualizing at the OS level and running multiple virtual machines (in which case, yes, perhaps that one machine is bigger than a desktop, but it runs several actual server processes in it) or distributing the processing and storage at a more fine-grained level,” writes Diego Doval in his critique of the New York Times piece. “There’s no longer a 1-1 correlation between “server” and “machine,” and, increasingly, “servers” are being replaced by services.”

“Although the article mentions virtualization and the cloud as possible solutions to improve power utilization, VMware is not mentioned,” agrees Dan Woods in Forbes‘ critique of the piece. “If the reporter talked to VMware or visited their web site, he would have found massive amounts of material that documents how thousands of data centers are using virtualization to increase server utilization.”

Storage. Similarly, Glanz appeared to not be aware of advances in storage technology, even though some of them are taking place in the very data centers he lambasted in his articles. In Prineville, Ore., for example, not all that far from the Quincy, Wash., data centers he criticized, Facebook is working on designing its own storage to eliminate unnecessary parts, as well as setting up low-cost slow-access storage that is spun down most of the time.

Facebook — which does this research precisely because of the economies of scale in its massive data centers — is making similar advances in servers. Moreover, the company’s OpenCompute initiative is releasing all these advances to the computer industry in general to help it take advantage of them, too.

In addition, Glanz focused on the “spinning disks” of the storage systems, apparently not realizing that increasingly organizations like eBay are moving to solid-state “flash” storage technology that use much less power.

Also, storage just isn’t as big a deal as it used to be and as the story makes out. “A Mr Burton from EMC lets slip that the NYSE ‘produces up to 2,000 gigabytes of data per day that must be stored for years’,” reports Ian Bitterlin of Data Center Dynamics in its critique of the New York Times piece. “A big deal?  No, not really, since a 2TB (2,000 gigabytes) hard-drive costs $200 – less than a Wall Street trader spends on lunch!”

Disaster recovery. Glanz also criticized data centers for redundancy — particularly their having diesel generators on-site to deal with power failures — apparently not realizing that such redundancy is necessary to make sure the data centers stay up.

And yet, even with all this redundancy, there have been a number of well-publicized data center failures in recent months caused by events as mundane as a thunderstorm. Such outages can cost up to $200,000 per hour for a single company — and a data center such as Amazon’s can service multiple companies. If anything, one might argue that the costs of downtime require more redundancy, not less.

Of course it’s important to ensure that data centers are making efficient use of power, but it’s also important to understand the context.

Disaster recovery?

Yep. A new data center, Granite Block Global Data Center Inc., which is intended to provide application hosting, colocation and disaster recovery services to businesses in the financial services, healthcare and high technology industries, has opened up in a former textile mill in the venerable Massachusetts city.

And “Granite Block” isn’t just a colorful New England name. The walls of the facility are made of four-foot-thick solid granite, which the company says is virtually impenetrable.

Repurposing former industrial facilities into data centers has been an increasing trend in the past few years. Companies and cities looking for data center facilities are realizing that their business-convenient downtowns are often already the home of large, frequently empty, buildings. And not only do the buildings typically have a great deal of power capacity but companies can often get tax breaks for investing in what are considered distressed urban areas.  Around the world, data centers are now moving into paper mills, tanneries, department stores, warehouses, and even churches and bomb shelters.

Now a 163,000-sq. ft. former textile mill in Fall River — a city previously famous for being the home of accused ax murderer Lizzie Borden — is joining them, with Granite Block investing $5 million in the project, amid hopes that other abandoned textile mills in the New England area could serve the same purpose. Open Cape, a fiber company, has already said it intends to move into the facility — which will also give other tenants an additional connectivity option.

In addition to making use of the large power capacity the building already has, Granite Block intends to install wind turbines for energy and 400-foot artisan wells for geothermal cooling. The company has also added two 2-megawatt generators and says it has enough fuel on-site to run them for six days.

The facility is starting with 20 jobs, but could bring up to 70 jobs to the area, as well as visitors. A similar data center in Boston, which is just 40,000 square feet, brings in 500 to 700 visitors monthly, meaning the Fall River site could see three times that amount, said Granite Block President Roland Patenaude.