It seems these days we are driven by numbers, numbers of all kinds and impacting us in any number of ways. Is your number the number of votes it will take to elect a new president come November (less than 40 days away)? Or is it about model numbers – the new iPhone 5 for example, which launched this week resulting in what is now being called “iPhone Scuffgate”? Since I’m in the middle of refinancing, the number that is most important to me at the moment is the prime rate number, which continues to drop to record lows — creating a positive impact for me.

You’ve probably heard about Google (which, turned 14 yesterday — a number important to them, I’m sure) unveiling its “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” No? Try it: Type in the Google search box the name of a celebrity, plus the phrase “Bacon Number” (without the quotation marks) and — well, see for yourself.

For many, there is another number that is transforming the business world. The top 3 trends in technology, namely mobility, cloud computing and big data. Is your business ready for the revolution that is upon us? Read on as to the number of ways these trends are influencing business planning for the future:

• The Four Phases Of Enterprise Mobility
• Six Cloud Trends Driving Workers Out Of The Office
• What Executives Don’t Understand About Big Data
• One number to rule them all: What smartphones miss today
• Computer power and Big Data
• Cloud Computing Enables Business Scalability And Flexibility

Oh, and finally, if you are looking for the right partner to implement the right IT Infrastructure strategy to address these top 3 technology trends, then look no further. Chat with us to get expert counsel on the right product solutions to meet your needs.

This week there was a lot of chatter on our social media channels on green data centers after the New York Times published a report that kept many of us awake at night. This report left many consumed with guilt and remorse at the idea that most data centers, by design, consume vast amounts of electricity from the grid.

Spending on cloud infrastructure has doubled to $4 trillion since 2005 and with the rise of big data, energy efficiency and environmental issues are becoming significant factors that add to the purchasing equation. More and more users demand almost immediate response times and reduced latency, putting many businesses at risk if they fail to meet the expectations. This high maintenance relationship leaves us with the need to find the right infrastructure; one that is both reliable and consistent, while keeping environmental considerations in mind.

Understanding power consumption and addressing the growing need for green data center services appears to be a challenge, however, feeling guilty is never part of the solution – acting smart and educating oneself is part of it.

Smart companies such as Internap are constantly leading the way in innovation by implementing leaner technologies that process power and energy sources with sensitivity. Since it’s more and more difficult to find blameless activities these days, I recommend you become more demanding with your data providers and learn more about their sustainable construction practices.

We are very open and forward about ours. After all, two of Internap’s data centers have been recently awarded with “green” accolades. The Dallas data center received a LEED Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED is one of the primary rating systems for the design, construction and operation of energy-efficient buildings. A Gold certification is given for buildings that are designed and constructed with sustainable concepts and practices that substantially reduce the building’s impact on the environment. It was also the First data center in Texas to receive a Green Globes Certification following a detailed review process by the Green Building Initiative (GBI). Green Globes helps commercial building owners advance environmental performance and sustainability through a rigorous online assessment, comprehensive site visit, and an evaluation by an independent, third party evaluator.

Other encouraging news comes from Internap’s Santa Clara data center which ranked 65 on the InformationWeek 500 List of Top Technology Innovators for green achievements. In the construction of its Santa Clara data center, Internap implemented cutting-edge efficiency practices that deliver major operational benefits and align with its corporate commitment to utilize green data center design techniques, wherever possible, in both new and expansion projects. The 36,000 square-foot Santa Clara facility houses a variety of sustainable elements, including green power, renewable energy becoming the first commercial data center in the U.S. and the first non-governmental building in California to receive the Green Building Initiative’s Green Globe® certification, a green building assessment and rating system. Earlier this year, the data center was also awarded LEED Silver certification and received Silicon Valley Power’s 2012 Energy Innovator Award. These initiatives, among others, reflect our approach to innovation and commitment to sustainable construction practices and significant reductions in energy.

Next time you lose sleep over how environmentally friendly you really are, think beyond composting and recycling. Learn how your data is hosted and how it is managed.

The third trend on our list for content owners is the rise of over-the-top (OTT) pure plays (see posts one and two in this series to catch up if you are just joining). Over-the-top pure plays such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Instant and CinemaNow have blossomed, and as a result the floodgates have opened for new content providers.  Even cable channels aren’t immune to the turn toward alternate distribution channels and ever-broadening of content interests. In the first quarter of 2012, the average audience for 11 of the 15 most popular cable channels fell from a year earlier.

The economics of this shift threaten traditional distribution models as well as the content providers that support them, suggesting that OTT is cannibalizing its premium programming. In response, large content owners are pulling their most valuable assets from the OTT provider lineups, unless subscribers can prove they’ve “paid” for traditional cable or satellite packages. OTT providers’ are responding in kind by licensing and deploying their own content. Netflix recently said it will spend as much as 15% of its content acquisition budget on original streaming content like David Fincher’s House of Cards and Lilyhammer, a Norwegian-produced program.

How are content owners responding?

Content owners are conducting systematic content audits, segmenting titles by age, shelf life, viewer demographics and personas. Many are also beginning to make their entire library of content available online (across multiple devices) to drive consumption and further understand their customers’ viewing tendencies. Marginal costs for adding a title to a website library is near zero due to ever-decreasing storage and bandwidth costs. Additionally, content that may seem outmoded or stale can unexpectedly drive significant traffic or index towards uniquely valuable audiences. Once armed with an understanding of viewing frequencies and other consumption data, content owners can better market broader distribution through an OTT or other online venue.

As viewers increasingly turn to OTT for their favorite programming, the need for additional storage and methods to optimize online delivery becomes critical. Utility cloud computing and storage services working in tandem with optimized connectivity and content delivery network capability can provide cost-effective ways to store and deliver the assets of traditional publishers, online gaming outlets and other entertainment and media companies. Established OTT vendors who are experimenting with a number of business models are also benefiting from outsourced data center services that can hybridize infrastructure across hosting and colocation platforms to increase performance, add functionality and improve reliability relative to on-premise options.

Next, we’ll discuss how mobile is hastening the demise of the content schedule and how content owners are responding.

To learn more, download the complete white paper, Five Trends to Watch for Content Owners in 2013.

All eyes in the Formula One world will be on Singapore this weekend for the 2012 Singtel Singapore Grand Prix. My F1 insiders tell me that this is truly the most anticipated race of the year. Monaco is always number one in the press, but Singapore is number one with the in-crowd. Night racing on the downtown streets of Singapore? Yes, please! Even the most “been-there, done-that” F1 insider can’t resist the lure of Singapore.

Sahara Force India’s, Paul Di Resta and Nico Hülkenberg both have experience in Singapore with Paul having a tremendous finish in 2011 gaining the team eight precious points. Nico recently commented on Sahara Force India TV that this race requires a completely different approach with it being the toughest race of the year – physically and mentally.

Race results depend on performance, reliability and speed – all concepts that resonate deeply here at Internap. With a local office in Singapore and 10 years in the global hosting business powering top Internet applications and websites, we’ve developed the best infrastructure approach in Asia. The entire F1 community looks forward to this race and we at Internap look forward to a race on our semi-home turf.

Now that I think about it, our turf is actually the entire Internet. Because of our Managed Internet Route Optimizer (MIRO) technology, we give you a performance boost when routing your IP traffic across the globe. Kind of like DRS for F1 – increasing speed to facilitate passing.

So I am ready to experience my next Grand Prix thanks to the gentlemen at SPEED – Bob Varsha, David Hobbs and Steve Matchett – who I affectionately refer to as the F1 trifecta. They will guide me through the circuit, the driver lineup and the finer points of pit stop strategy. Join me this weekend for a Grand Prix unlike any other and as Bob likes to say at the start of every race – here come the lights, turn up the volume!

Not surprisingly, there continues to be a growing library of online games. What may be surprising, however, is the rate of its growth — how quickly and how much. According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research, the global gaming market was worth $70.5 billion in 2011 and is expected to reach $117.9 billion by 2015. Market research firm eMarketer, recently reported that there will be approximately 76.5 million social gamers in the U.S. by the end of 2012, of which 48% will be social network users.

In the Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) category, even with limited amounts of time, many U.S. gamers migrate from one new MMOG to the next, although Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft has managed to keep 10.5 million subscribers and a top spot in the U.S. for years. In fact, there is much hype about the company’s highly-anticipated fourth expansion of the world’s most popular subscription-based MMO role-playing game. The release of World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria is scheduled for next week – with official launch parties planned, literally, all around the world. Here are some other articles containing staggering stats about the gaming industry:

• Asia Leads The Way In Global Online Gaming Trends
• IW 500 Data Shows How IT Rules Have Changed
• Wing Commander mastermind Chris Roberts returns with Cloud Imperium Games
• Video blog: IT Infrastructure for online gaming
• The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Electronic Arts, Facebook, Zynga, Arris Group and Google
• Despite Bans Around the Globe, Online Gambling and Betting Generated More Money Than Hollywood in 2011

Looking for an IT Infrastructure to support your worlds or realms? Check out the instant replay of our recent webinar: Online Gaming Infrastructure Trends — Capitalizing on a growing industry. Or read the Online Gaming Industry Handbook Online Gaming Industry Handbook for an in-depth look at this market today.

If you didn’t see it already, OpenStack announced its launch as an independent foundation dedicated to the care and feeding of its open source cloud operating system today, sloughing off its corporate skin and officially separating itself from one of its original founders (and some say, overly influential), Rackspace.

This is great news for OpenStack because it makes their commitment to an end-to-end open source model clear. All of the code for OpenStack is freely available under the Apache 2.0 license. Anyone can run it, build on it or submit changes back to the project. The trademark is now owned by the OpenStack Foundation, and the governance board looks to be transitioning towards a more diverse collection of advisors.

Internap was one of the first service providers to throw its support behind OpenStack because we saw that it could offer our customers a strong, open-source alternative to the proprietary cloud architectures that currently hold the lion’s share of the cloud OS market. Of course this support goes well beyond just selling our customers cloud services based on the OpenStack platform or being an OpenStack corporate sponsor. Our engineers have been active contributors to the Diablo, Essex and the upcoming Folsom releases (particularly with respect to networking and back office functions) to make OpenStack a better service across the board. In fact, of the over 100 companies that contributed to Essex, Internap ranked:

• 9th in “Employers with the most hackers”
• 10th in “Top reviewers by employer”
• 7th in “Top reviewers by employer” and “Top bugs fixed by employer” for Quantum (Networking)
• 6th in “Top lines changed by employer” and “Top bugs fixed by employer” for Swift (Storage)
• 5th in “Employers with the most hackers” for Swift
• 8th in “Top reviewers by employer” for Nova (Compute)
• 16th in “Top lines changed by employer” for Glance (Images)

In addition to the company contributions, several current Internap employees also made outstanding individual contributions:

• Armando Migliaccio was 2nd in “Developers with the most changed lines” for Nova and 6th for “Developers with the most changed lines” across all OpenStack projects
• Maru Newby was elected as a core developer for Quantum in recognition of his work on the project

As you can see, we clearly believe that investing in OpenStack is worthwhile. With transparency, independence and a robust community of like-minded developers, we expect that cloud services based on OpenStack can yield lower end-user cost, feature richness and great performance (we REALLY care about this one for it managed services ). 🙂

If you are just joining us, this is week two in a five-part series on trends for content owners in 2013. Last week I discussed how privacy concerns are threatening content consumption and preference sharing and how content owners are responding. Let’s get started with number two on the list: the rise of the multi-tablet household.

The rise of the multi-tablet household

Total tablet unit shipments rose an astounding 246% to 64 million in 2011 according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch equity research.* With an average selling price of around $500, this market generated $32 billion in revenue for retailers, device manufacturers and component suppliers. Analysts predict tablet shipments will reach 94 million by the end of 2012. According to Deloitte Consulting, growth in this still nascent market will be supported by households buying their second or third tablet. By the end of 2012, almost 5% of tablets will be owned by individuals or households that already own a tablet.

Beyond the fact that consumers are rapidly adopting tablet versions of their favorite magazines, games and other online content, tablet versions of online and print content are also giving publishers greater flexibility in their pricing models. In May 2011, The New Yorker launched its tablet version for $59 a year, simultaneously raising its print subscription by 77% to $69 per year. Condé Nast is also leveraging the advent of its tablet version to increase subscription pricing. Condé Nast CEO, Charles H. Townsend, said in 2010 that the company had been too “overtly dependent on advertising as the turbine that runs [its business].” Given that digital advertising has traditionally been sold at lower price points than print, the ability to raise subscription fees has become critical for some publishers.

Many publishers have duly noted that consumers are using tablets primarily for content consumption (e.g., browsing websites, reading news, playing online games) rather than content creation (e.g., writing blogs, posting videos, creating spreadsheet models). A recent Morgan Stanley AlphaWise survey of 8,200 consumers across the US, UK, France, Germany, China and Japan supports this assertion, revealing that content creation usage is much lower on tablets than on traditional PCs. In fact, tablet usage appears to be driving reductions in time spent on PCs for key content consumption tasks, but not for content creation actions.

To add another wrinkle, consumers use different types of tablets differently. Smaller devices are likely to be used differently than their 10-inch counterparts due to reduced processing power and mobility. Smaller devices may be used more frequently for eBook reading, mobile-as-Web browsing, email and photo sharing on-the-go. However, smaller tablets may be less useful for browsing full versions of websites, reviewing emails or presentations, analyzing data in spreadsheets or watching full-length video.

How are content owners responding?

From a customer perspective, it’s all about experience and convenience. They’re looking for content that is quick to load, always available and optimized for all of their devices. Digital publishers are turning to content delivery networks with multi-device transmuxing to help optimize single files for consumption through a wide variety of venues including Apple iPhone and iPad, Flash, Android and Silverlight devices. Content owners are also “tiering” titles across infrastructure platforms. New content with highly uncertain demand patterns is increasingly being launched in a public cloud environment. Should demand take off quickly, compute and storage resources are turned up in minutes to address increased traffic, and virtual servers that carry unsuccessful titles are quickly decommissioned to avoid unnecessary costs. Assets that have predictable demand patterns can reside in a physical server environment, either via colocation or managed hosting to avoid the bursting premiums inherent in almost every pure public cloud model. The payoff for successful tablet content strategy implementation can be huge. After years of low-margin, advertiser-supported revenue models, consumers are beginning to embrace online subscription pricing models. This increased acceptance is due in large part to the fact that tablets allow a portable, easy-to-view, highly-customizable medium for content consumption. With stickier customers and more subscription pricing power, multi-device content initiatives can pay for themselves in a few weeks.

Check back for trend three next week as I explore how over-the-top (OTT) pure plays like Netflix and Hulu are changing the content consumption landscape.

*2012- The year ahead: Year of the tablet shakeout; December 2011

We live in the age of information with anything you need to know literally at your fingertips via smartphone, tablet, laptop and more. With content accessible on a multitude of different devices and available on demand, content producers must stay ahead of the trends to make sure their media is at the ready in any form. Accomplishing this means putting the necessary IT Infrastructure in place to back it up. Over the next few weeks, I’ll explore five trends for content owners and how to support them. Let’s get started with number one: online privacy concerns threaten online content consumption and preference sharing.

Online privacy concerns threaten content consumption and preference sharing

What do unscented lotions, calcium and zinc supplements, large purses and bright-colored area rugs have in common? Sometime in the early 2000’s, statisticians at Target figured out that pregnant women tend to buy these items much more frequently than the shopping population in general. Like most large retailers, Target collects massive amounts of data on customer visits to its website and brick and mortar stores. “If you use a credit card or a coupon, or fill out a survey, or mail in a refund, or call the customer help line, or open an e-mail we’ve sent you, or visit our website, we’ll record it and link it to your Guest ID,” Andrew Pole, Group Manager at Target recently told the New York Times. “We want to know everything we can.” By deftly placing advertisements for diapers, cribs, car seats and infant formula in front of shoppers that are likely shopping for a new baby, Target has effectively beat its competitors to the punch and made millions.

The problem is, consumers increasingly see these tactics as not only invasive, but also downright creepy. In 2011, TRUSTe published a survey covering consumer privacy attitudes toward online behavioral advertising. In it, 94% of consumers said they considered online privacy important. Fifty-three percent said that it was an issue that they “thought about often.”

In a March 2012 report by PEW Research, two thirds of Internet users surveyed viewed online targeted advertising negatively. In the UK, where privacy issues and loss of personal data have been in the headlines, the percentage of consumers willing to have browsing activity monitored in order to receive targeted advertising has dropped dramatically, from 20% in 2009 to just 5% in 2010.

To add to consumers’ concerns about sharing personal data, security breach incidents are on the rise. In January, Amazon disclosed that hackers had cracked its customer database to steal some 24 million customer records. More than six million LinkedIn passwords were hacked and posted to a bulletin board in June. Justifiably, credit card and identify theft are consistently ranked among the top privacy concerns for online users. For 12 straight years, identity theft has ranked at the top of the US Federal Trade Commission’s annual list of top consumer complaints.

How are content owners responding?

Digital publishers that collect behavioral data from customers’ Internet usage, location data and other demographic information are addressing privacy concerns by providing clear opt-out control to consumers. Providing easy access to an information-collection preference on your site as well as links to external opt-out channels like the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) Self- Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising and the privacychoice.org opt-out network, builds consumer trust which drives content use and ultimately increases revenue. In fact, the TRUSTe survey revealed that more than half of consumers surveyed said they would be more likely to click through and buy from an advertiser or publisher that provides the option to opt out of online tracking and/or behavioral advertising.

Content owners are also working harder to protect sensitive customer data from theft, starting with their enterprise hosting infrastructure. Enterprises are putting controls in place to keep credit card information and personal information fully-separated from less sensitive data. They are also auditing their infrastructure vendors to determine whether they have proper data security certifications like PCI, SOC 2 and European Safe Harbor. At a more granular level, enterprises are looking closely at whether credit card numbers, email addresses, usernames and passwords are being properly encrypted while at rest and in flight. The LinkedIn hack clearly demonstrated the need for comprehensive encryption (e.g., hashing and salting) of customer data. Content owners, publishers and distributors are increasingly realizing that attention to online privacy details will keep them on good terms with their customers and help their online presence thrive.

Watch Drew McBath, Sr. Director, Product and Strategic Marketing at Internap, discuss how content owners are responding to online privacy concerns.

One of my childhood favorites said it best, “It’s not that easy being green.” Kermit the frog had it right, but we aren’t just referring to color.  In this case it means green sustainability; it means energy efficiency, and it means cutting-edge practices to deliver major operational benefits. Achieving these is no small task, especially for IT professionals trying to fuse green corporate objectives into their infrastructure. To make it easy on you, we’ve put together a short list of common practices to help you be more green.

1. Managing your racks

Often overlooked, this zero-cost action at the rack level can help provide cooling where it is most needed. Simply improving the cable management at the discharge of the server rack can help reduce recirculation. Placing higher density servers at low- or mid- level U’s can also help reduce re-circulation over the rack, especially if implemented with blanking panels. Improving overall air management allows cold air to be delivered more effectively to the server inlets.

2. Monitoring your power usage

Being able to understand your power consumption is critical to knowing if you are running at maximum efficiency. Branch circuit monitoring is one way to achieve this. With this solution a physical monitor is installed on your power circuit that provides reporting back to the network. With more visibility you can make tweaks to configurations, cabling, hot/cold aisle designs and ultimately control your environment so it performs that way you want.

3. Utilizing efficient equipment

According to Data Center Knowledge, purchasing servers is one of the most important factors in making data centers (and colocation data center investments) more cost-effective and energy-efficient. Fortunately, more energy-conscious processors are available to help lighten the draw on resources like power and cooling. By using more efficient chips, server processors are able to save more energy when equipment is idle and during server refresh cycles.  Additional components to increase airflow in the chassis and system settings to increase efficiency are also a part of newer servers. The federal government also has an Energy Star Program for servers, so equipment bearing this seal is approved for greater efficiency — in some cases consuming 54% less power than older models.

4. Partnering with green a data center provider

Finding a partner that is aligned with your goals is also a way to make sure green policies are reinforced.  Some of the accrediting organizations and seals to look for include LEED from the U.S. Green Building Council, Green Globes from the Green Building Initiative, Energy Star from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as standards set forth by ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers) or the Green Grid. Certifications awarded by these organizations are signs of a truly green initiative. You can find more on choosing a green data center provider in our eBook, complete with practices colocation providers should have in place for greater efficiencies.

In the spirit of green, I am proud to say we announced some major milestones this week in green design for two of our most innovative facilities to date. Our Dallas data center was awarded a LEED Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council, and our Santa Clara facility was ranked 65 on the InformationWeek 500 List of Top Technology Innovators for green achievements.

The good news here is that while smartphones may be taking over –– they are making us more efficient humans. No, we can’t fly, yet with a smartphone you can do just about anything else. CNN.com kicked off a month-long series on Monday called “Our Mobile Society” and it got me thinking about how quickly technology is changing and impacting our daily lives. According to the article, 68% of us sleep with our phone at our bedsides, text is the currency of modern conversation and in 2011 there were 6 billion mobile subscriptions with a worldwide population of 7 billion. Smartphones? The article also said it’s estimated that 5 billion people will own one in five years.

Like smartphones, cloud computing is rapidly changing the way we access data. We know that the cloud is here to stay and that it’s not some nebulous “pie in the sky” technology. But it wasn’t long ago that we were so convinced. Businesses are turning to the cloud for everything; from customer relationship management to highly specialized industry applications. Here’s some of the latest cloud technology news:

• Public, Private Cloud Markets Set to Soar as Enterprise Adoption Grows
• Cloud API and service designers, stop thinking small
• Connectivity is key in the cloud era
• Networking matters in the cloud equation

What other “new” technology will be making its way to becoming a part of our every day lives? And more importantly, how do you and your business keep up? If your business hasn’t adopted cloud yet, it will likely do so, and if you are looking for some help, read our new eBook: Five Key Steps to a Successful Cloud Takeoff.