Walking through our data center it is easy to see that our collaboration with HP continues to increase day-by-day. With new Blade solutions being installed as we migrate existing partners and welcome new ones into our family, we’re taking steps to assure their businesses succeed while we move toward a sustainable existence with the nature around us.

Our commitment to these partnerships is being showcased this fall season in a print publication by HP on transforming the enterprise. You can read a snippet from the publication just below and from there you can download the entire publication in a friendly Adobe pdf format by jumping off to HP’s micro-site dedicated to the publication.

Companies routinely waste a ton of money cooling and powering open space. We wanted a micro data center that is efficient and eco-aware. And we wanted the ability to expand and optimize the data center as we grew versus filling empty space over time.”

If opus:interactive is any indication, the prevailing set of earth friendly principles are now spilling into the corporate sector. A Managed Services Provider (MSP), opus:interactive offers a variety of online services to its clients, such as Web hosting, managed servers, email hosting and high-speed Internet access. These solutions are provided through the company’s state-of-the-art data center in Portland, Ore.

“We’re not your average MSP,” says Jeremy Sherwood, Business Solutions Executive for opus:interactive. “Stewardship is very important to us, and we strive to take exceptional care of our clients as well as our environment.”

Whereas many organizations would opt to set aside a large parcel of space in which a modern data center can grow, opus:interactive contemplated efficiency more than square footage. “Companies routinely waste a ton of money cooling and powering open space,” Sherwood continues. “We wanted a micro data center that is efficient and eco-aware. And we wanted the ability to expand and optimize the data center as we grow versus filling empty space over time. We have the space, obviously, but why build it all out at once?”

Today, opus:interactive’s 1,000 square-foot Internet Data Center is home to numerous HP BladeSystem c-Class and p-Class server blades as well as 62 ProLiant servers. The facility is served by fiber optics and all vital systems are fully redundant. The company utilizes VMware on HP ProLiant BL460c server blades to offer virtual dedicated managed servers for its clients and to run many of its internal business applications without having to purchase additional servers.

“We made a concerted effort to become an eco-aware data center facility with the implementation of HP BladeSystems,” Sherwood says. “The blades have allowed us to scale faster, use power efficiently, provision servers faster and ultimately, close more deals.”

He adds that the blades are pulling a mere 15 amps of power compared the 40 amps that the stand-alone servers consume. And VMware has turned one or two day deployments into 15 minute projects from start to finish. As the company and its client base grows, opus:interactive is gradually replacing its ProLiant servers with HP BladeSystems, freeing up space in the data center, further reducing power consumption and easing cabling complexity.

“The use of HP BladeSystems stays true to our customer-first initiative by providing the best-of-the-breed hardware that truly is “Always On,” easy to manage, extensible, scalable, reliable and eco-aware,” says Eric Hulbert, Chief Information Officer of opus:interactive. “This shift in IT is our push for business innovation in all that we do. We plan to replace our entire infrastructure with the HP BladeSystem c-Class.”

Apparently, being green is easy after all.

For the full opus:interactive case study and information on the HP BladeSystem, visit: www.hp.com/go/transformblades.

Instructions:

In order to view the case study you will be asked to register. Please assure that you have selected the top check box of Step 1 (see the screen capture below for example) titled: HP BladeSystem Special Edition, Fall 2007 (PDF).

by Jason Nuss

The opportunity to do a conference in Vegas was great and to go with teammates was even better.

From the moment the flight was booked and my registration for Interop was complete the only thing I could think of was, “Is this going to be worth the money?” Although we did the free registration for the conference I knew we would be spending a lot of money to get down there, a lot of money on hotel, food, taxis, monorail, and of course entertainment. In the end, on the flight back to Portland, my thoughts were, “That was a great trip.” Here’s why.

I get to travel quite a bit in my position as Director of Operations. I say quite a bit but that’s in comparison to others here who don’t travel at all. I go to 3-4 places a year attending training, conferences, vendors, and retreat. The opportunity to do a conference in Vegas was great, since I hadn’t been there for more than a day in 12 years. The opportunity to go with teammates was even better. Vegas, to me, is a place you don’t really want to go alone. Two reasons that’s true: one, there is too much to get you into trouble, so having buddies keeps you on the up-and-up (not that I would ever get into trouble, it’s just a tempting place); and two, who wants to go to Vegas alone? So just being in Vegas, relaxing away from the office, trying new things, seeing new sites, and, best of all, people-watching, was almost worth the money by itself. But obviously we didn’t go to Vegas for that, we went for Interop.

Interop was bigger than I expected. Although I new there were a lot of exhibitors I didn’t expect to see what I saw. Huge booths and displays, some of them two stories high, were common. In fact, you often had to look up to see the entire booth/displays. The big companies that opus:interactive uses for equipment, like Cisco, HP, and Dell were there, as well as the smaller vendors we use, like Array Networks (load balancers), GTA Firewalls, and IronPort Systems (S&V appliances). Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent by these companies, for sure. What the ROI was, I don’t know, but it was obvious they felt it was an important place to be.

The big themes, as I saw them, were networking appliances and accessories, security appliances, wireless technologies, and data center cabinets, cooling, and new technologies. Not all these spoke to us as a company, but we did study every booth and visited anything we thought might be interesting.

Free stuff. We were up for free t-shirts, squishy balls and dice, Lego sets, candy, coffee, pop, backpacks, hats, pens, and more. The most notable freebie for me was the branded Lego set by IronPort. Very creative and memorable. I also like cleverly designed t-shirts. The free lemonade stand was creative, and the fact that it was hosted by half-naked women attracted a lot of buzz. BlueCat Networks hosted free Xbox360 gaming at their booth, as well as a few amazing-looking “booth babes”. Again, the girls tended to attract folks to the booth, although I am sure many guys didn’t attend the booths so as to not be viewed as a perverts. I lean towards not going up to talk to the booths with some half-dressed girl there unless it was a must see product, but that’s just me.

So the food in Vegas was amazing. I had a steak at this restaurant called Nine Fine Irishmen. The one thing I remember about this place—okay two things—was the t-shirt for sale in the lobby that said “I’ve done Nine Fine Irishmen,” which I found humorous. The second thing was the incredible ribeye steak. Wow.

We also took in Cirque du Soleil at the MGM. The show was amazing, to say the least. It was well worth the $69/per ticket price. That was the cheapest ticket available, but in a theatre of only 2000 seats there really wasn’t a bad seat.
Technology-wise, my biggest takeaway from Interop is that opus:interactive is ahead of the curve on sustainable practices and its effort to be eco-friendly. We are not perfect, but many of the practices that were presented at Interop are things we have been doing for a couple years. So I tip my hat to the owners and my director of IT for allowing us to push the edge on new technologies that improve our overall environmental impact.

Final thoughts:

• Flights were uneventful
• The weather was in the 90’s.
• Every time we walked out of a casino Jeremy and Eric would sneeze. I guess it was a temperature change? Whatever. It was funny.
• There were huge 50-foot billboards with g-stringed women advertising Vegas shows. Unimaginable in any other city.
• Rockstars were $5 each in the MGM.
• I went to a casino where all the dealers were impersonators. They would rotate singing on a stage in the middle of all the blackjack tables: Cher, Elvis, Louis Armstrong, Madonna, Maria Carey…
• The cab rides were freaky scary, but the stories the cabbies told were funny. One thing they all had in common: cabbies are bitter individuals who hate people.

The funniest moment (I must have laughed for 5 minutes and then throughout the trip just thinking about it):

Eric and I were playing Craps. Sometimes a die would bounce off the table and onto the floor, but it’s not common because the sides of the tables are so high. Eric finally got his chance to throw the dice. Instead of one of the dice bouncing off the table, Eric threw both dice off the table. In fact, they never even hit the table—they hit some guy in the gut. Eric was embarrassed, and I was rolling on the floor laughing. I couldn’t stop. I hadn’t laughed like that in months. Thanks Eric.

Good trip, worth the money.

It’s been years since I’ve been to an industry convention like this. I was reminded how big the vendors do things—large booths, gimmicks, booth girls, etc. I do like swag though!

Many of the vendors, and the show in general, seemed to focus more on Corporate IT than on an xSP like us. But that’s not uncommon. A lot of vendors tailor their products to Corporate IT, and we have to find a product that will work in a service provider environment.

I found many vendors offering network monitoring and management software and appliances. This is something we will be looking at in the near future for our own internal network management and compliance needs. It was a good way to get familiar with some of the vendors in that market.
These are the vendors at the show that are now added to the list to research when we get more serious about this type of product:

The U.S. is behind the rest of the world in migrating towards IPv6. There is an opportunity to get ahead and differentiate ourselves by adopting IPv6—lots of opportunity.

• Network Instruments
• NetQoS
• Niksun
• Wild Packets
• ArcSight
• cPackets
• Cymphonix
• Netscout
• Network General
• Solera Networks

I can’t say I learned anything new at the sessions we attended. It really just confirmed what we already know about data center design and the direction we’re already headed. It also made us even more confident in our selection of APC products and the places they are going with them.

It was great to talk with some of our existing vendors: GTA, Ironport and Array Networks were all at the show. The CEOs of GTA and Array Networks were there, so we got to speak with them directly. We talked about their company and let them know how much we support their products. We even gave Ironport some props to a guy who was at their booth researching their products.

The most exciting product I discovered at the show was SolidDNS by a company called InfoWeapons. It is a DNS server software/appliance management by a GUI interface. What’s interesting is that it’s based on their own flavor of FreeBSD called SolidBSD. It uses Bind for its DNS daemon and pf for its local firewall. That’s exactly where I would like to take the opus:interactive DNS platform. In addition, the SolidDNS product is dual-stack, meaning it resolves DNS for both IPv4 and IPv6 networks. InfoWeapons also is working on additional dual-stack products like firewalls and IPAM devices.

This kind of kick-started me on the IPv6 idea. The U.S. is behind the rest of the world in migrating towards IPv6. There is an opportunity to get ahead and differentiate ourselves by adopting IPv6—lots of opportunity.

by Jeremy Sherwood

Walking into Interop in Las Vegas reminded me very much of a big kids’ Disneyland. The lights, the overly large gimmicks that scream “Look at me! Look at me!” It really was sensory overload. Looking back on the event I can still remember the booths that really made an impression. There was a lot of good swag, and of course the cheap booths that attempt to persuade you with a simple little 25-cent plastic clapper (although my 1-year-old digs the plastic clapper).

Booths that made a lasting impression despite the products or services they were selling were the booths that didn’t make you feel like you were dealing with trashy used car salesmen.

I think the booths that made a lasting impression despite the products or services they were selling were the booths that didn’t make you feel like you were dealing with trashy used car salesmen. A good example is Qwest. Although they are a big player they really invited you over to their booth to play multiplayer Half-Life2, which Eric and I played for multiple rounds, fragging each other as well as 12 strangers. (The opus boys were in the top five every game we played.) The booth was very inviting, with no real sales hook to buy or sign up for anything. It was just “come and experience what Qwest broadband can do for you and your business.” The speaker was optional, and most of it was about Qwest providing bandwidth to the whole conference. I thought it was really well done.

A different aspect of Interop that was really nice was the opportunity to meet face-to-face with the vendors we work with. After spending almost two whole days with David from GTA on the phone/RDP completing our Firewall certifications, it was nice to put a face with a name and experience. The other great thing about meeting with GTA was speaking with their president. He was very personable, but more than that he was very interested in the things we wanted changed for the better. He truly expressed the desire to receive negative as well as positive feedback. That really reassured me that they are a great partner to have.

All in all, Interop itself really brought home that we are doing the right things and heading in the right direction. There wasn’t anything that jumped out and said, “Oh man, you better do this or change this. You are behind the curve.” In reality, most everything said, “ You guys are ahead of the curve.” Which is great to hear.

Last but not least: Las Vegas. What an interesting place. Where the people are proud to say, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” I never thought that would be something to be proud of. We saw Old Town Vegas, spray paint artists, and the million-LED walkway (cool technology, poor use of it). We almost got Nuss to take his picture with two guys from Chippendales to send home— now that would have been funny. We rode one too many monorails, walked more than any human should have to, ate way to much heavy food, never slept enough, inhaled well beyond some legal limit of second-hand smoke, and, most importantly, enjoyed every minute of it.

by Eric Hulbert

Wow! The booth babes were incredible. These shows never cease to amaze me. Every other booth had models sporting ultra slinky spandex wear showing off their products trying to draw you in to their booths. It works!

I took this pic of the opus Director of Ops and one of the Blackcat booth babes.

I was very happy to see that we are well ahead of the curve in almost all areas of the IT lifecycle and daily managed services sustainability practices.

We met with existing vendors, like Ironport, Cisco, Network Hardware Resale, Array Networks and GTA, and it confirmed to me that we have made great decisions in our vendors and partners.

We found a new vendor to replace Intermedia for our Hosted Exchange offering. We talked at length with their COO about their offerings, their network, their solution overall and their technical infrastructure.

The In-Row RP and RC air conditioning units from APC are awesome. This is for sure the design we will go with next year.

We also looked at more of the APC Infrastruxure line and it continued to assure us that their solution/product is the correct answer for us when we build-out/expand next year. They make a newer, same-footprint modular UPS that has 25KVA power modules versus the 10KVA power modules we have now. We are limited to 100KVA for that zone. The new UPS will allow 250KVA scalable to 500KVA. It is a very impressive product and will continue to be the front-runner for our next UPS solution. Their in-row cooling products are incredible. We watched a demo on the Chatsworth CPI Passive Cooling solution and I must say I was not impressed. It was limited by the static pressure available under the raised floor in the facility (a design principle we want to move away from in the future). The In-Row RP and RC air conditioning units from APC are awesome. Chilled water or glycol can be chosen for the configuration and can be combined with their HACS (hot aisle containment system) for the ultimate in high density. This is for sure the design we will go with next year.

Factoids:

• Learned how to play craps. That game is pretty fun. Also played a bunch of limit hold’em, blackjack and roulette. Always good to get in a little gambling time when in vegas!
• Saw KA at the MGM. Wow that was pretty sweet. The drinks were quite nice!
• Watched Jason Nuss drive a simulated Formula One car at Caesar’s Palace. That was intense.
• Great steak at Nine Fine Irishmen at NYNY.
• Absolutely the craziest cab rides. We took a cab from the airport, and the guy was insane—very bitter about Vegas cab drivers. Late in the week, we took a cab from Fremont Street back to the MGM and the driver was NUTS. He just wouldn’t stop talking, and he drove us through the dark section of Vegas and talked about drug runs he took, and how he met Cuba Gooding Jr. and how he was cheating on his wife, etc., etc.

Nuts.