Saturday, April 18, 2009

just another Internap executive leaving...

Industry Veteran to Join BandCon Executive Team

BandCon, a leading content delivery solutions provider, announced today that Michael Linos has joined the company’s executive team as Senior Vice President of Business and Corporate Development.

Mr. Linos will be responsible for driving BandCon’s high growth initiatives that add significant value to the BandCon enterprise, including strategic partnerships, mergers and acquisitions. With a broad range of experience in content delivery, enterprise hosting, IP transit and colocation, he has held senior sales and business development positions including Vice President of Business Development at Internap, Executive Vice President of Sales at Vitalstream and Vice President of Sales at Verio.

Equinix to Exhibit at TradeTech 2009 in Paris

Equinix to Exhibit at TradeTech 2009 in Paris

21–24 April 2009, stand 85, The CNIT Centre, Paris

LONDON, UK — 16 April, 2009 Equinix Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), a provider of global data centre services, has announced that it will be exhibiting at TradeTech 2009. Taking place between 21 – 24 April 2009 at The CNIT Centre, Paris, TradeTech is the annual equities trading and technology event, attended by technology providers and industry players on the buy side, sell side, exchanges and multilateral trading facilities (MTFs). Equinix will be located at stand 85 during the show.

Recent regulatory changes and global economic events have sparked significant changes across the industry, with trading infrastructure, risk and operations becoming key areas for review. As organisations look to maintain the optimum trading environment, it has become essential to develop a scalable trading architecture capable of meeting industry regulations, whilst continuing to support the complex, real-time transaction processing that is necessary in the trading industry.

Set up to serve the specific needs of the financial services market, Equinix Financial eXchange is a community of common interest of capital market participants that locate operations within Equinix data centers to implement a high-performance, low-latency connectivity infrastructure within a neutral environment.

By operating in close proximity, Equinix Financial eXchange enables participants, such as execution venues, buy and sell side firms and market data providers, to expand operations within a scalable environment, open new markets that they were previously challenged to enter, improve reliability and redundancy of operations, and to reduce costs by eliminating the need to link to multiple partners over significant geographic distances. It also enables the fastest possible links to the world’s largest trading venues, as well as access to a critical mass of network service providers.

Representatives will be on stand 85 during the event to discuss the Equinix Financial eXchange strategy in Europe, particularly how the company is working with customers such as Chi-X Europe, ICAP and Dow Jones to further reduce latency, improve resilience and provide high quality execution.

“The extreme market turbulence experienced over the last year has driven trading activity to an unprecedented level, often forcing firms to re-evaluate their ability to execute in real-time,” said Petrina Steele, VP Business Development for Equinix in Europe. “TradeTech is a great opportunity for all the key players in this space to come together, and for us to share our experience of working with some of the leading brands in the sector.”

Friday, April 17, 2009

a visit to Equinix Enschede

from ISPam.nl:

Opening van de suite door Peter Spekreijse (Echelon)
Opening door Michiel Eielts (General manager Equinix) en Peter Spekreijse (CEO Echelon)

Touchscreen expected to be adopted by 20% of handsets in 2009, says Young Fast chairman

from digitimes.com:

The penetration rate of touchscreen panels in the handset market is expected to reach above 20% this year, double from a year earlier, thanks to Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics pushing touchscreen handset products, according to Taiwan-based touch panel maker Young Fast Optoelectronics chairman TJ Lin.

Nokia gains smartphone market share

HT to cellodude on the IV MB:

Nokia says it sold an impressive 2.6 million units in the quarter of its popular 5800 XpressMusic phone, which features a touchscreen and other features similar to the iPhone but costs about half as much. Launched in November, the 5800 and other new feature-rich products helped the company boost its share in smartphones to 38% from 36% the previous quarter, according to market watcher Strategy Analytics.

The gain suggests that Nokia can continue to retake market share as it launches more new smartphones, such as the top-of-the-line touchscreen N97 due out in June. "Nokia is very good at moving features from the high end to the midrange and low end," says Mark McKechnie, an analyst at Broadpoint AmTech in Greenwich, Conn. But with the likes of Apple, RIM, and even Google (GOOG) pushing into the market, he cautioned, "they are facing a new type of competitor."

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Equinix to Participate in CEO Panel at Data Centres Europe 2009 in London

Equinix to Participate in CEO Panel at Data Centres Europe 2009 in London

22 – 23 April 2009, stand D, American Square Conference Centre, London

LONDON, UK – 15 April, 2009 Equinix Inc. (Nasdaq: EQIX), a provider of global data centre services, has announced that Eric Schwartz, President of Equinix Europe, will be discussing the future of the data centre industry as part of the CEO panel at Data Centres Europe 2009. Taking place between 22 – 23 April 2009 at American Square Conference Centre, London, Data Centres Europe will bring together enterprises, data centre service providers and other companies engaged in the sector. Equinix, a silver sponsor, will be located at stand D at the show.

As the current economic climate dictates a rethink in corporate expenditure, enterprises are becoming a key focus for the European data centre industry. With the goal of reducing operational costs, without compromising reliability, companies are seeking to outsource to a third party data centre services provider. However, whilst demand for data centre services is growing rapidly, research from Tier 1 Research* suggests that it is out stripping supply by two to one.

Eric Schwartz will be addressing this topic on 22 April 2009 at 10.00am as part of the first ever panel of its kind at a European conference. Bringing together the main players in the data centre world, the panel will explore the impact of the recession on the data centre, the environmental pressures facing the sector and the future of the industry.

Equinix executives will also be on stand to discuss Equinix’s strategy for the European market, focusing particularly on the company’s expansion plans and how it intends to meet the demands of the enterprise customer in the changing economic environment.

“As research continues to indicate that more organisations want to outsource their data centre operations, it is absolutely essential that companies in our industry meet customers' requirements for mission-critical applications,” said Eric Schwartz, President of Equinix Europe. “Data Centres Europe is a fantastic opportunity for us to address the key issues facing our industry and outline our vision for the year ahead.”

Tech Rumor Confirmed: Nokia Touchscreens

from TheStreet.com:

Nokia
(NOK Quote) has outlined its plans to bring new touchscreen and Qwerty keyboard smartphones to the market later this year.

On an earnings conference call Thursday with analysts, Nokia chief Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said touchscreens and Qwerty devices were important and that the company will "renew our portfolio meaningfully."

...

One of the first of the new Nokia smartphones will be a device that features so-called haptic or vibration technology from Immersion (IMMR Quote) that is due out this summer.

Nokia is also working on project Nautilus, which apparently emphasizes a very slim touchscreen design. Sources familiar with the plans say the phone uses a sensor to extend and withdraw the keyboard into the phone. The keypad is said to be ultrathin, but when it slides out the Qwerty keys rise for easier typing. The first Nautilus phone isn't due for another year.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Clinical Accuracy of the Respiratory Tumor Tracking System of the CyberKnife: Assessment by Analysis of Log Files

HT to yyy60 on the IV MB:

Clinical Accuracy of the Respiratory Tumor Tracking System of the CyberKnife: Assessment by Analysis of Log Files

International Journal of Radiation Oncology
Volume 74, Issue 1, Pages 297-303 (1 May 2009)

Mischa Hoogeman, Ph.D., Jean-Briac Prévost, M.D., Joost Nuyttens, M.D., Ph.D., Johan Pöll, M.Sc., Peter Levendag, M.D., Ph.D., Ben Heijmen, Ph.D.


PURPOSE

To quantify the clinical accuracy of the respiratory motion tracking system of the CyberKnife treatment device.

METHODS and Materials

Data in log files of 44 lung cancer patients treated with tumor tracking were analyzed. Errors in the correlation model, which relates the internal target motion with the external breathing motion, were quantified. The correlation model error was compared with the geometric error obtained when no respiratory tracking was used. Errors in the prediction method were calculated by subtracting the predicted position from the actual measured position after 192.5 ms (the time lag to prediction in our current system). The prediction error was also measured for a time lag of 115 ms and a new prediction method.

RESULTS

The mean correlation model errors were less than 0.3 mm. Standard deviations describing intrafraction variations around the whole-fraction mean error were 0.2 to 1.9 mm for cranio–caudal, 0.1 to 1.9 mm for left–right, and 0.2 to 2.5 mm for anterior–posterior directions. Without the use of respiratory tracking, these variations would have been 0.2 to 8.1 mm, 0.2 to 5.5 mm, and 0.2 to 4.4 mm. The overall mean prediction error was small (0.0 ± 0.0 mm) for all directions. The intrafraction standard deviation ranged from 0.0 to 2.9 mm for a time delay of 192.5 ms but was halved by using the new prediction method.

CONCLUSIONS

Analyses of the log files of real clinical cases have shown that the geometric error caused by respiratory motion is substantially reduced by the application of respiratory motion tracking.

Equinix Holland

It looks like Equinix Holland is also connected to the Nederlands Duitse Internet Exchange (http://www.ndix.net/)

Public Exchange Point Detailed View
Common Name NDIX
Long Name Nederlands Duitse Internet Exchange
City Enschede / Munster
Country NL
Continental Region Europe

Company Information
Company Name Virtu Secure Webservices
Also Known As VIRTU
Company Website http://www.virtu.nl

Public Peering Exchange Points
Exchange Point Name ASN IP Address Mbit/sec
AMS-IX 16243 2001:7f8:1::a501:6243:2 1000
AMS-IX 16243 195.69.144.245 1000
AMS-IX 16243 2001:7f8:1::a501:6243:1 1000
AMS-IX 16243 195.69.145.222 1000
NDIX 16243 193.108.98.254 1000
NDIX 16243 2001:7f8:e::1:6243:1 1000

Private Peering Facilities
Facility Name ASN City Country SONET Ethr ATM
Equinix Amsterdam (AM1) 16243 Amsterdam NL
Equinix Enschede EN1 16243 Enschede NL
Equinix Zwolle ZW1 16243 Zwolle NL
NIKHEF Amsterdam 16243 Amsterdam NL
TelecityGroup Amsterdam 2 (South East) 16243 Amsterdam NL

Is the Customer Always Right? Not at Internap

Data Center Knowledge on the ooma/Internap dispute:

>>Data center providers are usually loathe to get in public disputes with customers, as it has a way of converting them into former customers. There’s been a doozy of a public spat this week involving dueling finger-pointing between Internap Network Services (INAP) and Ooma Inc.

...

For what it’s worth, there are multiple reports that Ooma experienced more downtime this morning.

interview with William Toll of NaviSite

from WHIR tv:

WHIR tv was in Bellevue WA, for this years Microsoft Hosting Summit and had a chance to catch up with one of our WHIR bloggers, William Toll.

WHIR tv Interviews William Toll of NaviSite

Immersion Investor update

Immersion investor Update is now available. Some highlights:

Fueling Haptics Innovation in the Automotive Sector

Immersion has signed a license agreement with tier-one systems integrator Visteon that will lead to future innovations for haptic-enabled controls in the automotive sector (see press release). Visteon’s booth at CES featured a car control console of the near-future with our technology embedded and brought to life. (See CNET video). Road & Track just reviewed the new 2012 Tesla Model S and highlighted its use of haptics. According to Road & Track “The icing on the cake is inside the Model S, where a huge 17-in. touch-screen infotainment system acts as the center console. It's got a haptic interface (meaning you can feel it click when you press it), with 3G wireless connectivity and is fully configurable like a mobile desktop computer.” (See Road & Track article). Immersion also announced the first-ever automotive-grade actuator to enable fast integration of advanced touch feedback into touchscreens and touch surfaces for the global automotive industry. (See press release).

“These solutions will satisfy demands for controls that provide haptics similar to what consumers are accustomed to with portable electronic devices. This is part of an ongoing trend to integrate consumer electronics and the characteristics of personal devices into the vehicle.” --Visteon Electronics Group President Steve Meszaros

Highwinds: what path for CDN growth?

from Tier 1 Research daily newsletter:

>>Highwinds Network Group is a profitable company that expects to grow revenue by 17% this year. So why did it cut staff in its CDN operations? Because while growth in the CDN business is still strong, the company's profit comes from other operations, including Usenet software, IP transit and colocation.

Ooma, data center blame each other over outage

from bizjournals:

>>Officials at Ooma Inc., the Palo Alto-based Internet phone service provider, and a data center operator in Atlanta, Ga., were pointing fingers at each other Tuesday over who was at fault for Ooma’s system outage Monday.

...

But Internap Network Services Corp. spokeswoman Debra Forrester initially said Tuesday that the problem was not at Internap.

“There’s no way around this. We’ve got a customer that wants to blame Internap for this outage,” Forrester said in a voice message. “We did not have a network outage. No other customers experienced a network outage.”

Ooma Chief Marketing Officer Rich Buchanan, vacationing in Mexico, reacted hotly via email.

“We have the network logs to show that their service was not performing to specification, and that subsequently caused our network outage. It’s unfortunate that a network provider with the reputation that Internap has would stoop to such levels to avoid responsibility,” Buchanan said.

While Forrester said initially that Ooma engineers “have admitted the loss was not Internap’s fault and probably lies somewhere within their own network,” she later sought to retract that statement after Buchanan complained to Internap executives.

Nevertheless, Forrester maintained that Internap had no customer outages Monday and that the company was continuing to investigate Ooma’s incident.

“We will either find out it was indeed our problem, or they will find out it was them,” she said.

Follow up by ooma...

taken from ooma twitter:

@rickdog - Internap retracts false statement about ooma service outage - cheap shot Internap

@cybasurfa - Internap retracted this statement late this afternoon as false.

Internap retracts false statement made by Debra Forrester about Ooma Internap customer outage - cheap shot by Internap


@prrobin - after the email I just sent Eric Cooney I doubt Debra will want to talk to me or you.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Ooma's service provider denies a role in outage

from betanews.com:

>>During yesterday afternoon's complete service outage at private VoIP service provider Ooma, along with the simultaneous hold-up of e-mail delivery for some BlackBerry customers, the provider's chief marketing officer, Rich Buchanan, told both customers and reporters through his Twitter feed that Internap, a data co-location services provider, was to blame. But in a statement to Betanews this afternoon, an Internap spokesperson denied any kind of service problem on its side of the network, adding that Ooma's engineers actually admitted the problem was theirs.

...

"Our NOC personnel determined that there was nothing happening within our network and that it probably was a problem after the hand-off was made from Internap to the Ooma network itself," the spokesperson continued. "The Ooma personnel are still investigating. The problem, according to the Ooma engineers cleared itself up. However the packet loss they were experiencing during the approximate 90 minutes they were having issues, likely caused dropped calls to their customers (as VoIP is very sensitive to packet loss)."

...

But Internap's spokesperson denied that any service ticket was opened with any other customer yesterday besides Ooma.

Internap failed today takiing with it Time-Warner, Verizon, RIM, Google Voice, Yahoo, and multiple others.

link to ooma twitter:

  1. @GordonBengston - Internap failed today takiing with it Time-Warner, Verizon, RIM, Google Voice, Yahoo, and multiple others.

  1. After the Ooma outage caused by Internap's failure, I'm going to down an extra Margi tonight in Mexico.

  1. @PatrickHoge - Ooma issues were linked to an outage at Internap. It also affected RIM, Google, Yahoo, Blue Cross, TM, Verizon, and others

ValueAct SmallCap Accumulates 5.1% Stake in Immersion (IMMR)

In a 13D filing on Immersion Corporation (Nasdaq: IMMR) this morning, ValueAct SmallCap Partners disclosed a 5.1%, or 1,413,503 share, stake in Immersion.

A major outage of the ooma service

About the April 13th Service Outage

dennis.peng | April 13, 2009 @ 8:30pm

A major outage of the ooma service began today (April 13th) at approximately 11AM (pacific time). This outage affected all ooma customers and was triggered by Internet connectivity issues at our upstream service provider. While we do not have all the details around the problems that affected the Internet connection at this time, we do know that these problems were not isolated to ooma, but did effectively cut off the ooma service from the outside world.

Between 2PM and 3PM, Internet connectivity was slowly being restored to our service. However, the flood of ooma Hubs coming back online created an immense amount of load on our provisioning systems. We rushed to add capacity to the system, but the nature of the network outage had interfered with the system’s ability to recover by itself. Beginning at 2:30PM, we began throttling Hubs from connecting to our servers. This allowed the system to settle down and work through the backlog of requests. As the systems stabilized, we slowly began opening up blocks of users to connect to the ooma service.

As of 5PM, most service has been fully restored. Some Hubs may not recover automatically in an expedient manner - if your ooma service is still down, please reboot your ooma Hub. Unplug power from the back of the device, wait one minute and then plug the power back in. The ooma Hub may need to download a software update, but it should go into service shortly thereafter.

Rest assured that we are taking this outage very seriously. Discussions have already started on how to make the service resilient to a similar event in the future. ooma currently has one data center located in west coast. We have planned to light up a second data center in the midwest or east coast this year, and this outage has served as a stark reminder for us to get moving on that. This has also served as a good opportunity for us to re-evaluate our contingency and business continuity plans.

We know that phone service is critical function that everyone relies on. We apologize for the outage this afternoon and thank you for your patience as we work through some growing pains.

---

this is taken from Betanews:

Participants in Ooma's ongoing Twitter discussion yesterday blamed the service outage on a bigger service failure at Internap, a data center, co-location, and content delivery services provider based in Atlanta. They said such an outage affected multiple VoIP services and other major businesses, including Google's Gmail and RIM's BlackBerry service. Indeed, BlackBerry users did report a service backlog, during roughly the same timeframe yesterday, though no mail ended up being lost. Internap has not made any public statements regarding a service outage, and Betanews has contacted Internap for clarification.

Immersion new Investor Presentation

HT to cellodude on the IV MB:

Our Company

NASDAQ: IMMR

The global leader, developer and licensor of haptic touch feedback technology





Monday, April 13, 2009

Digital Realty Trust, L.P. Commences Offer of Exchangeable Senior Debentures

SAN FRANCISCO, April 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --

Digital Realty Trust, Inc.
(the "Company") (NYSE: DLR - News), announced today that its operating partnership subsidiary, Digital Realty Trust, L.P. (the "Operating Partnership"), has commenced a private placement, subject to market conditions, of $200 million aggregate principal amount of Exchangeable Senior Debentures due 2029 (the "Debentures"), plus up to an additional $30 million aggregate principal amount of Debentures that may be issued at the option of the initial purchasers to cover over-allotments, if any. The Debentures will be senior unsecured obligations of the Operating Partnership, will be fully and unconditionally guaranteed by the Company and will be exchangeable for shares of the Company's common stock. The interest rate, exchange rate and offering price are to be determined by negotiations between the Operating Partnership and the initial purchasers of the Debentures.
The Company intends to utilize the net proceeds from the offering to temporarily repay all or a portion of its borrowings under its revolving credit facility, to acquire additional properties, to fund development and redevelopment opportunities and for general corporate purposes. The Company intends to reborrow amounts under its revolving credit facility from time to time to acquire additional properties, to fund development and redevelopment opportunities and for general corporate purposes.

Lane Patterson, Chief Technologist of Equinix, speaks on Fiber Optic Security

APRIL 10, 2009 – KQED Radio [North America]

Lane Patterson, Chief Technologist of Equinix, speaks on Fiber Optic Security

Fiber Optic Security
Telephone service has returned to normal in Santa Clara County. Yesterday, vandals opened manhole covers and cut fiber optic lines that provide cell phone, land line and Internet service to some 50,000 customers. Security experts say physical sabotage of the nation's networks is extremely rare, but yesterday's vandalism does raise questions about security of fiber optic cables.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Netflix, Inc.

Netflix is now also showing on the Equinix GigE Exchange (common switch) in Ashburn and Silicon Valley. So far, the Company had only been peering privately in some exchanges:

206.223.115.245 edge01.ash1.prod.netflix.com
206.223.115.246 edge02.ash1.prod.netflix.com
206.223.116.96 csrt-edge01.prod2.netflix.com

Company Information
Company Name Netflix, Inc.
Also Known As
Company Website http://www.netflix.com/
Primary ASN 40027
IRR Record
Network Type Content
Approx Prefixes 5
Traffic Levels Not Disclosed
Traffic Ratios Mostly Outbound
Geographic Scope North America
Looking Glass URL
Route Server URL
Notes Open to peering with anybody. More interested in broadband carriers though.

Private Peering Facilities
Facility Name ASN City Country SONET Ethr ATM
Equinix Ashburn (DC1-DC4) 40027 Ashburn US
Equinix Chicago (CH1/CH2) 40027 Chicago US
Equinix Los Angeles (LA1) 40027 Los Angeles US
PAIX New York 40027 New York US
PAIX Palo Alto 40027 Palo Alto US


Public Peering Exchange Points
Exchange Point Name ASN IP Address Mbit/sec
No records