New Tool for Data Center Operators to Increase Operational Reliability

Through a demand response program, large power users such as data centers are actually paid to reduce demand on the electric grid for limited times, amounting to a few hours a year.   When a DR “event” is called, data centers reduce their electric demand on the power grid by transferring their load onto their backup generators for a period of time ranging usually from a few minutes to a few hours. Demand response is growing rapidly in many states because it provides a faster, cleaner, more cost-effective alternative to building new fossil fuel-burning peaking power plants or costly transmission lines. Commercial institutional, and industrial power users across nearly every sector of the economy are eligible for demand response, however the benefits of demand response are particularly compelling for data centers.

Demand response offers data centers new visibility into the quality of street power. This visibility can provide advanced warning of imminent voltage fluctuations, brownouts, and blackouts and it enables data center operators to preemptively transfer to backup generation before street power quality drops or is lost completely.  This preemptive transfer helps data centers avoid interruptions that erode uptime or damage equipment. Demand response also increases the likelihood that a data center facility is already on back up power when a brownout or blackout occurs. 

The grid operator or utility pays thousands of dollars in annual payments for demand response. In effect, data centers can earn new revenue and enhance operational reliability at the same time. DR providers like EnerNOC also provide free energy management software that collects real-time energy consumption data that can help data center managers find ways to improve the efficiency of their facilities. Deployment of efficient practices and technologies can cut electricity consumption by 33 to 50 percent--escaped_anchor:6b478a87eeefd7fd4ddffb5bed2a41e3-- and lead to additional bottom-line savings.

In addition to the financial and operational benefits, demand response provides data centers an opportunity to demonstrate leadership as a good corporate citizen in their community.  Data centers are one of the largest groups of energy users in the country and can make a major contribution towards a stable electric grid. 

Participating in demand response is straightforward and involves no capital investment.  DR providers, such as Boston-based EnerNOC, work with data centers (or financial institutions, insurance companies and other data center users) to create a customized demand response plan that enables participation without compromising the operations of the business.

If you're interested in learning more, visit --escaped_anchor:b2b51da44b017e97b4f80b57cc6cbf22-- for a free assessment to find out if you’re eligible to deploy demand response to help your business avoid grid emergencies. 

Zayo Group, the Colorado-based fiber network operator, announced the acquisition of FiberNet Telecom Group on May 28, 2009.  The price will be $11.45 per share for a total purchase price of just over $90 M, including net debt of $5 M. 

Zayo Group is a regional provider of telecom services including bandwidth, voice and managed services to carrier, enterprise, SME and government clients.  Zayo’s fiber network spans 129 markets in 23 states.  Zayo Group is comprised of three complementary business units: Zayo Bandwidth, Zayo Enterprise Networks (formerly Zayo Manages Services) and Onvoy Voice Services. 

NEF works closely with Zayo Bandwidth and Zayo Enterprise Networks to stay connected on changes and additions to their fiber optic routes and assets. NEF is committed to providing customers with optimal end-to-end solutions to meet their business connectivity needs. In addition to providing access to dark fiber networks, NEF is also connecting more and more enterprise customers and carriers with data center space and services. Ask us for more details.

NEF to Represent Owner of Europe’s Highest Capacity All-Optical Network

Framingham, Mass. – 19 May 2009 – NEF Inc., a leading dark fiber and lit service agency, has partnered with euNetworks, Europe’s foremost provider of mission-critical, high performance networking solutions, to create and design optimal communications networks for large corporations, carriers and service providers. Through the relationship, NEF will be able to source euNetworks’ low latency optical connections between key interconnection and data center locations for US-based companies wanting to connect within Europe as well via trans-Atlantic connections from the continental US.

With leading telecommunications tools such as the dark fiber maps database FiberLocator and data center locator FindADataCenter.com, NEF empowers clients with both network information and professional services to create robust, scalable and affordable networks. euNetworks has earned a reputation as being the preferred method for delivering high-performance services over their wholly owned, billion euro, all-fiber optic network that connects the major cities and economies of Europe.  This partnership will allow US and European clients to utilize NEF’s expertise in designing efficient optical networks to build door-to-door private fiber solutions, including data center integration and network design and deployment.

The euNetworks-NEF relationship means a new level of information and service for global organizations based in the US wanting the fastest speeds and lowest latency routes in Europe. While NEF’s FiberLocator database catalogs the majority of fiber assets in the US, housing nearly 75 telecommunications provider network maps and information, the euNetworks information will add a new dimension to the database. With the inclusion of euNetworks details and fibre maps, NEF bolsters the FiberLocator value proposition and enables enterprises to leverage the networks with diversity, reliability and low latency.

"euNetworks guarantees the highest levels of service and availability, and we were looking for a US partner who embodies those same ideals," says Barry Nolan, Chief Operating Officer of euNetworks. ”NEF has earned the reputation among enterprises and carriers for reliability as well as for understanding the complexities of multipoint optical networks and data centre applications. For euNetworks, NEF was simply the right fit to represent our networks in the US.”

“Our partnership with euNetworks enables us to create and deploy stable, secure networks, higher speeds and competitive rates,” says Michael Murphy of NEF.  “With euNetworks’ world-class custom optical network solutions, we can satisfy the unique needs of domestic enterprise businesses, carriers and service providers who want to establish or maintain a presence in Europe.”

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About NEF
NEF, Inc., is one of the nation’s top telecommunications brokerage and consulting firms, offering a combined 40 years of industry experience and a proven methodology for providing its customers with the best networks, information and pricing available. NEF can provide a broad spectrum of products from dark fiber solutions to high bandwidth, fully managed optical services. Through their many partners and carrier relationships, NEF designs custom connectivity solutions and provides access to over 75 fiber providers in 48 states, 85,000 lit buildings and 1000+ data centers.  For more information, visit www.NEFiber.com.

About euNetworks
•    Our €1bn all-optical network delivers a new level of freedom and performance. 
•    We exclusively offer high-performance networking and specialise in solutions for high performance businesses in the Finance and Media sectors, and Carriers / Service Provider markets. 
•    We own 15 metropolitan networks throughout Europe, connected with a fully owned, high-capacity backbone. 
•    Because we own the network, we deliver superior performance that we contractually guarantee. 
•    Our Carrier Grade services are massively scalable and delivered on-demand, in days not weeks.
•    euNetworks, a member of the Global Voice Group, is headquartered in Frankfurt and publicly listed on the Singapore stock exchange (SGX: H23.SI). euNetworks is initiator and a member of euro-one, a unique collaboration of fibre optic network providers to deliver infrastructure and next generation networking solutions connecting Eastern, Central, Western Europe and North America (www.euro-one.com).
For further information please visit www.euNetworks.com.

Ethernet revenue is expected to nearly triple by 2014, rising from $2.4 billion in 2009 to $7.8 billion, according to new market research conducted by The Insight Research Corporation.

With Ethernet usage forecasted to increase by 25%, the total spend by enterprises and consumers over the next five years should exceed $27 billion.  Ethernet services are now widely available across the board from Tier 1 and Tier 2 carriers and service providers to meet today’s demand for the cost effective and bandwidth-friendly connectivity solution.

Though the data provided by Insight Research shows Ethernet services are not immune to the economic downturn—and will most likely dip by a projected 14% by the end of 2009—the projected acceleration in the following four years will more than make up for the slowdown caused by the recession, peaking in 2010 and 2012.

Robert Rosenberg, president of Insight Research Corporation, says, “The carriers are growing their Ethernet revenues in the context of steadily increasing data bandwidth demand and because Ethernet has real cost advantages in terms of providing flexible bandwidth and scalability that is superior to many competitive services. Though we are predicting an accelerating pace of Ethernet adoption, we are not suggesting that Ethernet is ready to 'take over the world.' Generally speaking, private line and frame relay customers are not ready to abandon these services, so the migration to Ethernet is going to be slow and steady.”

Marketed under various names, such as Gigabit Ethernet, Ethernet private line, and Ethernet virtual private line, Carrier Ethernet market spending and usage patterns by topology, regional domain, retail/wholesale, and various bandwidth levels were utilized in Insight Research’s study metrics.

NEF can help you locate robust, scalable and affordable dark fiber networks and can add measurable value to an organization's search for connectivity. Contact us today to see if dark fiber is right for you.

Waypoint Telecommunications, an NEF partner and regional facilities-based carrier in the Mid-West, has partnered with Atlantic Metro Communications, a recognized SAS 70 managed network and service provider that offers dark fiber and nation-wide colocation and IP transit.

The partnership will help to expand both companies’ network reach within the Mid-West Region. Atlantic Metro customers will have the ability to access Waypoint’s network footprint that spans five states in the Mid-West. In addition, Waypoint will add a Point of Presence (PoP) within Atlantic Metro’s Chicago managed colocation facility, which will also be an access point for Waypoint’s new metro fiber ring on Atlantic Metro’s Chicago metro fiber network.

By partnering with Waypoint, Atlanta Metro has extended its footprint to major Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in the Mid-West and can now provide further network reach to companies that require quality network and Internet services in the region.

About Waypoint Telecommunications, LLC
Waypoint Telecommunications, LLC is a Michigan-based company with 25 years experience in creating networks for some of the most demanding customers in the telecommunications industry. As a leading provider of network infrastructure solutions and strategic network design services, Waypoint Telecommunications, constructs and maintains an extensive Fiber Optic Infrastructure in and around the metro areas of Chicago, IL; Detroit, MI; Indianapolis, IN; St. Louis, MO; Dallas, TX; Phoenix, AZ.
Waypoint Telecommunication serves a diverse customer base including local and long distance telecommunications carriers, Internet Service Providers, municipalities, utilities, Fortune 500 enterprises, school systems, and local, city, and Federal Government entities. Waypoint's flexibility and pricing allows customers to scale lit fiber services to their specific requirements.

Contact NEF today to learn more about Waypoint Telecommunications services.

Rochester-based fiber-optic network company is building a 200-mile network in Philadelphia, expected to be up and running by mid to late June. The company offers data services and leases fiber to carriers, Internet service providers and organizations that want high-bandwidth connections between multiple locations.

Based in Rochester, NY, Fibertech most often expands into midsize metropolitan areas.  A large following in Southern New Jersey, however, prompted the company to migrate into the Philadelphia region. Fibertech's new 200-mile network connects to the company's existing 40- mile network in the Wilmington area, and reaches from Plymouth Meeting in Pennsylvania to Springside in New Jersey.  Fibertech is adding human resources to support the new areas.

Among Fibertech's strongest base of customers are those in the health care, financial services, and educational fields.

Contact NEF today to learn more about their partners.

    
eData Center connects to AFS's Atlanta Metro Ethernet Circuit to Support Customers in Need of 100% "Green" Uptime

Atlanta, Ga.– April 30, 2009 — Optical fiber network provider, American Fiber Systems (AFS), and eData Center, LLC (eData), have partnered to provide clients with an environmentally conscious and 100% resilient data backup system. By using their unique, proprietary cooling system, eData has taken the lead in Atlanta on applying "green" technologies to the application of disaster recovery and data storage solutions. By combining eData's technology with a highly reliable connection to AFS's Atlanta backbone, network managers in the greater Metro Atlanta region now have a new alternative for cost-effective, "green" data backup solutions.

The original provider of Atlanta Ethernet service AFS's Atlanta backbone is a preferred network of area data centers. The eData facility now connects directly to AFS's recently upgraded 18,720 miles of Atlanta fiber network.

"Small businesses are concerned about their ability to stay online 24/7," said Eric Klein, Managing Director, eData Center. "When a storm knocks out the power or a connection goes offline, critical elements to daily success are lost–like access to email and the ability to complete important customer transactions. By combining our unique energy efficient approach with AFS's 'bullet-proof' bandwidth, we're able to give Atlanta businesses a highly reliable solution at a very competitive price. Simple as that…"

"Although 'going green' is in fashion these days, we support it because it makes good business sense," said Mike D'Angelo, Senior Vice President, American Fiber Systems. "Being environmentally conscious reduces energy costs and improves reliability. This is a sensible answer for many businesses looking for a high quality, straight-forward, easy-to-understand solution to manage, store and back-up their data. Period."

Recently named #162 Inc. Magazine's Top 5000 Fastest Growing companies, American Fiber Systems provides metropolitan networking infrastructure, dark fiber and transport services to carriers and large and mid-sized enterprises in ten markets nationwide. For more information on partnering with AFS, visit www.americanfibersystems.com.

About American Fiber Systems
American Fiber Systems (AFS) provides metropolitan fiber optical networking infrastructure, dark fiber and transport services to carriers and large enterprises. AFS enables its customers to easily and reliably connect to a city's most important points of communications presence; Internet Service Provider (ISP) and data center locations; Inter-exchange "carrier-hotels;" wireless providers and Fortune 1000 companies. AFS has deployed more than 1.2 million miles of high-capacity, high-bandwidth metropolitan fiber optic cable since 2000 in several cities, including Atlanta, Ga.; Boise, Idaho; Cleveland, Ohio; Kansas City, Kan./Mo.; Las Vegas, Nev.; Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minn.; Nashville, Tenn.; Reno and Carson City, Nev.; and Salt Lake City, Utah. AFS has more than 500 capacity enabled on-net buildings and supports an addressable market teledensity of more than $9 billion in annualized telecommunications services. AFS is a privately held venture-backed company led by Dave Rusin who shares insights on telecommunications trends and news on his blog at www.telecomstraightshooter.com.

About eData Center, LLC
eDataCenter, LLC provides customers with state of the art, fully redundant, secure data center services specializing in colocation, disaster recovery, online backup, and website hosting. Benefits include improved network uptime, reduced outage probability, lower risk, lower cost with flexible packages and a professional staff dedicated to customer service. Additional information can be found by visiting www.eDataCtr.com.

    
eData Center connects to AFS's Atlanta Metro Ethernet Circuit to Support Customers in Need of 100% "Green" Uptime

Atlanta, Ga.– April 30, 2009 — Optical fiber network provider, American Fiber Systems (AFS), and eData Center, LLC (eData), have partnered to provide clients with an environmentally conscious and 100% resilient data backup system. By using their unique, proprietary cooling system, eData has taken the lead in Atlanta on applying "green" technologies to the application of disaster recovery and data storage solutions. By combining eData's technology with a highly reliable connection to AFS's Atlanta backbone, network managers in the greater Metro Atlanta region now have a new alternative for cost-effective, "green" data backup solutions.

The original provider of Atlanta Ethernet service AFS's Atlanta backbone is a preferred network of area data centers. The eData facility now connects directly to AFS's recently upgraded 18,720 miles of Atlanta fiber network.

"Small businesses are concerned about their ability to stay online 24/7," said Eric Klein, Managing Director, eData Center. "When a storm knocks out the power or a connection goes offline, critical elements to daily success are lost–like access to email and the ability to complete important customer transactions. By combining our unique energy efficient approach with AFS's 'bullet-proof' bandwidth, we're able to give Atlanta businesses a highly reliable solution at a very competitive price. Simple as that…"

"Although 'going green' is in fashion these days, we support it because it makes good business sense," said Mike D'Angelo, Senior Vice President, American Fiber Systems. "Being environmentally conscious reduces energy costs and improves reliability. This is a sensible answer for many businesses looking for a high quality, straight-forward, easy-to-understand solution to manage, store and back-up their data. Period."

Recently named #162 Inc. Magazine's Top 5000 Fastest Growing companies, American Fiber Systems provides metropolitan networking infrastructure, dark fiber and transport services to carriers and large and mid-sized enterprises in ten markets nationwide. For more information on partnering with AFS, visit www.americanfibersystems.com.

About American Fiber Systems
American Fiber Systems (AFS) provides metropolitan fiber optical networking infrastructure, dark fiber and transport services to carriers and large enterprises. AFS enables its customers to easily and reliably connect to a city's most important points of communications presence; Internet Service Provider (ISP) and data center locations; Inter-exchange "carrier-hotels;" wireless providers and Fortune 1000 companies. AFS has deployed more than 1.2 million miles of high-capacity, high-bandwidth metropolitan fiber optic cable since 2000 in several cities, including Atlanta, Ga.; Boise, Idaho; Cleveland, Ohio; Kansas City, Kan./Mo.; Las Vegas, Nev.; Minneapolis/Saint Paul, Minn.; Nashville, Tenn.; Reno and Carson City, Nev.; and Salt Lake City, Utah. AFS has more than 500 capacity enabled on-net buildings and supports an addressable market teledensity of more than $9 billion in annualized telecommunications services. AFS is a privately held venture-backed company led by Dave Rusin who shares insights on telecommunications trends and news on his blog at www.telecomstraightshooter.com.

About eData Center, LLC
eDataCenter, LLC provides customers with state of the art, fully redundant, secure data center services specializing in colocation, disaster recovery, online backup, and website hosting. Benefits include improved network uptime, reduced outage probability, lower risk, lower cost with flexible packages and a professional staff dedicated to customer service. Additional information can be found by visiting www.eDataCtr.com.

NEF partners with over seventy fiber providers and over one thousand data center properties. 

We add new carriers to the Fiberlocator and FindADatacenter databases every single day.

Fiberlocater.com is the industry's invaluable resource guide for developing a custom fiber network.  By offering mapping tools and comprehensive ROI information, Fiberlocater provides customers with the most complete and up-to-date information on optical fiber networks.

FindaDataCenter.com helps customers find data center space to fit their unique requirements, with enabled search tools for comparative features, including location, services and price range. 

If you have network assets or datacenter space to list, send us a contact request at info@nefiber.com.  A NEF expert will call you to discuss how you, too, can become a NEF partner. 

The bottom line of IT efficiency for 2009, Barb Goldworm explains in her recent presentation, “The Efficient Next Gen Datacenter,”   is "an opportunity for IT to address the bottom lines through a variety of technologies. We talk about consolidation, optimization and automation as the QAs to do that driving up of efficiency in terms of the infrastructure and in terms of users.  I put together a list of the things that we see as the most effective ways for users to help contribute to the bottom line. The technology initiatives that we are hearing about that are moving forward and helping make the most difference are things like consolidation with blades, consolidating storage, virtualization and Green IT."

Addressing reliability, availability, and serviceability, Barb Goldworm explains in her recent presentation, “The Efficient Next Gen Datacenter,”  "not only do I need to be able to make my applications available but I also need to make sure that they scale, so that when I have on-demand requirements I have peak loads coming into play. I need to be able to continue to deliver on that application availability commitment and use the infrastructure that is scaled to do that."



The way to do that, she says, is "capacity management, making the most efficient use of my physical and virtual infrastructures, so that I can meet my current needs, my future needs, my average workload and my peak workload.  And that’s all about dynamic workloads and all of the changes that I need to address and deal with on demand, and my planned, unplanned migrations and outages. So we get into things like automated resource management. What we are seeing is a compound annual growth rate of somewhere along the lines of 60% with a 10 fold increase over the next five years. We are talking about 1.8 zetabytes by 2011, that’s 1800 extra bytes."



Are you looking for a reliable network? NEF can help you locate robust, scalable and affordable dark fiber networks and can add measurable value to an organization's search for connectivity. Contact us today to see if dark fiber is right for you.

World-wide flooring producer and distributor, Mohawk Industries has consolidated IT functionality and connected their Marietta locations and remote data centers to the American Fiber Systems' Atlanta backbone.

The move, which involved fiber routing to the company’s West Oaks facility, consolidates three separate Kennesaw locations previously tapped out of bandwidth.  Cost prohibitive OC3s and the inability to add additional T1 lines prompted Mohawk to connect the locations and data centers to AFS’s fully protected redundant fiber network.  The move significantly increased the speed of secure data transfer and daily business tasks, including ordering, employee records, and e-mail/web based systems.

An NEF partner, AFS recently completed its managed wavelength services addition in response to demand from Atlanta enterprises for more accessible and cost effective bandwidth.  These upgraded service offerings give Atlanta businesses a choice of wavelength speeds at competitive prices, allowing them to achieve more intricate business continuity and protect themselves with bullet-proof disaster recovery services.  By switching to AFS’s Metro Ethernet network, Mohawk significantly increased the size of their network bandwidth at this location while keeping costs in line.  In addition, they resolved multiple bandwidth capacity issues and are now connected to easily scalable bandwidth with extensive growth potential. 

Click here to learn more.

According to Barb Goldworm, as the cost of energy rises "green" operations are becoming more significant to the data center community as they hold the opportunity for substantial cost savings.



Barb discusses her graph: "It now costs more just for the energy to power the servers than it does for the servers themselves. And so if you look at the kind of dollars we are talking about, I have an example here of a 1000 square foot datacenter holding 3010 kilowatts racks, power required for that infrastructure is 300 kilowatts, therefore the power required to cool it also 300 kilowatts. What that brings you is an annual cost for cooling of $240,000. If we can reduce that by 50%, that’s $120,000 per year to the bottom line that gets people’s attention. The challenge of course is that that money tends to come out of the facilities budget. And so one of the challenges is how do you get your facilities folks working with your IT folks to get those savings. The way that you do that is through a variety of different opportunities."



And based on projected energy usage through 2011, she adds, "significant savings that can come through power management and efficiency as well as virtualization can address those challenges that we talked about on the energy side."

If you're currently in a data center, use NEF to optimize your network and ensure maximum communications ROI whether you're connecting across town or across the country. Contact NEF to learn more.

In her recent presentation, “The Efficient Next Gen Datacenter,” Barb Goldworm gave the good news:  "IT has the opportunity to directly contribute to the bottom line through a variety of technologies that we have available today. We see IT being more a part of the partnership within businesses today where IT CIOs are being asked, 'how can you help us with this financial issue rather than just having budgets cut?' IT has an opportunity today to do that through things like consolidation, optimization and automation, doing more with what is in the infrastructure, making the infrastructure work better, making the infrastructure more efficient, making users more efficient and increasing user productivity."



Consolidating and automating helps to bring the costs down.  Consolidation–delivering the same workload on fewer systems with fewer components can bring costs down while driving up utilization, quicker delivery times, and decreased time to production.  In addition, it reduces capital expenses through reduction of hardware, software and management costs.

Keep your applications running fast and keep your costs low. Contact NEF to learn how we can help you find a robust and reliable network that fits your needs. Whether it is a dark fiber network or lit service solutions, we’ll help you find the best price on the right connectivity options for your business.

30-year systems and storage veteran, and President and chief analyst at FOCUS, Barb Goldworm, recently delivered the timely presentation, "The Efficient Next Gen Datacenter: Doing More with Less"

Barb discussed the top 5 challenges of the 2009 IT departments:

1. IT faced with doing more with less.  Financial considerations are greater than ever before, and, as opposed to 6 months ago, are in every single planning meeting today.
2. Facilities must deliver the same workload, the same services, and/or better budget while also consolidating, reducing space, and reducing power and cooling.  Again–doing more with less
3. Scalability and performance on demand is a must.  IT must deliver services out to users in a 24/7 type of environment and, as needs grow, must be able to scale that service and deliver the kind of performance users require.
4. Increased availability requuirements–requirements of doing more with less space.
5. IT must provide an infrastructure to stay current and keep up with the growth of information demands while not growing the budget at the same level.
   

Barb poses the questions, "So how do we provide an infrastructure to stay current and keep up with the growth of information demands while not being able to grow the budget at that same level?  How quickly can I get money back for the investments that I am making? What is the payback period?  What is the internal rate of return?"

Learn the answers to these questions and more in Parts II through V.

Looking for more answers to data center questions? Contact NEF today.

AGL Networks has completed the company's fiber expansion into i/o Data Center's 530,000 square foot Pheonix One data center campus.  Read more from the press release below.  For more information, contact NEF today.

"We are thrilled to offer dark fiber service to both the Scottsdale ONE and Phoenix ONE i/o Data Centers™ facilities," said Jim Gillis, president, AGL Networks.  "The need for dark fiber network solutions is growing in today™s current economic climate. Providing our clients with lower operating cost with enhanced network security and redundancy is essential.

"We're pleased with AGL Networks™ decision to extend their dark fiber network into our Phoenix ONE data center," said Matt Calhoun, chief technology officer, i/o Data Centers. "This additional capacity will offer our existing and future clients greater diversity, flexibility and lower cost connectivity options.  We are glad to have AGL supplement our world class network story."

i/o Data Centers provides next-generation data center and colocation services which are considered best in class for hosting and maintaining mission critical data center operations.  i/o Data Centers™ broad range of outsourced data center services are used by several of the largest Web properties and enterprises world-wide.  The company's newest data center, Phoenix ONE, is a state-of-the-art, high powered facility which serves as both an enterprise data center complex and Phoenix carrier hotel.  All i/o Data Centers™ sites offer carrier neutral colocation services which allow customers the flexibility and cost savings of direct, no-charge cross connects to the AGL network.

The benefits of leasing capacity from AGL Networks include the ease and ability to increase bandwidth on demand, complete route diversity from other providers, enhance network security with an all underground network, provide flexibility in applications that utilize dark fiber and reduce overall telecommunication costs.

This addition brings AGL Networks on-net building list to over 70 sites.  In Phoenix, AGL's™ fiber footprint encompasses 255 route miles.

About AGL Networks
AGL Networks, a wholly owned subsidiary of AGL Resources, owns, constructs and operates dark fiber optic networks and provides last mile connectivity between telecommunications service providers and business customers in the United States with large metro fiber footprints in Atlanta and Phoenix and specific turnkey fiber solutions in Kansas City, St Louis, Richmond and Nashville. For more information, visit www.aglnetworks.com.

About AGL Resources
AGL Resources, an Atlanta-based energy services company, serves more than 2.3 million customers in six states. The company also owns Houston-based Sequent Energy Management, an asset manager serving natural gas wholesale customers throughout North America. As a 70 percent owner in the outhStar partnership, AGL Resources markets natural gas to consumers in Georgia under the Georgia Natural Gas brand. The company also owns and operates Jefferson Island Storage & Hub, a high-deliverability natural gas storage facility near the Henry Hub in Louisiana. For more information, visit www.aglresources.com.

About i/o Data Centers
Arizona-based i/o Data Centers is a completely integrated data center services firm that designs, builds and operates world class raised-floor data centers, including data center space, conditioned uninterruptible power, network-neutral telecommunications access and internet bandwidth. The company delivers high performance data center cabinets, cages and suites to enterprises and web properties of all sizes.  Visit i/o Data Centers to learn more about dedicated data center suites, cages and cabinets on the web at www.iodatacenters.com.

Recent NSDL article, Shedding Light on Dark Fiber, examines the fast, and seemingly never ending growth of new information–and thus, the need to find a better way to share that information. 

Beginning with the dot-com boom in the late 1990s, business and communications models were "irreversibly changed."

"It was during this boom that a sort of informational gold rush occurred. Seeing that the demand for bandwidth was growing exponentially with no sign of slowing down, telecommunications companies started laying down large networks of fiber optic cables. The companies reasoned that by doing so, they could guarantee a market presence in the area well into the foreseeable future. Laying down large networks in advance also made fiscal sense: most of the cost of laying the networks was in developing plans, getting the proper zoning permits and permissions, and executing the massive Civil Engineering task of burying miles of cable; laying the cable as needed would increase the cost per mile of cable dramatically. Certainly, the companies thought, this excess bandwidth will not go to waste."

This would not hold true as the dot-com bubble burst just before the new Millenium, and the countless new Internet businesses were forced to move on.

In addition, the technique of wavelength-division multiplexing, or sending multiple streams of data on the same cable by using different wavelengths of light, increased the bandwidth of the cables already laid by as much as 100 times. As a result of this massive increase in bandwidth supply and waning
investment, many companies went bankrupt and the cables lay unlit.  Today, many of these cable networks still lay unused, or “dark.” There were hundreds of thousand of miles of cable laid, but due to the many different owners of the many different networks, there is no clear estimate as to the exact amount of unused bandwidth still available."

The price of buying this unused bandwidth in the form of dark fiber is now extremely low–less than $200 per mile.

"Despite the ever-increasing amount of information being swapped on a daily basis, the world’s information network has plenty of room to grow. Dark fiber will inevitably play a huge role in the further development of the world’s informational infrastructure. Perhaps the shortsightedness of the dot-com boom was in fact the best long term strategy of all.

Click here to read the whole article.

For more information, visit NEF today at www.NEFiber.com.

From Juniper networks' Enterprise Data Center Network Reference Architecture white paper on Enterprise Data Center Network Design Considerations:

The following section summarizes some of the technical considerations for designing a modern day data center network that must support consolidated and centralized server and storage infrastructure as well as enterprise applications.

NOTE: The design considerations discussed are not necessarily specific to Juniper Networks solutions and can be applied universally to any data center network design, regardless of the vendor.

As data centers become consolidated, more servers become centralized. The data center can be viewed from the perspective of the different groups of people interacting to create a highly available and functional end user requirement for the enterprise. These groups typically comprise storage, server, application and network groups. Observing all of the installed devices in the data center, we obviously see large racks of servers (X86 servers, blade servers or mainframe systems), different types of storage switches that use Fibre Channel and InfiniBand, and a variety of applications (Oracle, SAP, Microsoft) that utilize these resources to deliver business requirements. These three silos are connected through a fast, secure and reliable data center network fabric which forms the fourth silo of systems and devices in the data center. The critical attributes for designing today’s data center for extreme availability and superior performance are as follows:

• Virtualization—network, server and storage
• High Availability/Disaster Recovery (HADR)
• Visibility—not only in the network traffic and security events, but also into application traffic
• Connectivity—ubiquitous connectivity to disparate sets of resources
• Security —security and compliance
• Policy and Control—centralized policy and control
• Quality of Service (QoS)
• High Performance—applications, storage, servers and the network

To view the entire white paper, click here.

For more information, visit NEF today at www.NEFiber.com

Raleigh, North Carolina - (The Hosting News) - February 27, 2009 - Data center and managed services provider, Hosted Solutions' founder and chief executive officer, Rich Lee, was recently named "Business Leader of the Year" by Business Leader magazine's 2009 Triangle Hall of Fame Awards.
Mr. Lee offered, "It's a great honor to be recognized. There are some incredibly talented leaders in this state, representing very impressive businesses. To be named as 'Business Leader of the Year' from such an esteemed group is wonderful. The fact that this award was determined by votes from my peers, customers, partners and others in the community makes it even more special."

The award follows a very strong year for Hosted Solutions. In April, the company was acquired by Boston-based private equity firm ABRY Partners for $144 million. The company has had great momentum since then with significant growth in both customers and employees. New customers included Belk, Atlanta Falcons, UNC Charlotte and Britax Child Safety, who joined a prestigious list of existing blue chip customers like Krispy Kreme, Carolina Panthers, McClatchey Broadcasting, Capitol Broadcasting and Lowe's Motor Speedway. In addition, the employee base doubled since Q4 of 2007.

The Business Leader of the Year awards are given annually to top performing business executives in North Carolina. This year, for the first time, the awards were determined by a public vote. More than 7,000 people visited the Triangle Business Leader website to vote for winners over the last month.
Mr. Lee added, "Our business continues to prosper even in a tough market because we're offering our customers intelligent IT infrastructure and expertise that allows them to conserve capital, drive growth and improve productivity. IT is tremendous expense for most companies. We can help to alleviate some of that and allow companies to operate more efficiently. For some customers, we serve as their IT department - they outsource all aspects of IT to us. For others, we're an extension of their IT department - providing managed hosting, virtual dedicated hosting or professional services. Customers love it because they can use us as their business ramps up or down, allowing them to remain competitive in a dynamic market. Last year was a great year for us and 2009 is shaping up to be even better."

Hosted Solutions' quality Data Center and Managed Hosting services maintain and protect customers' mission-critical IT systems and applications, enabling them to reduce operating costs, lower the risk of downtime, focus on core competencies, and achieve their top business objectives. The company operates SAS 70 Type II Certified facilities in Boston MA, Charlotte NC, Raleigh NC, and Cary NC providing best-of-breed data center operations with hardened physical infrastructure, the highest level of security, and a complete managed services portfolio. Hosted Solutions was acquired by Boston-based private equity firm ABRY Partners in April 2008 for $144 million.

For more information, visit NEF at www.NEFiber.com.

Domestic interconnection and colocation data center operator, Telx, announced the addition of advanced networking solutions provider, CoreXchange, to its global service provider offerings in Dallas, TX. 

The move gives CoreXchange a network point of presence (PoP) at the Telx facility and provides Telx customers with complete access to CoreXchange’s Network Access Exchange (NAE) via a fully managed, single connection.  The NAE delivers redundant connectivity to six Tier-1 Internet backbones, including AT&T, Global Crossing, and Level 3.

According to TMNnet, the agreement states "either Telx or CoreXchange can be the single point contact to customers that require a total IT solution comprising of colocation space, interconnections with a wide variety of carrier and business networks, and low latency Internet connectivity.  Additionally, CoreXchange’s fully meshed topology creates a network in which each network PoP is connected independently to every other PoP.  Company officials said that this enables automatic traffic re-routing in case of a network outage in any point in the network."
 
Rose Klimovich, Vice President of product development and product management at Telx, said, "by working with CoreXchange in Dallas, Telx can now offer its customers greater bandwidth and a more complete network solution that includes flexible space, interconnection choices, and low latency connectivity."

CoreXchange volleyed back the positive nature of the new relationship with the statement, "by building a relationship with Telx in Dallas, the company can continue to offer industry-leading connectivity along with cost-effective and flexible colocation space."

For more information, visit www.NEFiber.com.

According to a recent survey, more than a quarter of the respondents said at least 40% of their organizations' IT resources are spent on managing operating system and application delivery to endpoint devices. 31% said their organizations spend at least 21% of their IT resources tracking software licenses for endpoint devices.

"Managing the use of a vast array of different endpoint devices can cause IT administrator headaches and cost the organization real dollars–not only in the resources expended by the IT team trying to solve compatibility issues, but also in the lost productivity of users having to cope with less-than-optimal computing environments until the issues between their devices and the organization's applications are resolved," writes Rowland, who explains that endpoint virtualization adopters are the answer.

Endpoint virtualization technology allows IT directors to easily manage the countless daily-used virtual endpoint devices in a more cost-effective way by separating valuable information from the operating system and applications. In addition, because of recent advancements in the industry, these endpoint virtualization tools are less expensive than they were in their infant stages, causing IT directors to explore cost vs. ROI and see a positive trade off. 

Rowland explains, "One of the overall goals of endpoint virtualization is to simplify IT management. The problem is that most management solutions on the market are only capable of managing traditional or virtual environments, but not both. In order to effectively manage their infrastructures, IT administrators who have implemented endpoint virtualization have to use a medley of tools to keep all the environments in their infrastructure–traditional, virtual and hybrid-in check."

He suggests the solution lies in using multiple tools and methods from the same vendor to manage all the possible environments, adding, "this final obstacle is proving to be the most formidable one in the path of greater endpoint virtualization enterprise penetration."

Click here for more information on utilizing IT resources.

Learn more at www.NEFiber.com.

The average outage time for a T1 connection within the U.S. is 8 hours.  You can see how your business would be affected by using this Impact of Network Downtime Calculator.

Indeed, loss of trade is the most significant cost of network failure.  A recent article on 4Networking.biz, however, added that management time, staff morale, and customer relationships also suffer.  With management working around the clock, putting all efforts towards IT recovery, they must turn away from their daily responsibilities and tasks.  In turn, when the staff is not able to complete their deliverables, and with no one to answer to, company culture and morale take a hit.  

Worst of all, a company's reputation is a stake.  Customers not receiving deliveries, products, and information are more willing to turn away than wait it out.

Analysts have shown approximately 1% of overall yearly revenue is lost from one simple outage.

For more information, contact www.NEFiber.com today.

In a 3/11 article published on Computer Technology Review, Marc Goodman shed some light on optimizing your network on a limited IT budget.  Mark works for Ecessa, a manufacturer of advanced WAN Optimization products.

"Costs associated with deploying, maintaining and supporting WAN infrastructure for reliable application delivery can be dramatically reduced. Specialized WAN Optimization Controllers with link aggregation, load balancing and failover are here to help."

Mark explains that, although deploying applications over the internet is becoming easier, there are still many concerns about reliability, performance, and security.  An added challenge for IT departments is trying to stay one step ahead–or even to keep up with–the fast growing increase of remote users accessing these applications.  IT personnel must get the highest level of performance from existing network equipment, while also simplifying and ridding the company of unnecessary costs.

"Poorly performing and failing network links cause organizations to pay dearly each year," Goodman writes. "Without the proper controls, these issues will continue to lead to loss of business/revenue and declining customer satisfaction.  The resulting consequences are unacceptable when you consider it costs ten times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep a current one."

Properly utilizing a high-performance, reliable remote IT location requires continuous maintenance and management.  

Using WAN optimization controllers can result in greater control and significant cost savings. 

The maintenance of continuous and economical network infrastructure is a challenge for any organization. The delivery of critical business applications over the WAN faces many obstacles, including ISP outages, traffic spikes, bandwidth-intensive applications, large data file requests and hackers trying to attack critical data, applications and network infrastructure. When outages occur, the losses and business flow disruption can be staggering.

"Specialized WAN optimization controllers (WOC) that provide WAN and ISP bandwidth aggregation, load balancing and failover provide link reliability, economize network bandwidth, provide flexible scalability and offer additional layers of network security while streamlining network IT costs.  These devices simplify the management of multiple, diverse links. Traffic spikes, bandwidth-intensive applications and service provider issues adversely affect network delivery," writes Goodman.

Click here to read the full article.  For more information, visit www.NEFiber.com.

In February, NEF announced a new low latency fiber route connecting Chicago to New York. In a follow-up to this, NEF would like to remind its customers that nothing goes better with a low latency long haul route than low latency routes from the carrier PoP’s to the customer locations delivered either via dedicated fibers tails,  a 10Gig wave or a  MetroE 10Gig service delivered over private fibers. 

And, no one can provide those low latency routes like NEF partner, AboveNet. Due to their latest generation fiber for peak optical performance and avoidance of central offices, they can offer a shorter cable path, less latency, avoidance of unnecessary patch panels and OEO conversions. Hence, they are also able to offer lower latency, less equipment failure and fusion splicing for the lowest dB loss.

So, don’t give back the low latency you obtained at a premium price on the long haul on the two tails you’ll need. Use AboveNet to connect the final miles.  AboveNet is located in most carrier hotels and a has a fiber presence in many of the financial companies in  New York City and Chicago that will want the lowest latency end-to-end route.

Contact NEF today to learn more about AboveNet's services.

While many companies prefer to outsource their wide area network to a service provider, (which also allows the provider to offer SLAs to their customers) enterprises with mission-critical, time-sensitive data, such as financial institutions, hospitals and insurance companies, can utilize Carrier Ethernet technology for many things, including database backup.  This method, which rides in tandem with the shift to server consolidation into data centers, is a cost effective model.  

TMC European editor, Bob Emmerson explains, "Managed services have been available for some time and now there is a standard (Y.1731) that enables end-to-end performance and fault management," adding that outsourcing a WAN "is clearly a positive development, but is still a service based on connectivity and the market requirement has moved on."

Carrier Ethernet is shifting into it's next phase of development.  Emmerson explains, "The first phase was Layer 2 best-effort connectivity and there was no service awareness. The second phase brought in predictive connectivity as well as VPN services and improved scalability.   The third phase, which Alcatel-Lucent is pioneering, is “Application Enabled” Carrier Ethernet. An example of this evolutionary next phase is the ability to assure the quality of the individual applications, i.e. the QoAs. Put another way, end-to-end SLAs for the different applications and services that businesses require could significantly expedite the evolution of managed services.  This is an enterprise-centric article, but it is worth noting that the same functionality can be applied to the residential and mobile services, e.g. IPTV and triple/quad play."

Click here to read Emmerson's full story.

To learn more about the Carrier Ethernet model, visit NEF at www.NEFiber.com.

Taking into consideration the global challenges faced by IT departments–fewer staff needed to manage more applications and the consolodation of servers into centralized data centers–TMC European editor, Bob Emmerson, explained the need for IT departments to transition from traditional connectivity models to the newer Carrier Ethernet (CE) model in a 2/4 article.

The CE Model is born from Ethernet Transport technology, and was designed specifically to overcome its wide area network deployment limitations to allow providers to deliver better services via Ethernet base technology. By extending that technology over an enterprise network, IT departments can use CE to create end-to-end Ethernet.

Bob further explains: "Routers wrap (and unwrap) IP packets inside Ethernet frames and these frames can be transported over all mainstream media, including copper. But when bandwidth requirements increase, optical fiber is the preferred choice:OPEX ( News - Alert) is low, speed is high and fiber scales like no other medium.

CE technology has evolved and when deployed in conjunction with carrier-class switches it ensures the predictable delivery of traffic over wide area networks: unlike traditional Ethernet networks, it is not a best-effort service. The characteristics are those of a circuit-switched connection, so it supports the low latency requirements of real-time voice and video traffic. In a nutshell, Carrier Ethernet has just about everything going for it. In 2008 IDC, an analyst organization, valued the private line market at $40B ( News - Alert).

This figure encompasses legacy transportation technologies such as SDH/SONET, but eventually the global infrastructure will migrate to CE."

Click here to read Emmerson's full story.

To learn more about the Carrier Ethernet model, visit NEF at www.NEFiber.com.

Jim Hintze, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Fujitsu, called the demand for bandwidth across Texas "explosive".  Fiberlight has responded to that demand by utilizing the Fujitsu FLASHWAVE 9500 Packet Optical Networking Platform (Packet ONPs). 

By integrating Fujitsu's FLASHWAVE technology, FiberLight now has the ability to offer premium managed communications services, including Ethernet, SONET and wavelength connectivity, to all customers throughout the company's 1,500+ mile route. These services are scaleable to support consistently increasing media-rich bandwidth needs of FiberLight customers who require mission-critical, delay-sensitive services.

Kevin Coyne,President and Chief Operating Officer at Fiberlight explained, “Our selection of the Fujitsu FLASHWAVE 9500 platform allows us to deliver multiple services with a single product that combines SONET, ROADM, and Ethernet capabilities. The platform easily scales to support higher capacities, thus allowing us to keep our initial capital costs down while giving us plenty of wavelengths for future growth. Operating costs are also reduced thanks to its small footprint and low power consumption. Our experience with other Fujitsu products made our decision easier because we know the product quality will help us maintain a superior customer experience.”

Fujitsu will also manage Fiberlight's high-availability, mission-critical network via two fully-redundant network operations centers (NOCs) located in Sunnyvale, Calif. and Richardson, Texas. 

“Our decision to outsource with Fujitsu was driven by our desire to deliver a superior customer experience which is made possible through Fujitsu’s use of redundant facilities for protection, the best monitoring tools, and personnel who are experts on the equipment," said Coyne.  "This expertise means advantages in response time and restoration capabilities that directly affect our bottom line and our ability to provide an even higher level of service to our customers.”

Read the full press release here.

To learn more about network providers, contact NEF today.

NEF and their new new quoting tool for colocation and managed data center services have been featured in Phone+ Magazine. With such an expansive database of data centers and available carriers, NEF is now your one-stop-shop for colocation and networking needs.

A new route connecting Chicago to New York, in an estimated 952 optical miles, is currently being offered through NEF.  This new route, scheduled to be available the second quarter of 2010, is designed with the latest generation fiber optic cable to provide the lowest latency path between two of the United States key trading hubs.  The pathway will have its own regeneration huts and the fiber and will be offered as a 20 year dark fiber IRU. 

Letters of Intent are being accepted and the order in which the letters are received will establish the order in which customers are installed when the route is operational.

For more information contact:

NEF, Inc.
info@nefiber.com
Brian Delaney
508-663-1634

Customers need bandwidth at an increasing rate, and the ILECs aren’t always keeping pace. That’s where enterprises are taking matters into their own hands with the help of companies like NEF.

Whether a simple switch in providers or a fork-lift upgrade, the economic downturn has created the need for IT directors to review network connectivity with a neutral third party such as NEF. Now, more than ever, companies should be in search of more bandwidth for less money.  With the help of NEF, customers can have increased bandwidth and reliability along with the lowest latency available – all with better SLAs.

NEF recently empowered a large, well-known web-based company to let go of the end of their bandwidth rope, outfitting the company with a 10 Gb circuit for the same price they previously shelled out to the ILEC for 1Gb. Similarly, NEF has been helping businesses swap legacy SONET rings with 1 Gb circuit and diverse 10 Gb Wavelengths, allowing the company to utilize economies of scale for each new incremental addition to the network from the original construction costs.

Enterprise businesses can now easily and affordably replace their DS3s and 100Mg solutions and upgrade to a Gb, which is exactly what a NYC to L.A. law firm recently implemented with NEF’s help.  The office-to-office, point-to-point solution gave the law firm double the amount of bandwidth at a 30% cost reduction.

“Customers should know that in this economy, carriers—those going strong and those struggling–are racing to become more aggressive on prices and commitment levels,” said Mike Murphy, CEO, NEF, Inc.  “Many carriers are providing discounts at lower bandwidth commitment, so it makes sense for businesses to price shop while they can.”

While large enterprises can get bandwidth upgrades for less – smaller organizations can also benefit from considering a change. More and more SMB customers are gravitating toward popular and cost effective Ethernet transport services.   Suzy Frisch, author of a recent business article titled “The Future of Bandwidth,” explains that Ethernet transport service has become the de facto alternative to DS3s and obsolete T1s, significantly increasing network speed and costing 25 percent less.

Don’t cling to the fraying ILEC rope.  You’ve got options.  Talk with NEF today to review your current connectivity situation and receive a carrier-neutral assessment of your network options.

Large, well-established enterprise businesses are reaching the end of their bandwidth rope.  After hanging on for a decade, and sliding further down each time they realize the pitfalls of dealing with ILECs, they’re now hanging on to the last, skinny thread of their current connectivity situation.

It’s time to let go and get a better solution.

Even though businesses have realized their ILEC SONET ring is incredibly expensive, that they’ve been relying on legacy core infrastructure far past its prime, and probably been over-paying for their bandwidth, many still fall back on old excuses for not looking at their other options.

First of all, change can be a scary thing. Beyond the mere idea of change, customers are sometimes handcuffed by long-term contracts as well as the concern that core traffic riding on the ILEC network may somehow be in jeopardy with a change. The perceived cost and high-risk of switching makes many IT directors averse to change. They’re simply willing to settle for less than the need – and at a premium price – from the ILEC.

Because of this, ILECs will continue “business as usual,” with no pressing need to improve the process, add flexibility or make solutions more affordable.  The ILECs ignore the needs of the customer, despite the fact that technological boom of recent years has left businesses with a strong reliance on bandwidth-heavy, data-intensive, high-speed networking applications for critical day-to-day functionality. Not to mention that web traffic has also doubled over the past 15 months, according to recent article, “The Future of Bandwidth” by Suzy Frisch.

Some companies have been forced to prioritize bandwidth usage, giving sales and CRM functions priority over less critical tasks, such as human resources operatives. More than anything, today’s enterprise businesses require something the ILECs can no longer provide–physical network diversity and telecom diversity – the reality that if consolidation occurs or if a carrier goes under, that businesses maintain their connectivity. 

So how do companies solve this problem? Read “More Bandwidth for Less Money” to learn how.

First introduced by the Sun Market in 1994, Fibre Channel connectivity gave telecom an industry standard for faster throughput.  The new fiber optic technology allowed for higher signaling rates over longer distances—much faster than copper or electrical solutions.  The previous standard of SCSI, a parallel interface with an extremely high cable core and connector count, was quickly replaced with the more reliable Fibre Channel, which contained less internal cabling within server and storage systems, and included re-routing abilities.

For some time, however, the technology only allowed for connectivity between the computer and storage farm with Fibre Channel in the same room.  It would be years before Fibre Channel connectivity would sufficiently mature to meet the modern demands of enterprise businesses and carriers. But today, Wavelength and high speed SONET equipment can now be used to extend the original Fibre Channel legacy interface so data centers can be set up at diverse locations. 

Unfortunately, most phone companies are not able to integrate and readily provide this type of technology to their customers.  And it will become more difficult for them to do so as telecom companies reduce their capital expenditures budgets. 

The good news is that an NEF carrier partner is picking up the slack– privately-owned network provider, American Fiber Systems.  The award-winning provider has integrated Fibre Channel technology into their recent network upgrade in Atlanta, allowing customers easy access to managed wavelength services over metro fiber networks. 

”It’s no secret that the ILECs either can’t offer a much more difficult and complex route to gain this type of access,” said Mike D’Angelo, Senior Vice President of American Fiber Systems. “We’re making it faster and easier for companies who are growing and essentially tapping out of bandwidth, leaving them no room to expand.”

AFS’s network upgrade gives enterprise businesses and carriers an efficient and cost effective way to provide enhanced services, such as OC-192 support, 10 Gbps service levels, and the ability to consolidate multiple backhaul services and diverse routes for existing backhaul circuits.  

The massive increase in information technology over recent years has led to an increased need for enterprise bandwidth, speed, and reliability.  Businesses have experienced a rise in high-performance communications, improvements in storage, processors, and workstations, as well as collective moves to distributed architectures.  The result is bandwidth-heavy, data-intensive, high-speed networking applications that have become critical to day-to-day business functionality and require a new level of performance.  Continuity of these functions and the assurance of reliable disaster recovery has become a necessity to business success and longevity.

Despite the American economic situation, the market for managed services in the U.S. is expected to be greater than $34 billion by 2013, according to Informa Telecoms & Media. As the trend continues, enterprise businesses and carriers are looking for cost effective ways to increase their bandwidth, speed, and reliability.

The American Fiber Systems upgrade provides a more cost-effective option for those wishing to establish or upgrade a remote data center.

Carriers are looking for cost effective ways to offer customers a variety of wavelength speeds, easier access to more intricate business continuity, and bullet-proof disaster recovery services. In addition, they need last mile providers who are ready, willing and able to offer these types of better options. And like carriers, enterprises are also looking at new options to connect to data centers, through such networks as those with Fibre Channel connectivity.

“Metro area businesses are growing, and essentially tapping out of bandwidth—which leaves them no room to expand,” says Mike D’Angelo, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at American Fiber Systems.  “The addition of managed wavelength services gives Atlanta enterprises readily available capacity levels with the flip of a switch.” Fibre Channel, a highly-reliable, gigabit interconnect technology allows concurrent communications among workstations, mainframes, servers, data storage systems, and other peripherals using SCSI and IP protocols. It provides interconnect systems for multiple topologies that can scale to a total system bandwidth on the order of a terabit per second. Fibre Channel delivers a new level of reliability and throughput. Switches, hubs, storage systems, storage devices, and adapters are among the products that are on the market today, providing the ability to implement a total system solution.

Have questions about American Fiber Systems and Fiber Channel connectivity? Contact NEF today to learn more.

WBS Connect, a Colorado-based global technology services company, has expanded its worldwide footprint to include such cities as Hong Kong, London, New York and Los Angeles through a collaboration with Tata Communications,

Tata Communications, a leading provider of worldwide communications uses a global 10G backbone, which WBS Connect plans to take advantage of during the first two quarters of 2009. Thanks to this collaboration, WBS Connect will now be connected to one of the large Tier 1 global backbones in the world which boasts more than 85 IP pops location in 27 countries.

Tata Communications is a member of the $62.5 billion Tata Group. Tata Communications’ range of services include transmission, IP, converged voice, mobility, managed network connectivity, hosting and storage, managed security, managed collaboration and business transformation for global enterprises and service providers, as well as Internet, retail broadband and content services for Indian consumers.

About WBS Connect
WBS Connect is a privately-held provider of global technology services. The company was founded in 2003 by managing partners Scott Charter and Mike Hollander. It leverages multi-gigabit commitments with IP transit carriers to offer high bandwidth Internet connections and data networking services worldwide. WBS Connect also offers data center colocation, expert managed network services, high definition video conferencing, and cloud computing services. They have a presence in over 300 carrier-neutral data centers across the world, and have access to over 70,000 network nodes.

Contact NEF today to learn how you can connect with WBS and Tata Communications.

Level 3 Communications provided broadcast feeds for the 2009 Super bowl XLIII  between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay for the twentieth consecutive year.

Though it will be the last time the annual game will be televised in the analog version now that the U.S. is switching to digital TV nationwide, television feeds were in both analog and digital high definition formats.

Televising the Super bowl is always an honor for Level 3 as the show is a highly rated, iconic and global event for all kinds of viewers.

With their massive Internet backbone and communications infrastructure, Level 3 used their video service, Vyvx Fiber Video Transport, which provided zero lag and 24×7 digital connectivity. Also, its optical fiber super highways provide 10Gigabytes per sec (10Gb/s) Ethernet inter-connections which deliver 100Gb/s across the Atlantic Ocean.

Level 3 provides feeds to Tier 2 information carriers, which provide services such as Web hosting, telecom, cable TV, and even intranets for universities. It also provides business critical services like metro Ethernet, Virtual Private Network (VPN), VoIP and video streaming.

Keep your applications running fast and keep your costs low. Contact NEF to learn how we can help you find a robust and reliable network that fits your needs. Whether it is a dark fiber network or lit service solutions, we’ll help you find the best price on the right connectivity options for your business.

Telx, one of the nation’s largest interconnection and colocation data center operators, has chosen AboveNet to link its New York and New Jersey-based data centers with dark fiber.  Through this collaboration with AboveNet, a leading fiber optic connectivity provider, Telx customers installing equipment in one of Telx’s four New York area data centers will benefit from low latency and the ability to connect directly to more than 500 other carriers and enterprise customers over a Telx-managed optical transport network.

In the New York area, many of Telx’s customers work in the top-tier financial services companies where there is zero tolerance for network interruption. Thus, it was imperative for Telx to design a network that ensured the highest reliability. Not only does working with AboveNet ensure that reliability, it also provides dark fiber and optical transport, which offers the lowest possible latency for customers connecting to a financial institution network. This new infrastructure will further allow customers to easily expand their operations across many Telx facilities and multiple interconnected networks.

AboveNet has a proven track record of delivering highly scalable and reliable fiber optic connectivity and other high-bandwidth services to financial services, media and entertainment, and other enterprise companies. Their customers can now extend into Telx's colocation facilities in N.J., and source the best data center and optical networking solutions to help them optimize key IT infrastructures.

About Telx
Telx is a world-class leader in providing interconnectivity solutions through their network-neutral and network rich, colocation facilities. With over a dozen facilities in North America, Telx offers cost effective networking solutions for customers to seamlessly access diverse global networks and exchange information in a secure and reliable environment. Over 600 leading telecommunications carriers, ISP's, content providers and enterprises rely on Telx's world-class team to support their mission-critical global infrastructure needs and to create a global connectivity marketplace to dramatically expand their business growth opportunities. Telx is a privately held company headquartered in New York City with facilities in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Miami, Phoenix, Charlotte, and Clifton and Weehawken, NJ.

Get the benefits of NEF’s network expertise with the expanse offered by AboveNet. Contact NEF today to learn more.

President Obama’s proposed economic recovery package, still under review in congress, includes tax incentives that promote the expansion of next-generation, fiber-based broadband networks. This incentive is part of Obama’s need to create jobs and expand economic growth.

A recent study recently by the Fiber to Home Council titled, “Economic Effects of Tax Incentives for Broadband Infrastructure Deployment,” found that such tax incentives could create more than 20,000 jobs in each of the next three years, while also increasing the economic output by more than $100 billion. These tax incentives can create so many jobs because labor accounts for half of the money spent on dark fiber network deployment. Once complete, increased broadband would then create an additional 360,000 jobs.

While the nation is in need of new jobs and a boost in the economy, the tax incentives will also help to improve the U.S. technological infrastructure, which currently lags far behind other developed nations. An improved broadband infrastructure will not only make the U.S. technologically competitive on a global scale, but will also help drive the U.S. economy throughout the 21st century.

In expanding America's broadband infrastructure, it makes sense to encourage the higher-bandwidth networks we will need to compete globally in decades to come. Thanks to the Fiber to Home Council study, we now have evidence that states that promoting broadband networks will give the maximum boost to employment and immediate economic growth.

NEF designs solutions based on your needs and specifications using a variety of connectivity options. Creating custom dark fiber networks is one of the strategies NEF employs to bring you the best communications network at the most competitive price. Contact NEF today for more information.

As many of you are already aware, Nortel has decided to exit the Optical and Carrier Ethernet markets placing their MEN business up for sale. In addition, last week’s news of Nortel filing for bankruptcy protection has left a number of customers concerned about the long-term viability of Nortel optical platforms used to light their business-critical networks. For those enterprises concerned about the development roadmap and support for their current Nortel 5200 products, Ciena is offering a comprehensive migration program. For a time, Ciena is offering Nortel 5200 customers an upgrade plan, which includes both incentives and a full suite of services to support a transition plan including design, turn up and test, decommissioning and disposal, and maintenance and management. Customers who require a slower paced migration plan can contact NEF to discuss Ciena’s custom Nortel 5200 services that are now available through Ciena’s Global Network Services Team.

Contact NEF today to learn more about Ciena’s custom Nortel 5200 services.

FindADataCenter.com is always looking to improve their services and offerings.

This is why they are reaching out to you, their valued customers, to get your thoughts and opinions on what can be improved.

Take a minute of your time and help FindADataCenter.com be an even better service.

Take the FindADataCenter.com Survey

NEF is starting a brand new podcast series and we'd like to interview you!

Share your insights and opinions in a 15 minute question and answer podcast.

Contact us to schedule your fifteen minutes and start sharing with your peers today.

NEF partner, Pinpoint Holdings, a communication and network solutions company based in Nebraska, has recently invested in and become a managing partner of Great Western Communications, LLC.

As investor and managing partner Pinpoint will have access to Great Western’s recently acquired XC Networks of Dallas, Texas. XC Networks operates a long-haul microwave network extending from Houston to Chicago, and from Chicago, through Nebraska to Seattle. Elements of the network also extend to Dallas, Amarillo, Denver, Salt Lake City and Portland. Pinpoint will also control access, day-to-day management, marketing and billing for the Great Western network from its Nebraska offices.

Pinpoint is excited to add Great Western’s complimentary routes to its portfolio. Its current lit services network, arms for products, services and Internet access can now expand into the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah and Washington. The larger footprint will also enhance the current telecom infrastructure in Nebraska, where Pinpoint already has a strong presence.

The acquisition complements Pinpoint’s existing properties in the states of Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, completing a broadband network that spans the United States from Seattle to New Orleans, all running through the state of Nebraska.

About Pinpoint Holdings
Pinpoint Holdings is a Nebraska based company that provides the entire array of communication services with a nationwide, secure broadband network. Services provided by Pinpoint include transport, Voice over Internet Protocol, data center services, Internet, local and long distance telephone services.

NEF designs solutions based on your needs and specifications using a variety of connectivity options. Creating custom dark fiber networks is one of the strategies NEF employs to bring you the best communications network at the most competitive price. Contact NEF today for more information.

Dave Rusin, President and CEO of American Fiber Systems talks about his company at this summer's Voice Peering Forum.

FiberLight, LLC a provider of metro optical transport services, has recently partnered with BandCon, a leading content delivery provider, to extend the BandCon Content Delivery System to the South Florida market.

BandCon will further expand its national footprint when it deploys FiberLight’s LightSource suite, extending its Miami data center to Ft. Lauderdale. FiberLight is in the perfect position to assist BandCon with this endeavor as it offers a 287-mile diverse metro ring infrastructure extending from the city of North Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton and Ft. Lauderdale to Miami’s downtown business district.  Through this partnership, BandCon will be able to take advantage of FiberLight’s real-time data transfer capability, 5 9s reliability and their 24 hour monitoring system with reduced downtime.

It has become imperative that content providers provide real-time solutions for the rapid transfer and download of media rich content. By selecting FiberLight as their optical transport provider, BandCon will be able to offer their customers a cost-effective solution that supports their needs for speed and flexibility.

About FiberLight
FiberLight provides metro optical transport services including Ethernet, Wavelengths, IP, SONET and Dark Fiber within Atlanta, Washington DC, Northern Virginia, Baltimore, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Clearwater, Tampa, St. Petersburg, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, and Miami. Leveraging over 500,000 miles of metro fiber, the most exacting customers in the industry including telecom carriers, international carriers, government, large enterprise, content providers, and web centric businesses all rely on FiberLight to transport mission critical and delay sensitive data.

NEF designs solutions based on your needs and specifications using a variety of connectivity options. Creating custom dark fiber networks is one of the strategies NEF employs to bring you the best communications network at the most competitive price. Contact NEF today for more information.

Hosted Solutions, a premier managed services and data center provider has signed a deal with Britax Child Safety, Inc., a leading child seat manufacturer.
Britax is world renowned for developing cars seats that greatly improve child safety. In today’s modern age of the Internet, the company has shown understanding that the Internet is the number one destination for a family researching the important decision of which child seat to buy.

With a large web presence, Britax chose Hosted Solutions as its hosting provider because Hosted Solutions will be able to globally connect the company’s website which now spans North America, Europe and Australia. Hosted Solutions is officially contracted to handle dedicated services, bandwidth, firewall, servers, licenses, backups and full management for all Britax web properties.

Their international presence requires that Britx has uninterrupted service on their website at all times. Hosted Solutions has the resources to make this happen, while also keeping the site secure around the clock.

About Hosted Solutions
Hosted Solutions’ high quality Data Center and Managed Hosting services maintain and protect customers’ mission-critical IT systems and applications, enabling them to reduce operating costs, lower the risk of downtime, focus on core competencies, and achieve their top business objectives. The company operates SAS 70 Type II Certified facilities in Boston MA, Charlotte NC, Raleigh NC, and Cary NC providing best-of-breed data center operations with hardened physical infrastructure, the highest level of security, and a complete managed services portfolio.

Keep your applications running fast and keep your costs low. Contact NEF to learn how we can help you find a robust and reliable network that fits your needs. Whether it is a dark fiber network or lit service solutions, we’ll help you find the best price on the right connectivity options for your business.

Those of you in the motion picture and television industry will be thrilled to learn that AboveNet, Inc., a leading provider of fiber optical connectivity solutions, has launched jabNET, a new high-bandwidth service that quickly transfers visually rich content such as special effects between diverse geographical locations.

Thanks to AboveNet’s jabNET, industry professionals will experience a faster movie and TV production process that keeps pace with the fast-changing demands of the industry.  With jabNET there is potential to save weeks of financial charges as elements no longer need to wait to be copied and packed on hard drives and sent via courier from location to location. Now industry professionals can get the files in only a few clicks. Additionally, rather than looking at tiny images that were once sent over the web, images can now be viewed in high-definition on large screens.

About AboveNet
AboveNet provides fiber services for business and carriers and says its private optical network delivers services in and among 14 top U.S. metro markets and London.

NEF designs solutions based on your needs and specifications using a variety of connectivity options. Creating custom dark fiber networks is one of the strategies NEF employs to bring you the best communications network at the most competitive price. Contact NEF today for more information.

NEF is proud to announce a new offering in Dallas. A wholly owned conduit system in the central business district — includes building entrances. Check out the map below and contact NEF today for additional information on the new fiber routes available in Dallas.

Earlier this year, Southern California Edison, California’s largest electricity utility, announced plans to create the state’s largest single solar photovoltaic installation. The plans call for a massive 250 megawatts of advanced photovoltaic generating technology to be placed on 65 million square feet of Southern California commercial building roofs – enough power to serve around 162,000 homes.

The company has recently announced that the first of its major commercial rooftop solar installations is now complete and powering homes in Fontana, California. The specs for this Fontana rooftop include 600,000 square feet of rooftop space with 33,700 advanced thin-film solar panels, making it the largest single solar photovoltaic project in California. It is expected to create enough power to meet the needs of approximately 1,300 homes.

This Fontana rooftops accounts for only a portion of Southern California Edison’s total project which expects to include two square miles of existing commercial roofs with 250 million watts of peak generating capacity.

Southern California Edison decided to take on this project once solar technology was advanced enough to reduce the cost of installed photovoltaic generation to about half of current similar installations. Southern California Edison is also pursuing other sources of renewable energy as seen earlier this year when they announced plans to build the largest wind farm in the US.

NEF designs solutions based on your needs and specifications using a variety of connectivity options. Creating custom dark fiber networks is one of the strategies NEF employs to bring you the best communications network at the most competitive price. Contact NEF today for more information.

The U.S. Broadband Coalition has reached out to President-Elect Barack Obama and the 111th Congress asking that they make the execution of a comprehensive broadband strategy a national priory in 2009.

The U.S. Broadband Coalition includes organizations such as the FTTH Council, American Cable Association (ACA), the Connected Nation and a number of other carriers and equipment service suppliers.  Together, they have put together a “call to action” which outlines initial goals for a national plan to bridge the digital divide and harness the potential of broadband enabled communications for businesses, schools and individuals.

The coalition argues that broadband access is now a necessity for every American. It further states that broadband-enabled Internet connectivity has changed the way the world communicates, learns and does business. Unfortunately, the United States currently lags far behind other countries in broadband advancement, a ranking that the country can no longer afford to keep. The U.S. Broadband Coalition hopes that President-Elect Barack Obama agrees that 2009 should mark the beginning of the end for broadband disparity for individuals throughout the country, particularly in underserved communities.

Goals put forth to the President-Elect and the 111th Congress include:

• Every American home, business, and public and private institution should have access to affordable high speed broadband connections to the Internet.

• Access to the Internet should, to the maximum feasible extent, be open to all users, service providers, content providers, and application providers.

• Network operators must have the right to manage their networks responsibly, pursuant to clear and workable guidelines and standards.

• The Internet and broadband marketplace should be as competitive as reasonably possible.

• U.S. broadband networks should provide Americans with the network performance, capacity, and connections they need to compete successfully in the global marketplace.

Keep your applications running fast and keep your costs low. Contact NEF to learn how we can help you find a robust and reliable network that fits your needs. Whether it is a dark fiber network or lit service solutions, we’ll help you find the best price on the right connectivity options for your business.

According to a new report from Infonetics Research, worldwide service providers are on track to spend $275 billion on capital expenditures in 2008. This is up 10.5% from 2007 and can be accredited to currency appreciation against the U.S. dollar.

The report titled, “Service Provider Capex, Opex, ARPU, and Subscribers,” was updated to reflect world events and suggests that because of recent news, 2009 can expect to see a capex decrease of approximately 2% among service providers worldwide.

These changes are different from what Infonetics originally projected in 2006. They forecasted the spending plateau to occur in 2009, but the current global turmoil has sped up the process, making it occur a year earlier in 2008.

While many industries are being especially hard hit during this economic downfall, most service providers are taking it easy because they have clean balance sheets and are entering the global crisis on solid financial ground. This financial stability can be attributed to the fact that a lot of these companies went through their correction when the Internet/telecom bubble burst, resulting in deep double-digit capex cuts.

Other highlights from the report include the following:

• Wireless services will help keep service providers' revenue afloat and prevent telecom from a major slump.
• Worldwide service provider revenue is on track to reach $1.63 trillion in 2008, up 9.5% from 2007, due in large part to currency appreciation, with the rest coming from wireless.
• The world's 10 largest service providers (ranked by 2007 revenue) are AT&T, Verizon, NTT, Deutsche Telekom, France Télécom, Vodafone, Telefónica, China Mobile, BT, and Sprint.
  

NEF designs solutions based on your needs and specifications using a variety of connectivity options. Creating custom dark fiber networks is one of the strategies NEF employs to bring you the best communications network at the most competitive price. Contact NEF today for more information.

NEF Partner, WBS Connect is a privately-held provider of worldwide technology services. The company leverages multi-gigabit commitments with IP transit carriers to offer direct connections in the United States, Europe and Asia. WBS Connect also offers colocation, storage, and expert managed network services. WBS Connect has a presence in carrier neutral data centers in Amsterdam, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, NYC, Seattle, and Toronto. Following is a case study in which WBS Connect was able to provide a multiple carrier, BGP enabled, high availability solution to Meru Networks, a developer and marketer of wireless infrastructure solutions that enable the All-Wireless Enterprise.

Overview
Meru Networks develops and markets wireless infrastructure solutions that enable the All-Wireless Enterprise. Its industry-leading innovations deliver pervasive, wireless service fidelity for business-critical applications to major Fortune 500 enterprises, universities, healthcare organizations and local, state and federal government agencies. Meru's award-winning Air Traffic Control technology brings the benefits of the cellular world to the wireless LAN environment, and its WLAN System is the only solution on the market that delivers predictable bandwidth and over-the-air quality of service with the reliability, scalability and security necessary to deliver converged voice and data services over a single WLAN infrastructure.

Challenge
Meru Networks needed a partner that could provide a multiple carrier, BGP enabled, High Availability Solution to support their mission critical Data, voice and Video traffic.

Solution
WBS Connect was able to assist Meru Networks in getting their own ASN number through ARIN. WBS Connect then architected a BGP-enabled, high availability, networking solution utilizing the ATT and XO Communications IP backbones. For the managed hardware solution, an N+1 Routing/Switching infrastructure powered by Juniper Networks was deployed. This solution provides Meru Networks with a fully redundant, high availability network topology that supports their mission critical Data, Voice and Video traffic. By running BGP with ATT and XO, Meru is not dependant on a single carrier for IP backbone connectivity. The N+1 hardware solution also allows for a router to completely fail and not affect Meru Network’s traffic.

Benefits Summary
• WBS Connect acts as a single point of contact for network connectivity, managed services, hardware, and advanced network consulting. WBS Connect takes care of IP backbone services, including providing one, simplified monthly bill.
• Meru benefits from WBS Connect’s multiple carrier relationships, providing diversity and reducing the risk of network down time. Additionally, instead of having to maintain relationships and contracts with each individual carrier, Meru just has one contract with WBS Connect.
• Meru IT has built a strong relationship with WBS Connect’s engineering staff. Meru receives unbiased consultation and guidance whenever needed.

Get the benefits of NEF’s network expertise with the expanse offered by WBS Connect. Contact NEF today to learn more.