• Ignition Partners backs Heroku – Ignition Partners is leading a $10 million investment in Heroku, a San Francisco-based startup which helps developers more easily build and manage applications in the cloud. From TechFlash.
• Wyoming Supercomputer nears final approval – The National Science Board has given its approval to the proposed NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center, which moves the $530 million project ahead to its final hurdle of authorization by the National Science Foundation. From Boulder County Business Report
• Network Cabling: Hidden Highway in Low Latency Race – A holistic, full-network approach to trading floor IT challenges should start with the most basic, foundational element of the network: the cabling system. From Wall Street & Technology
• Colo5 Data Center Activates Fiber Optic Ring – Colo5, LLC a leading provider of broadband services and data center colocation services in Jacksonville, Florida, announced the activation of a custom-built, dedicated, private fiber optic ring throughout metro Jacksonville. Via PR Newswire.

• BT Expands Data Center in Singapore – BT announced on Monday it will be expanding its BT Radianz Proximity Solution hosting services in Singapore. The data center is managed and operated by StarHub, BT's telecom partner for access services in Singapore. From The WHIR.<br />
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  The data center is managed and operated by StarHub, BT's telecom partner for access services in Singapore.
• Telecom company opens data center at STEP – The Business Review (Albany): – tw telecom (TWTC) is occupying 13,000 square feet of colocation space at the STEP park in Malta, NY, which is owned by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. From the Albany Business Review .
• Containerized data centers: Is a box a good fit? – Christian Belady and Chuck Goolsbee debate the pros and cons of modular data centers. From SearchDataCenter.com.

• BlueBridge Networks buys Nationwide Insurance data center – BlueBridge Networks LLC of Cleveland has bought the assets of the former Nationwide Insurance data center in Mayfield Heights for an undisclosed price. From Crain's Cleveland Business.
• Ballista Securities Selects Telx as Colocation Provider – Telx, an interconnection and colocation provider in North American markets, today announced that Ballista Securities, has established a colocation and interconnection presence within Telx’s 111 8th Avenue facility.
• Latest container data center springs up in Germany – Suppler Green Data Systems, which operates from Germany, Holland and Belgium said it will ship Green Data Center in-a-box across Europe in both 20' and 40' shipping container form factors.

• Steve Huffman on Lessons Learned at Reddit – "Nobody would call me for any other reason than to tell me Reddit was down. Even my mother would call me and say, 'Steve, your website’s not working.' Thanks mom."
• Olsen departs former Switch & Data, rebranding begins – Equinix Inc. has started the transition process of bringing the former Switch & Data Facilities Co. into its fold, beginning with an overall rebranding, and the departure of Switch & Data’s chief executive officer. From the Tampa Bay Business Journal.
• Origin of Wall Street’s Plunge Continues to Elude Officials – the cause or causes of the market’s wild swing remained elusive, leaving what amounts to a $1 trillion question mark hanging over the world’s largest, and most celebrated, stock market. From NYTimes.com

It is with deep regret to announce that the GameRail network has been discontinued at this time. Thank you to the gamers who have participated in the GameRail trial and support of its development as we worked to solve the issues of latency and network quality and their impact on gaming. We believe that latency and network quality will continue to affect the gaming experience and while we are still believers in the GameRail concept, the market does not appear to be ready to support a standalone network for gaming at this time.

GameRail operated a high speed network that directly connected online game players to servers hosting popular games. GameRail’s business model was to deliver superior performance to its subscribers by peering directly with ISPs, universities and game server providers (GSPs). Low latency is crucial in multiplayer first-person shooter games like CounterStrike, where a slow connection can leave a player at a competitive disadvantage. But gamers are also a price-sensitive crowd, as noted by Wagner James Au at GigaOm:

GameRail’s death notice suggests a broader reason: There are probably very few gamers out there willing to pay extra to become what’s colloquially called an SLPB, or “super low ping bastard.”

“Every Windows gaming PC has other non-gaming tasks running in the background vying for network resources,” said Harlan Beverly, co-founder and CEO of Bigfoot Networks. “Killer Bandwidth Control can for example, stop PunkBuster or annoying Windows updates from ruining the experience by limiting the bandwidth they can use.”

The Killer NIC gaming network card is designed to reduce the lag and latency associated with high action MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) and FPS (First Person Shooter) games. With a dedicated Network Processing Unit (NPU), Killer NIC offloads network processing from the CPU, bypasses the Windows Network Stack and prioritizes game packets to boost average frame-rates and smooth gameplay during intense game situations.

With Bandwidth Control gamers can manage the bandwidth across all applications to further maximize their game performance. Key features include: (1) Bandwidth Priority settings tell Killer NIC which applications should get preferential access when multiple applications are vying for the same bandwidth, (2) Bandwidth Limits set a minimum/maximum upload and download bandwidth speed for any game or application.

Bigfoot Networks specializes in technologies designed to fight Lag in online games. The company’s mission is to enhance Internet-based online game experiences in multiplayer action games. The company’s hardware and software solutions are targeted at gamer PCs and game hosting servers.

Bigfoot Networks Inc Killer K1 64 MB PCI Wired Online Gaming Network Accelerator NIC (B011-500-0045)

The Killer™ K1 64 MB PCI Online Gaming Network Accelerator from Bigfoot Networks™ is a Network Card designed specifically for online gamers. Killer K1 accelerates gaming by bypassing the Windows Network Stack, getting to data to your game fast. It features 333 MHz Network Processing Unit with Lag and Latency Reduction Technology. Killer K1 can be upgraded to support the Flexible Network Architecture (FNA). This allows you to run applications such as firewalls and BitTorrent clients right on your Killer instead of your CPU.

GameRail operates a high speed network that directly connects online game players to servers hosting popular games. GameRail’s business model is to deliver superior performance to its subscribers by peering directly with ISPs, universities and game server providers (GSPs). Low latency (“lag”) is crucial in multiplayer first-person shooter games like CounterStrike, where a slow connection can leave a player at a competitive disadvantage.

“When 20 milliseconds is a matter of ‘life and death’ – winning and losing – for an online gamer, latency, packet loss and jitter can ruin the playing experience,” said Mark Senda, chief executive officer for GameRail. “Internap’s optimized network performance solutions allow us to provide localized ingress and egress connection speeds to three milliseconds, maximizing the flow of real-time Web traffic while optimizing game play.”

Peering with Major GSPs
GameRail has direct connect peering relationships with the leading game server providers with over 80 percent of First Person Shooter (FPS) and Real Time Strategy (RTS) gaming servers attached directly to the company’s private, nationwide network. Internap’s solutions ensure that residential broadband users of all carriers are able to enjoy the optimum gaming experience. Additionally, GameRail features private peering to route traffic away from the Internet and onto its private backbone.

“GameRail has a unique and superior online gaming solution and we are thrilled to work with the company to help them evolve,” said Tim Sullivan, chief technology officer for Internap. “As a Web-reliant enterprise, GameRail’s use of our innovative, proprietary technology is a significant proof point of the power of our resources for Internet-based business.”

Online multiplayer computer gaming is one of the fastest growing entertainment activities in the U.S., with more than 40 million people now playing regularly.

GameRail is operated by Progression LLC, a facilities-based network operator with interconnection facilities in eight major US markets including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Palo Alto, Seattle and St. Louis.

Team Pandemic will be the first pro-gaming team to exclusively game on Dell XPS systems featuring Intel Core 2 Duo processors and Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate. “Dell’s college initiative provides us the opportunity to work closely with the industry’s technology leaders,” said Chris Lemley, president of Team Pandemic. “With Dell Unleashed as a title partner, we have a unique variety of media to further reach the college-aged gamer.”

The Frag Dolls, a team of seven women gamers, will hold a casting call for a new member as part of the sponsorship with Dell. I wrote about the Frag Dolls on GameJournalism.com back in 2004, and it turned out to be one of the best read articles on that blog (now part of Video Game Media Watch). The combination of attractive women and FPS gaming was a hit magnet, which is clearly what Ubisoft was thinking when it assembled the team. The Dell sponsorship will likely raise the Frag Dolls’ profile even further.

Applicants for the casting call will be interviewed Aug. 2-5 in the Dell booth at QuakeCon in Dallas, and the qualifiers will compete in the finals on Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas at Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in Seattle, Aug. 24-26.

Games Media Properties said it would pay all previous prize winners and refund entry fees it has received for scheduled  events in Los Angeles, London and Sweden .