Ken Brill Promotes CADE Metric in Forbes.com

Ken Brill has a commentary written in Forbes.com promoting the use of the CADE Metric.

I define a green data center as delivering the most productivity for the least amount of energy consumed. Will Forrest of McKinsey & Co. and I have defined a measure we call the Corporate Average Datacenter Efficiency (CADE) as being a useful--and, currently, the only--metric for measuring the combination of data center productivity and energy consumption.

CADE, while not perfect, divides overall data center efficiency into four individual measures, each of which can be separately measured and benchmarked. These elements include measures of IT asset efficiency and utilization as well as the asset efficiency and utilization of the physical facility that houses these assets. (You can read the report here.)

Nothing really new in this article. 

There are some experts who have opinions on CADE, but no one has stepped up with an alternative view.

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Microsoft Internal Field Presentation on Green/Sustainability Architecture

Michael Manos, GM of Microsoft's Data Center Construction and Operation, and Lewis Curtis, Infrastructure Architect will be presenting for the 3rd time at Microsoft's TechReady event, an internal presentation for Technical Field staff.

TechReady is a bi-annual, 5-day internal technical conference for Microsoft employees. Microsoft employees from all of the international subsidiaries, as well as American employees are presented to by the product groups about all the upcoming releases for the year, and receive training on all of the currently released Microsoft products^[1]. The senior executives will also often present at TechReady, outlining their visions for the future, and taking questions from employees.

TechReady is made up of many separate 'sessions' - from general briefings suitable for all audiences to in-depth 'breakout sessions' for a deep look at a specific product, or part thereof.

For those Microsoft people coming to town for the event, the session is ARC204, Thurs, July 31, 4:15-5:30, Environmental Sustainability Architecture Update.

· Sustainable Intelligence:  example is SCRY

· Sustainable Online Services: example is Live / GFS 

· Sustainable Optimization: example is products like Windows 2008 power mgmt/.Net optimization as well as datacenter optimization best practices from GFS, etc…

· Sustainable Consolidation: example is Windows Server 2008 Virtualization, IIS7, hardware design consolidation, SQL Server 2008, etc…

Maybe I'll be able to catch Lewis and Mike after the event for some comments.

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Google Drops 10% in after-hours Trading, Ouch

Google dropped 10% after hours to $479.70 according to WSJ.

Google Inc.'s second-quarter net income rose 35%, but the results disappointed investors and shares fell nearly 10% in after-hours trading.

"Strong international growth as well as sustained traffic increases on Google's Web properties propelled us to another strong quarter, despite a more challenging economic environment," said Chief Executive Eric Schmidt.

What to expect from other major companies -- including analyst forecasts for profit and revenue -- as they report quarterly earnings

The search-engine giant reported net income of $1.25 billion, or $3.92 a share, compared with $925.1 million, or $2.93 a share, a year earlier. Net income fell from $1.31 billion, or $4.12 a share, in the first quarter.

In Google’s Press Release.  Note the mention of data center operational expenses.

Other Cost of Revenues - Other cost of revenues, which is comprised primarily of data center operational expenses, amortization of intangible assets, credit card processing charges as well as content acquisition costs, increased to $674 million, or 13% of revenues, in the second quarter of 2008, compared to $624 million, or 12% of revenues, in the first quarter of 2008.

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Australia’s Carbon Trading Initiative – Impact on Data Centre?

Australia’s gov’t is promoting a Carbon Trading Scheme.

One of the interesting outcomes will how it effects data centres given their energy consumption.

We don't know yet what the impact will be on those same working families who ditched John Howard for Rudd, nor the effect carbon trading will have on potential investments in steel, aluminium, cement, oil, gas, petroleum and other emissions-intensive industries.

The Australia gov’t document is here http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/wong/2008/pubs/mr20080716.pdf.

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An Environmental Lesson from the Airline Industry

News.com has an article “The Wild Green Yonder”, substituting Green for what was Blue.

Some points we should learn from for a Green Data Center.

Sustainability is the new buzzword at Farnborough this year, and it is echoing as loud as the planes screaming by overhead.

"It's a matter for survival," Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association, said at an environmental conference Wednesday.

With global air traffic expected to swell in coming years, government regulators, including the European Commission, are applying pressure to make planes quieter, cleaner and more efficient, and threatening penalties if they fall short.

"Our customers are under hellish pressures to come up with improvements," said Tom Williams, an Airbus executive vice president.

There are no cheap or easy solutions. Lighter materials, new fuels and other innovations that promise to make planes more environmentally friendly mean more expense and development time. That includes the billions that engine makers are spending to develop new products.

All that could make it hard for the manufacturers to offer the discounts that their big customers have come to expect, potentially wiping out the savings that such planes might offer.

"It's a bitter split," said Williams of Airbus.

Bisignani said the industry was late to realize it needed to do more to stress its environmental credentials, leaving it open for attacks from environmental groups and threats of new taxes from Europe and elsewhere.

This same problem can hit Data Centers when environmental groups and gov’t start thinking data centers should be taxed and regulated.

Some people deny the problem and until recently.

Some executives here said the criticisms were unfounded. "Aviation should not be treated as a pariah," Tony Tyler, chief executive of Cathay Pacific, said at the environmental conference. "Everybody understands our obligations. Everyone is taking it very seriously."

The new focus this year is in sharp contrast to the Farnborough show in 2006, when Boeing's technology experts insisted in staff meetings that it was impossible to develop fuels that could substitute for the kerosene that powers jets.

Now, Boeing is conducting tests with four airlines--Virgin Atlantic, Japan Air Lines, Air New Zealand, and Continental--to see what may work best as an alternative fuel. British Airways, meanwhile, has invited energy producers to bring it fuels that it will test in laboratory conditions, its chief executive, Willie Walsh, said here.

Much of what is discussed can be used to describe the mindset of IT professionals, but hopefully the data center industry will not make the mistakes the airline industry has.  Even Blue IBM has changing its image to be Green.

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