The Future Green Data Center Work Force

March 19, 2008 Dave Ohara

DataCenterKnowledge has a human interest post on The Youngest Data Center Entrepreneur which points back to Jonathan Jones post, the 10 year old son of Softlayer's CFO.

One day I am going to be a mechanical engineer. I’ll design server racks and datacenters for SoftLayer that will be more efficient and eco-friendly to help the environment. They will hold more servers so they can sell more and make more money.

This is the kind of energy that I run into all the time, but never this young and focused on creating a Green Data Center.

Where will Microsoft's Green Path Lead? InfoWorld article

March 14, 2008 Dave Ohara

InfoWorld joins the press in discussing Microsoft's Green IT efforts.

For months now, many of the hardware technology heavyweights -- HP, IBM, Sun, Dell, AMD, Cisco, and Intel, for example -- have gone to great lengths to highlight their green products, plans, and corporate visions. Other green IT benefits not withstanding, this strategy makes sense from a marketing standpoint: By demonstrating and accentuating the greenness of their wares, they're better positioned to sell processors, PCs, servers, and other gear to customers hungry for leaner, greener operations.

Now the software behemoth Microsoft has stepped forward to loudly proclaim its support for the sustainable IT movement. The company's off to a good start: Beyond a list of notable green credentials already under its belt, Microsoft has a newly appointed chief environmental strategist in Rob Bernard, charged with guiding and promoting the evolution of the company's green agenda. The company's newly released server platform Windows Server 2008 is garnering praise for its energy efficiency. The company is even starting to share, for free, its best practices for datacenter management.

By shining a green spotlight on itself, Microsoft is calling attention to the fact that it understands the role that it -- and the software and platform industry as a whole -- has to play in the complex green-tech ecosystem. What remains to be seen is how that seemingly newfound green religion will manifest itself in future product offerings, particularly, in my mind, with respect to the successor to Vista.

Green in Redmond
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer used the Cebit stage to not only tout the energy-efficiency features loaded in Windows 2008 Server and other Microsoft products; he told the world that the company would soon release a set of best practices for datacenter management, drawing on energy-saving strategies the company has adopted in its own operations. The first set of best practices, in fact, is already available for download.

A friend forwarded on IBM''s direct email response to Steve Ballmer's Cebit presentation. Here is the IBM Green IT product spin.

IBM System p in conjunction with IBM Middleware provides a massively powerful, scalable solution that lowers Total Cost of Ownership with one of the major components of that savings being power consumption and cooling. Using System p, IBM clients have consolidated 50 or more individual servers onto just one System p server, reducing power consumption by over 90% and floor space requirements by 80%.

With System p, you get improved utilization of the hardware you purchase, and along with the benefits IBM Middleware enjoys on this system, you have an unbeatable combination. Less power, less cooling, more throughput with fewer materials and lower costs - this is the IBM definition of Green IT.

Finally, Ballmer did say that Microsoft still has a lot more work to do when it comes to driving green IT initiatives. We agree. But the answer is NOT moving your data centers to cooler climates or near hydroelectric plants. The answer is consuming less. And IBM Middleware on System p delivers more value with less resource.

So, IBM Green IT consultants are going to focus #1 on upgrading the hardware, and data center power efficiency (PUE) becomes a non-issue? Actually, it does make sense. The more inefficient your data center is, the more energy you will save when you install an IBM energy efficient hardware upgrade. These IBM guys are brilliant. Keep energy costs high to justify hardware purchases.

Which brings up a great point I need to add to a future paper. Make various PUE assumptions on a data center when calculating an energy efficiency project, and don't assume the PUE is a static number. PUE is dynamic and changes.

Thou Shalt not Pollute, Religions Join the Green Movement

March 10, 2008 Dave Ohara

I wasn't going to blog on this, but given I saw 2 articles it caught my attention. Government regulations were something which I believe is going to change the behavior of businesses, but now religions have joined the Green effort.

Can you imagine the confession from an energy wasting data center CIO? Maybe this is a good way to get the attention of executives the 10 energy wasting sins in a data center.

The first article has the Vatican listing pollution as a sin.

Vatican lists new sins, including pollution

Top official also cites drugs, genetic manipulations and economic injustices

updated 12:42 p.m. PT, Mon., March. 10, 2008

VATICAN CITY - In olden days, the deadly sins included lust, gluttony and greed. Now, the Catholic Church says pollution, mind-damaging drugs and genetic experiments are on its updated thou-shalt-not list.

The second article has Southern Baptists leaders signing an environment vow.

Southern Baptist leaders sign environment vow

'Actions have often been too timid,' especially on climate, they say

updated 10:31 p.m. PT, Sun., March. 9, 2008

NEW YORK - In a major shift, a group of Southern Baptist leaders said their denomination has been “too timid” on environmental issues and has a biblical duty to stop global warming.

What also caught my attention is the grass roots support that drove part of the change at the Southern Baptists.

Student rallied leaders
The last Southern Baptist statement on global warming came at the denomination’s 2007 annual meeting, which approved a statement questioning the belief that humans are largely to blame for climate change and warning that increased regulation of greenhouse gases will hurt the poor.

Even so, Jonathan Merritt, a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, began rallying denominational leaders to take a different approach. Merritt, 25, son of former convention president James Merritt, said a theology class had inspired him.

His professor had compared destroying God’s creation to “tearing a page out of the Bible.”

Green IT Consulting will Mushroom, $4.8 Billion by 2013, says Forrester

March 6, 2008 Dave Ohara

News.com has post on Green the latest opportunity for consulting firms, and cites Forrester Research:

Green IT consulting will mushroom into a $4.8 billion industry by 2013, according to Forrester Research. The firm polled 130 companies and found that only six used a green IT service provider, but that 6 percent more were planning on it, and another 18 percent were considering it.

Some of the beneficiaries could be firms like Accenture, Deloitte, and EDS, which will start to provide holistic advice on energy efficiency and green corporate practices. IBM already has put together a fairly large effort to capture some of this work and is working with traditional IT customers but also utilities.

I wonder if HP is smiling about its acquisition of EYP.

More Dams in WA, CA, OR, ID, CO, and NV?

March 2, 2008 Dave Ohara

The Seattle Times has an an article about the Booming growth raises idea of Dams. The focus on this article are the water issues, but cheap hydroelectric power is there as well.

SPOKANE — The era of massive dam construction in the West — which tamed rivers, swallowed towns and created irrigated agriculture, cheap hydropower and persistent environmental problems — effectively ended in 1966 with the completion of Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona.

But a booming population and growing fears about climate change have governments once again studying dams, this time to create huge reservoirs to capture more winter rain and spring snowmelt for use in dry summer months.

New dams are being studied in Washington, California, Oregon, Idaho, Colorado, Nevada and other states, even as dams are being torn down across the country over environmental concerns — worries that will likely pose big obstacles to new dams.

"The West and the Northwest are increasing in population growth like never before," said John Redding, regional spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Boise. "How do you quench the thirst of the hungry masses?"

The state gov'ts know that water shortages are coming unless they come up ways to store more water as snowpacks are in jeopardy.

Washington's water crisis is centered on the Columbia River basin and the adjacent Yakima River Basin — which produce a bounty of crops, including apples, cherries, hops for beer and wine grapes.

Groundwater wells in the region are being emptied to sustain millions of acres of irrigated agriculture, prompting ongoing studies of new dams.