Data Center Knowledge has a post about the boon times for Data Center News.

Data Center Knowledge hit a milestone today: according to FeedBurner, we now have more than 4,000 readers subscribing to our RSS feed. That reflects a broader upward trend in interest in data center news, which can also be seen in Google Trends, which shows that the number of U.S. news articles including the term "data center" has doubled in the past year:

Out of Curiosity I went to Google Trends and checked out Green Technology.  Here are the search and news results.

Add the two together and there is no shortage of Green Data Center news. I am up to about 200 subscribers in RSS feeds, and since I started blogging 6 months ago, my subscribers are growing about 50% a month.

Main thing is I am having fun, so it keeps me blogging.

I ran into the ZDNET article

Hitachi tests its own green IT theories with new data center project

Hitachi Group is celebrating Earth Day with the groundbreaking of an expansion to its data center in Yokohama, Japan.

The new wing boasts technology advances that are part of the massive technology company’s CoolCenter50 project. It also plays into the company’s corporatewide Harmonious Green Plan, which calls for it to reduce 330,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions by 2012 through various green IT products.

Hitachi’s green data center design plays off its own software and hardware ideas from all over the green IT spectrum, including storage virtualization and thin provisioning, data deduplication software, and its “ecology” server.

Here’s a visual depiction of the data center’s interior, showing how various functions, such as the electrical power facilities and the uninterruptible power supplies are located.

And, Hitachi Data Systems, Hu Yoshida who gave a keynote presentation at AFCOM's Data Center World, and has his own blog page.

Hu Yoshida

Hu Yoshida, the CTO of Hitachi Data Systems, provides his insight into industry issues, discusses in his own words storage best practices, and provides realistic solutions to real storage needs in today

CoolCenter50 and Harmonious Green

November 11th, 2007

In September of this year Hitachi ltd, our parent company announced a program in Japan that is known as CoolCenter50 which is targeted at reducing power consumption in their Yokohama and Okayama data center by 50% in 5 years. This effort encompasses all of the groups in Hitachi including, air conditioning, power generation, IT equipment and management software.

But, what set the tone for what is going on in Japan is this blog post by Forrester.

Japanese Systems Engineers - Too busy firefighting to do jury duty?

I want to thank Akky Akimoto of Asiajin for pointing out a story in Japan's Mainichi newspaper about Exemptions for Jury Duty in Japan (article in Japanese). Akky points out that "Systems Engineer" is one of the jobs in a special list compiled by Japan's law courts; a list of people who have valid reasons to be exempted from jury duty ...

Background: From May 2009, Japan will introduce a "lay judge system" in which ordinary citizens will help decide the outcomes of trials. Japan's supreme court anticipates that some citizens will try to dodge jury duty with excuses ranging from "I'm a beautician. New graduates are relying on me to style their hair and kimonos for the graduation ceremony season" or "I'm currently the top favorite hostess at the bar where I work."

In order to provide guidance to district courts regarding which excuses should be viewed with sympathy, the supreme court conducted some research and came up with ten examples of jobs and circumstances that may qualify as worthy excuses for declining to do duty as a "lay judge".

and, discusses what it means that IT System Engineers make the list of ten jobs excused from jury duty.

What should we infer from this?

- Japanese Systems Engineers are in short supply. They're stretched - working long hours and with little or no spare capacity. Japan's Ministry of Technology and Industry has acknowledged "There is a lack of skilled IT engineers, in terms of both quality and quantity." (2007 ASOCIO conference in Tokyo -- Katsuhiko Kaji, director, Information Service Industry Division).

- Japanese Systems Engineers are tied up with "fire fighting". There have been some very high profile disasters with corporate IT systems in recent years. Most famously, the Tokyo Stock Exchange was brought to a comlpete stop on a few occasions because of bugs in the computer system created by Fujitsu. (And it's not the busiest stock exchange in the world - by a long shot). Many Japanese companies are struggling to cope with IT systems that have been cobbled together over the past few decades. When Forrester interviews Japanese IT executives, we find that too few are taking steps to make their IT infrastructure more flexible and more manageable (as I explained last year in my report: Japan Technology Investments And Priorities).

I have heard business leaders comment that it's hard to attract young Japanese people to work in IT. Jobs in IT are perceived as the modern day equivalent of "3K" jobs. ("3K" originally refered to jobs that were "kiken, kitsui and kitanai": dangerous, hard and dirty). Because of the long hours, tough conditions, and lack of glamour, few Japanese graduates dream of becoming Systems Engineers.

But who knows, maybe a jury duty exemption will put the sparkle back into the IT career track....

It's pretty hard to be Green when you are in fire fighting mode, and there are shortage of skilled IT engineers.

I admit. I have a bias on this article. Both of my parents are Japanese heritage, and I've gone to Japan over 20 times for business trips, working on multiple Japanese projects. And, my favorite sports are still Judo and Aikido.

ITBusinesEdge, posts a blog on Will Green Data Centers Endure?

Is green technology set to become a permanent fixture of the IT industry, or is it just a fad – and one that’s getting ready to “jump the shark?”

Probably a little of both.

At the moment, all indications are that enterprises around the globe are taking seriously the concept of the “green” data center. While some of it can be attributed to the desire of IT decision-makers to do what’s right by Mother Earth, it’s also true that doing what’s right goes hand-in-hand with adding cash to the bottom line.

The latest report on green technology from Datamonitor estimates that nearly 20 percent of top enterprises have adopted at least some sort of green technology, the vast majority of which is probably server virtualization. Three quarters of CIOs and IT managers say adopting green business practices, like reducing energy consumption and improving recycling practices for decommissioned hardware, is a top aspect of their data center strategies.

Professional organizations are also stepping up their efforts to devise and help implement green business practices. The Storage Networking Industry Association has teamed up with The Green Grid to develop educational programs and spearhead collaborative development efforts aimed at making the storage side of the house more efficient by reducing the power draw to both run and cool storage systems.

I have posted 210 entries to my blog in the 6 months I started blogging on Green Data Centers.  I would have never thought I could get these many posts on the subject, but it has been easy to find Green data center subject matter, and this is still the early adopter stage.  As energy costs increase and more people run into power and cooling issues the interest is going to grow quickly.

The other question to ask is Will Brown/Black Data Centers be extinct in 5 years?  Will data centers that are oblivious to their effect on the environment survive?  Will they be so inefficient that they'll become the equivalent of pre-catalytic converter cars that are polluting the environment and governments will target their retirement?  The data center construction industry would be ecstatic if government's obsolete data centers over 5 years old that have not been upgraded.

Barron's posted an article on Wall Street Redefined.

RELATIONSHIPS COUNT FOR LITTLE on Wall Street these days -- fortunately. A hedge-fund manager can no longer make up for bad performance by buying you a fancy dinner. An institutional salesman can't sustain fat commissions by reciting the morning meeting notes and taking you out on the links.

Contributing to this salutary pay-for-performance trend are "alpha-capture" databases that let money managers track the performance of ideas pitched by hundreds of brokerage salespeople and analysts. These systems take a more scientific approach to the traditionally haphazard process of allocating commissions to brokers. More important, the systems help investors find the outsiders who deliver "alpha," which is the Wall Street term for market-beating returns.

And continues...

BUT ALPHA-CAPTURE SYSTEMS can motivate institutional salespeople to cull their firm's best ideas. Buyside users of a system tell stockbrokers to enter ideas into a Web-accessible database, along with an investment thesis, trading strategy and conviction level. The ideas get time-stamped and both the broker and the money manager can subsequently track performance in real-time. The returns to an idea can be compared to hundreds of others in the system or to a benchmark. Portfolio managers can zero in on brokers or stocks that interest them. The phenomenon has been called a Wall Street version of fantasy football.

First Coverage's chief executive, Randy Cass, says his belief in the need for such systems originates in his experience as a portfolio manager at the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. "I've been there, trying to deal with massive amounts of information being firehosed at me," he says. To cope, most portfolio managers look for ideas from a few familiar people and firms.

When I read this, it would be a dream come true to have a tool like this to detect the Green Hype vs. Green Reality.  Having vendors enter their ideas into a web database could make them accountable for their products, detecting Greenwashing and holding the sales team accountable.

DataCenterJournal has an article by a Green Data Center Consultant Bill Masters, Are Greening Consultants Worth It?  And, offers his 5 top reasons for a professional Green Consultant.

1. Skilled greening consultants typically have a technology and energy background. That means they have expertise in power distribution, UPS, infrastructure, cooling as well as extensive knowledge with respect to load and performance benchmarking measurements.

2. Experienced greening consultants will take a holistic energy reduction approach to data centers. Most will conduct a comprehensive Data Center Analysis to evaluate your data center's infrastructure in addition to an IT analysis that's designed to pin point hardware and software inefficiencies.

3. A few of these consultants are aligned with the utilities in your area of operation. In many cases they have programs available to cover some or all of the greening costs associated with an aggregate or stand alone power savings programs.

4. The skilled greening consultant will act as your agent to work directly with the utility to see your greening project through from inception to completion.

5. Finally, the skilled greening consultant will only get paid a percentage of the verified energy savings calculation confirmed by the utility.

On first glance this made sense, but then I asked would I do it this way. No. If you really are Green you're about efficiency and eliminating waste. So, shouldn't your #' 1 job be to use the least amount of resources for maximum results?

Here are my three simple steps:

1. Awareness of where you are at and the ability to educate others.
2. Identify potential Green/energy efficiency projects and prioritize.
3. Figure out the most efficient path to take and define the measurements for success/failures along the way.