Microsoft's Mike Manos Opening Keynote Uptime Institute, Green Enterprise Computing

April 27, 2008 Dave Ohara

The opening of the Uptime Institute Symposium started with Pitt Turner, saying "what are we doing here?" Green Enterprise Computing is a timely topic for the industry event. I've seen Mike present before, and here is what I got out of Mike's latest presentation as new information to digest.

Mike's call to action for all was to stop being information hogs, and to share with the industry. He gave numerous example, and here are a few Mike shared.
Mike emphasized that in spite of a focus on technology. Microsoft has found having the right people and processes makes bigger impact than technology . Mike states over 50% of data center outages are caused by human error. This contrasts a common method to invest in multiple layers of infrastructure redundancy to achieve uptime.Mike was proud of Microsoft's ability to have a 100% facilities uptime over 7 years by implementing strong and disciplined maintenance programs. Also, redundant infrastructure creates more energy waste.
Technology is not the only answer to energy efficiency. People are the opportunity. Microsoft achieved a PUE improvement from 2.2 to 1.8 with no new technology just by people making changes to existing systems in one of their older facilities.
Mike didn't say this, but bottom line he emphasizes an Amazon.com approach in getting data on everything, and they'll figure out what to do with it after by giving people the information to do the right thing.

It is amazing thing to see how Microsoft has risen from nowhere a year ago to be the leader in the Green Enterprise Computing with Mike Manos, delivering the opening keynote.

I'll keep blogging more, but I should socialize for now.

For good notes on what Mike presented previously at AFCOM Data Center World go to John Rath's Blog post.

Energy Camp, April 28 - Microsoft's Chief Environmental Strategist Rob Bernard Keynotes

April 25, 2008 Dave Ohara

Energy Camp, an Unconference event looks like a cool event on April 28 in Las Vegas. Keynoting will be Microsoft's Chief Environmental Strategist, Rob Bernard.

About Energy Camp

Energy Camp @Interop is a collaborative “unconference” –- a gathering where attendees program discussion topics of their choice into the event’s agenda –- that’s dedicated to the reduction of IT’s global carbon footprint. This one-day, all day, forum will bring a cross section of industry stakeholders together to discuss the growing impact of today’s energy costs on IT’s bottom line, and the overarching importance of energy conservation and utilizing greener IT solutions and methods.

Rob Bernard.
Rob is the Chief Environmental Strategist for Microsoft, responsible for defining and implementing the global strategy for the company's environmental efforts.

Thanks to Tom Raftery for sending this to my attention.

Microsoft presents session on How System Center Helps with Green IT Initiatives at Microsoft Management Summit

April 24, 2008 Dave Ohara

At Microsoft Management Summit 2008, Frank Koch is presenting a session on How System Center Helps with Green IT initiatives.

SM22 How System Center Helps with Green IT Initiatives

Tuesday, April 29 4:00 PM - 5:15 PM, Titian 2304

Speaker(s): Frank Koch

Track(s): Client Management Technologies, Microsoft Initiatives, Server Management Technologies

Session Type(s): Breakout

Products(s): Configuration Manager 2007, Operations Manager 2007

Green IT is a hot topic for most companies today. Certain common points are true for everybody, regardless whether you are running large datacenters or a single small business server: optimizing your operations and IT environment will help you to become "greener" and save money at the same time. Learn and watch demos showing how System Center together with the Windows OS helps you to save energy & money by:

Modeling the hardware utilization of your environment for core products like Exchange, SharePoint or SC Operations Manager

Creating an overview of your IT environment and listing their energy saving capabilities

realizing the Dynamic IT vision by combining the power of System Center products together with the enhanced scripting technologies of Windows PowerShell

MMS is a sold out event, so it will be interesting what % of the people attend Frank's talk ouf of all the competing breakouts at his time. Frank has had dozens of conversations with European customers on the subject of a Green Data Center.

If some of you are interested in this topic add comments to this blog entry and I can follow up Frank to see if I can extract some of his presentation. Frank owes me one small favor as I loaned him a watt measuring device to demo the power consumption.

Having Fun Blogging, attending Uptime Institute's Symposium 2008

April 17, 2008 Dave Ohara

I was chatting with Ken Oestrich from Cassatt Software who writes his own blog, Fountainhead. We were discussing our views on the industry and where there are opportunities for Green IT solutions. Coincidentally, we are both going to attend Uptime Institute's Symposium 2008, and have high expectations for the conference, and are looking forward to the presentations.

I'll be writing for some clients and whatever is left over, I'll blog about. As well as doing some research for some consulting clients.

If you are attending the Uptime event, and want to meet feel free to send me an email. My email address can be found on my about page.

Power and Green themes of Next Generation Data Center Conference

April 8, 2008 Dave Ohara

Environment Protection posts news on Power Use, Green are key topics of Next Generation Data Center Conference.

IDG World Expo, a producer of world-class tradeshows and events, said that power consumption and the greening of the data center are two themes that will dominate this year's Next Generation Data Center™ Conference & Expo.

The topics will stand-out in keynote presentations and the conference agenda, providing attendees with a unique opportunity to learn from industry experts about how they can increase efficiency across their infrastructure. The issue of power will also resonate throughout the show floor by highlighting exhibitors with power products in the event show guide, the event Web site, and through booth signage.

The conference is scheduled for Aug. 4-7 at San Francisco's Moscone Center.

The official press release is here.

FRAMINGHAM, Mass., March 27, 2008 – IDG World Expo, the leading producer of world-class tradeshows and events, today announced that power consumption and the greening of the data center are two themes that will dominate this year’s Next Generation Data Center™ (NGDC™) Conference & Expo. The topic will stand-out in keynote presentations and the conference agenda, providing attendees with a unique opportunity to learn from industry experts about how they can increase efficiency across their infrastructure. The issue of power will also resonate throughout the show floor by highlighting exhibitors with power products in the event show guide, the event web site, and through booth signage. NGDC is scheduled to take place August 4-7, 2008 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center.

Cisco, Oracle, IBM, and Citrix have vendor keynote positions.

I don't think I'll go to this conference as the speaker list looks weak, and IDG is limiting its losses by hosting the event simultaneously with LinuxWorld. Which means IDG cannot fill the Moscone convention center with the Linux crowd and is looking to ride the Data Center wave with their own event.