Attending IBM’s Pulse 2010 Service Management event in LV Feb 21 - 24

I’ll be attending IBM’s Pulse 2010 Service Management event in Las Vegas, Feb 21-24.

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Feb. 21-24, 2010. Las Vegas, Nevada. As physical and digital assets converge, the planet is getting smarter. Food and retailproducts are tracked with RFID tags. Traffic and energy systems are now managed with sensors. Cities are more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent.

This convergence challenges today’s infrastructures, but also offers the opportunity to integrate operational assets with hardware, software and services for improved service management that drives greater business value.

As this is my first time attending IBM’s Service Management event, I have high hopes to learn how IBM and its partners are addressing service management.

Here is a map of the exhibit area, and some areas that look interesting.

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If you are attending the event, drop my an email at dave(a)greenm3.com and we can try and meet at the show.

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Bill Gates goes Green Finally, podcast and investment in Khosla Ventures

For past 3 years I’ve talked with a variety of people at Microsoft and the Gates Foundation about Bill’s interest in the environment and Green.  The resounding past answers has been “the environment is not on Bill’s priority list.

I was skeptical when Bill launched his podcasts on Energy and Climate Change.  Listening to them I didn’t hear anything really mind blowing.

What’s been on my mind lately

Podcast Series: Energy and Climate Change

Posted 01/20/2010
Finding carbon-free energy sources that will provide affordable power for people around the globe is a complex and difficult issue. Bill shares his thoughts on the challenges of developing alternatives to fossil fuels.

In this series of podcasts, Bill talks about why we need to develop new sources of energy that provide power without generating CO2. Among the topics he covers are the challenges with potential solutions such as carbon capture and sequestration, nuclear, wind, and solar; and why he believes the U.S. government should increase its funding for basic research in energy.
To download the podcast as a .wma file for Windows Media Player, click below.
1. Alternative energy Part 1
2. Alternative energy Part 2
3. Government’s role
4. Learning about energy

Click below to download this podcast series as an mp3.
1. Alternative energy Part 1
2. Alternative energy Part 2
3. Government’s role
4. Learning about energy

But, today cnet news reports an Bill’s investment in Vinod Khosla green-tech firm.  Now that Bill has put his money in and he is hanging out with Vinod, I tihnk we can expect some big changes coming from Bill and the Gates Foundation.

Bill Gates investing in Vinod Khosla green-tech fund

by Martin LaMonica

Bill Gates, whose philanthropy is aimed at improving the lives of people in poor countries, is also taking a interest in clean energy, both intellectually and financially.

In an interview published Sunday, Gates said he has invested in Vinod Khosla's green-technology fund, which is aimed at incubating breakthrough technologies.

"He is backing some great entrepreneurs. I get some exposure to them as part of that. Innovation is called for in a big way," Gates said.


If you are not familiar with Khosla Ventures here is their site. I found Xsigo and Seamicro through his site.

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Khosla Ventures has an interesting philosophy on what they can care about.

the things we care about

Making a difference is a core value of khosla ventures and we have pledged some of any investment proceeds to achieving this difference. In particular, Vinod will donate 100% of his general partner profit from khosla ventures to these and other similar causes. Some of our "social impact" interests also make for great businesses, such as alternative energy, or can at least be viable businesses ("no loss" self sustaining businesses that don't need continued outside support, they are impact maximizers instead of being profit maximizers) even if profit is not the primary goal, such as microfinance and affordable housing.

Some of the organizations we support are below. Some of these are traditional non-profit efforts. Others are "for profit" organizations. When we "invest" in ventures with these partners, we will put the equity in a non-profit trust to achieve social impact

  • Microfinance - SKS, SHARE, ASA, CFTS, Jamii Bora Grameen USA, Unitus - with a goal to provide credit to over 25 million "below poverty line" borrowers. See also An Anti-Poverty Success Story; Video
  • Environment - GE Ecomagination Advisory Council, Chairman of India Advisory Board of the Cleantech Network
  • Education - Indian School of Business - a world class school of business, DonorsChoose.org - teachers ask for private funding on thousands of projects
  • Health - Public Health Institutes of India, UNICEF
  • ...others including eBay Giving Works - a marketplace for compassionate commerce supporting 9,000 charities

Also, just found this list of Green Papers from Kholsa Ventures.  More for my reading list.  :-)

green
White Papers

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Energy Management shows up as a Vancouver Olympic event

CNET news has a post on the Vancouver Olympics reporting on the energy consumption from Olympic buildings.

A new Olympic sport: Tracking building energy

by Martin LaMonica

While people are watching the Olympic Games, building managers will be watching their energy dashboards.

Energy management software company Pulse Energy on Friday showed off an energy-monitoring system developed to make the Olympic Games in Vancouver more efficient.

Building energy is the latest spectator sport in Vancouver.

(Credit: Screenshot by Martin LaMonica/CNET)

The software gives facilities managers a real-time readout of energy consumption at different venues. By tracking that data, building managers can make adjustments to save energy, such as turning off equipment that's not in use. The information is also available online at VenueEnergyTracker.com.

BC Hydro has been trying to attract data centers to the BC area.

Here is more information about VenueEnergyTracker.

about the venue energy tracker

BC Hydro and the Vancouver Organizing Committee of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) created the Venue Energy Tracker to showcase the innovative sustainability measures implemented in various 2010 Winter Games venues and associated sites through an energy management software.

challenge

The communities involved were challenged with producing world class facilities with a minimal environmental footprint, while maximizing the long term legacies for their residents. The Venue Energy Tracker communicates the energy consumption and savings being realized by various partner venue buildings.

actions

Employing the latest in energy management software technology, BC Hydro with the energy tracking software tracks, analyzes and reports on real-time energy consumption from the venue sites in order to see energy and green house gas savings and set benchmarks from which similar venues can compare themselves to.

Learning from past Games, applying best practices in green design, construction, and occupant engagement, the communities were able to mitigate local and global sustainability challenges and embrace opportunities to make a difference. Actions taken include implementing green building features, including but not limited to: implementing energy saving technology, sequestering BC Pine Beetle wood as a construction material, rainwater capture and reuse, waste heat reuse, targeting LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building certification, and incorporating green principles and practices into operations and events.

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Media Coverage at Gartner Data Center conference - DataCenterKnowledge, SearchDataCenter

As my first time to Gartner’s Data Center conference and having a press pass, I was curious who else would be there.  I knew Rich Miller and Kevin Normandeau would be at  the event.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Mark Fontecchio from SearchDataCenter and he said Matt Stansberry was going to be there as well.

Mark has a couple of articles

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid80_gci1375821,00.html

Unified computing: A 2010 data center trend?

By Mark Fontecchio, News Writer
02 Dec 2009 | SearchDataCenter.com

LAS VEGAS -- Pundits and vendors swear that unified computing is the future of the server platform, but many IT pros won't sign on the dotted line.

Attendees at the Gartner Data Center Conference this week heard a lot about the future of servers, and that future involves a lot of so-called IT convergence, also known as unified computing," or 'converged architecture.' Andrew Butler, a Gartner vice president and analyst added his own buzzphrase: fabric-based computing and predicted that 30% of Global 2000 companies will run some form of it by the end of 2012.

http://searchdatacenter.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid80_gci1375836,00.html

Server depreciation cycles hold steady, Gartner attendees say

By Mark Fontecchio, News Writer
02 Dec 2009 | SearchDataCenter.com

LAS VEGAS -- Gartner Data Center Conference attendees say their server refresh cycles have stayed about the same despite the poor economy.

Recent numbers from the research firm indicate that the IT industry in stabilizing, with server shipments increasing 13.8% in the third quarter compared with the second quarter of this year. Server shipments declined 17.1% year over year.

IT pros at the show this week said their server refresh cycles – normally three to five years – haven't changed much, although some report that they're edging closer to the five-year end of the spectrum. "Three to five years is our average," said Greg Manahan, the deputy CIO of operations for Naval Air Systems Command. "They've definitely been stretching it out some. IT costs have been getting cut to pay for military environments and weapons systems. IT is certainly important, but not as important as that."

Rich Miller from DataCenterKnowledge doesn’t have any posts up yet, but I know he was pretty booked with meetings.  Kevin was busy as well.

One of the main benefits of going to an event like Gartner Data Center conference is to socialize.  It was good seeing Matt and Mark from SearchDataCenter, and we figured the next time we would all see each other is Uptime Institute’s spring event, but haven’t seen any dates for this.

Rich Miller and Kevin Nomandeau I had many small conversations discussing the industry and future direction.

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Gartner Data Center 2009 Conference – Day 1

I just had breakfast and connected with Director of data center operations at a major retailer and another with a major software ISV.  So, overall a good start, and both of the executives were interested in the green data center topic.  I have their business cards.  :-)

One way I would use to describe that the Gartner event is this is marketplace for data center decision makers and data center vendors.  As one person said, they have 8 dinners scheduled over 4 days.  But, it is worth it because they get quality time away from the office with senior executives at the vendors.


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Here is my bright pink badge that says I am a press guy.

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There are modular data centers from IBM, SGI, and HP.  But in general software companies are the majority of exhibitors.

Gartner has interactive survey allowing polling of the audience.

On a 9 question poll. What is the largest data center challenge you currently face? 31% for power and cooling .  Next was 16% with for aligning with business.

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Which is the most funding in 2009/2010

28% data center facilities projects

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Sorry for the picture quality, but I used my iPhone as cameras are not allowed.

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