Greenpeace strikes fear in Uptime Symposium, continues No Coal Data Center efforts

May 28, 2010 Dave Ohara

I was talking to a friend who was at Uptime Symposium and he asked if I heard that Greenpeace was there and Greenpeace asked Mike Manos a question in his CO2K presentation. The fear in the crowd reached levels not typical as they knew they knew Greenpeace has target data centers as the IT polluters like the way Greenpeace has targeted Facebook, and no one knew Greenpeace was attending. No sane data center event is going to promote that Greenpeace will be there. See below for Greenpeace's latest move versus Dell.

He commented that the Greenpeace question to Mike was a softball question. I told him of course, Mike is out there discussing issues Greenpeace supports. They are not going to attack Mike.

Another friend send me a link to the Greenpeace blog post based on Uptime attendance.

Mike was safe.

At the Uptime Institute Symposium last week, speakers discussed the economic impacts that a “carbon tax” or carbon regulation could have on data center operators. Mike Manos of Nokia, pointing to the U.K.’s existing carbon legislation, indicated that the IT sector is ill-equipped to deal with inevitable penalties that will be associated with a heavy reliance on coal when U.S. climate legislation passes.

“Carbon emissions differ for a facility in Washington State and a facility in West Virginia,” said Manos. “Where your data centers are located today is an important criteria.”

I bet the Greenpeace person was looking for Facebook as the "we want Facebook to use 100% renewable energy" is now up to 450,000 users. Facebook wasn't presenting so Greenpeace reports on eBay.

Unfortunately, a strategy that is still being employed by many IT companies to keep the overhead down is to locate data centers in places where “cheap” coal-fired electricity is available. In January, for example, Facebook commissioned a new data center in Oregon and entered a power service agreement with a utility called PacificCorp, which gets most of its electricity from coal-fired power stations. Just this week, eBay unveiled its new flagship data center, located in South Jordan, Utah, a state that derives 81% of its electricity from coal.

You can tell the Greenpeace reporter was in the audience listening to the presentations.

The Topaz data center, as the new hosting facility for eBay’s Marketplace and Paypal.com is called, is a US$287 million facility with top-of-the-line energy efficiency features, which help to make Topaz 50% less expensive for eBay to operate and 30% more efficient than any of the other data centers it uses. And eBay is very proud of its energy and cost savings accomplishment (as evidenced by the break dancers that performed at the launch party). But, is a diet on which you eat 30% less per meal, but eat MANY more meals than you previously did, AND exclusively live on Twinkies, ultimately going to save you from an untimely and serious health problem?

Who is next? What is the next data center event Greenpeace will be in the audience? American Express in North Carolina?

American Express to Build in North Carolina
May 20th, 2010 : Rich Miller
Local economic development officials in North Carolina are confirming that American Express will build a large data center in Guilford County. The financial services company plans to build a $400 million center that would employ up to 150 people and open sometime in 2012, according to the Greensboro News-Record.

I am not worried about Greenpeace as when I am speaking at a data center conference I am in sessions like this.

Panel: The Greening of the Data Center – Opportunities in Renewable Energy
Understanding the True Value of Renewables: Energy Efficiency, Cost, Redundancy, Availability & Security of Supply
Dave Ohara, President - GreenM3
Paul Harris, Vice President & General Manager - NetRiver International
Tom Schmall, Director of Project Development, Solar and other Renewables - Mortenson Construction

I was talking to another experienced data center engineer and he mentioned how the same stuff gets presented over and over at conferences like Uptime.

Greenpeace attending data center conferences may drive some of the biggest changes as presenters know Greenpeace is in the audience.

Are you ready for a question from Greenpeace in the audience?

And, you thought being asked a question from media was bad. Greenpeace has an agenda, and they are looking for the high carbon data centers.

How about this for a possible change? The customers who have high carbon data centers no longer will give permission for case studies and public presentations. The data centers vendors are frustrated and desperate to get reference customers. The few willing to give permission are those customers who have a Low Carbon data center site, so more and more the end users hear about low carbon data centers and how data centers fit well in a corporate sustainability and environmental strategy.

Ericsson is one company Greenpeace held up in its blog post.

Some IT companies are starting to get it. An Ericsson white paper, “Minimizing Carbon Intensity in Telecom Networks Using TCO (Total Cost of Operation) Techniques,” demonstrates the company’s methodology (which gets it second-place ranking on the Cool IT Leaderboard) for understanding both the cost and environmental impacts of its operations, recognizing that the absolute amount of energy consumed by telecom networks is growing, along with carbon emissions, which must be managed. The same is true for cloud computing and the infrastructure that runs it.

And, Greenpeace feels good driving change and keeps going. Sounds scary doesn't it?

Mike Manos Reflects on Uptime Symposium 2008 - 2010

May 24, 2010 Dave Ohara

Mike posted his reflections on Uptime Symposium 2010. But to start let's go back 2 years ago when Mike gave his first keynote at Uptime in 2008. Here is my post from 2 years ago.

Apr 27, 2008

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

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.

In Mike's presentation this year he discussed C02K to get people thinking about the carbon impact of the data center. 2 years ago Mike was discussing energy efficiency and PUE, now he is discussing CO2K. Last year he was discussing containers.

If you look at most keynote speakers, they get the spot due to sponsorship at the event, so the presentation is a strategic positioning slot sold to highest bidder. This year's Uptime had Jones Lang LaSalle as opening keynote.

Mike's keynote was on Tues last of the day. Nokia was not a sponsor of Uptime.

Now you could argue whether the money is worth spending and this is how industry events work. I would argue Mike definitely got his money's worth. He didn't have to pay to attend the event or his speaker spot. As long as people say good things about Mike's presentation Uptime will bring him back as someone to enforce the relevance of Uptime in the industry.

My second key observation this year was the amount of people. Symposium is truly an international event and their were over 900 attendees for the talks, and if memory serves, about 1300 for the exhibition hall. I had heard that 20 out of the worlds 30 time-zones had representatives at the conference. It was especially good for one of the key recurring benefits of this event: Networking. The networking opportunities were first rate and by the looks of the impromptu meetings and hallways conversations this continued to be an a key driver for the events success. As fun as making new friends is, it was also refreshing to spend some time and quick catch ups with old friends like Dan Costello and Sean Farney from Microsoft, Andrew Fanara, Dr. Bob Sullivan, and a host of others.

My third observation and perhaps the one I was most pleased with with the diversity of thought in the presentations. Its a fair to say that I have been critical of Uptime for some time by a seemingly droningly dogmatic recurring set of themes and particular bend of thinking. While those topics were covered, so too were a myriad of what I will call counter-culture topics. Sure there were still a couple of the salesy presentations you find at all of these kinds of events, but the diversity of thought and approach this time around was striking. Many of them addressed larger business issues, the impact, myths, approach to cloud computing, virtualization, and decidedly non-facilities related material affecting our worlds. This might have something to do with the purchase by the 451 Group and its related Data Center think tank organization Tier 1, but it was amazingly refreshing and they knocked the ball out of the park.

Mike brings up a problem that many others ran into with the length of the sessions.

My fourth observation was that the amount of time associated with the presentations was too short. While I have been known to completely abuse any allotted timeslots in my own talks due to my desire to hear myself talk, I found that many presentations had to end due to time just as things were getting interesting. Many of the hallways conversations were continuations of those presentations and it would have been better to keep the groups in the presentation halls.

A couple of smart things that were done for Mike's talk - give him a big room to fit the crowd and you know he is going to talk longer than his slot so give the last one in the day. :-) Bet you the Uptime Logistics folks were saying "Oh No Mike is going to speak and run over as usual. Hey let's give the last slot of the day that way he can talk as long as he wants. And, give him a big room as people like to hear him talk."

Skipped Uptime Symposium 2010, is it worth the time and money? Cost Effective Alternative Lee Technologies on Tap

May 18, 2010 Dave Ohara

I've had these ideas for a while and with Uptime Symposium this week, and my skipping the event it seemed the right time to take some ideas and put them in a post.

Uptime Institute Symposium 2010

Data Center Efficiency & Green Enterprise IT
May 17-19 Hilton New York

The Uptime Institute Symposium, one of the most influential events on the IT industry and data center operator calendar, is the only event focused entirely on data center efficiency and green enterprise IT.

It makes me laugh when I can take a quick call from an Uptime Symposium attendee while he is there, he stops our phone call and says "hi Andrew." I tell the caller to tell Andrew Fanara I say hi. The caller relays back Andrew needs to give me a call and gives me a ribbing about sitting in my home office staring at Lake Sammamish while they are at NYC Hilton in conference rooms. This morning I saw an Eagle swoop down and pick up a fish. Wish I had a video camera, but it was as cool as this YouTube video with the fish a bit smaller and he roosts in a tree 100 feet away.

This week is Uptime Symposium 2010 in NY. I have gone to the last two and met some great people at the conferences. My first Uptime Symposium was two years ago in Orlando, I was talking to Christian Belady and Mike Manos and they pointed out a guy from Google was at the conference. I asked them have you talked to him? They said they tried, but he doesn't say much. Open to a challenge, I spent a bit of time thinking how I could talk to him. The next day, I ran into Christian and Mike, and told them. "Hey I talked to the Google guy for 1 1/2 hours, and we sat together in a few sessions." and we still chat whenever we see each other at data center events.

When I told Matt Stansberry the story he said "you should blog about what you talked about." I told him no, I can't do that as all it will do is get me a bit of traffic and get him in trouble for not getting PR approval to talk to a blogger. I joke that blogging is only 10% of what I do, sometimes taking up more than 10% of my time, but it is not where I spend 10% of my concentration on problems. I blog 10% or less of what I know as I stick to public disclosures and ideas that are my own and can share.

Overall my past attendance to Uptime was well worth it as I made good friends at my first uptime event. I think that is where I met Andrew Fanara for the first time. and Michael Tran from Digital Sense.

I went to Uptime Symposium 2009 to speak on a panel regarding green data centers and media. It was fun sitting down with Rich Miller (DataCenterKnowledge), Matt Stansberry (SearchDataCenter), Kevin Heslin (Mission Critical Magazine) in front of 30 people. Between the group we get 10,000s hits a day, yet here we are in a conference room with 30 people. When Uptimes skimped on food and logistics, I started to see the problems in the conference execution as well.

This year, I made no attempt to go to Uptimes Symposium 2010. Two years in a row was sufficient. I know I would see many data center friends, but the important ones I can easily send e-mail to or call.

An indicator of the problems at the conference this year was a friend who had a speaking slot and was 10 min into his 30 min presentation when the Uptime conference logistics told him he was in the wrong conference room. Knowing the logistics at conferences can change, he had gone to the logistics area before hand to check on the room twice. I regularly wonder about the paying sponsors who have a booth and speaking positions as whether it is cost effective.

Interestingly on the side, I have been having e-mail conversations with Steve Manos from Lee Technologies and how well his local monthly data center events, "Lee Technologies on Tap" (the event is held in a bar) have been working. As a contrast to Uptime Symposium is it better to spend the time and money to develop local content for events like Lee Technologies on Tap? DataCenterDynamics uses the local content method to hold conferences frequently, minimizing travel and is part of a green strategy.

One of the main reasons why people go to events like Uptime is to get in front of Steve's brother, Mike. Now I am biased because I can call Mike when I need to, but I also know he is swamped running Nokia's online applications group. I know to contact Mike when it is worth his time and my time to connect. Which is one way to have a strategy for managing relationships. Connecting can have little value if you don't develop the quality of the relationship as mutually beneficial. Steve Manos is on the left in this picture.

When you are a sales driven guy, you are so excited to get Mike Manos's business card you can justify to your management it was worth the time to go to Uptime to get Mike's card and others. No one asking what is the quality of the relationship you built. You fall into the trap at events like Uptime, I met some of the top data center decision makers and got our company in the bidding process. You have now fallen into the trap of delusional expectations from attending industry events.

I asked Steve Manos to share some of his insight running their own local data center events in Chicago.

Hope this email will get you the balance of what you may need to complete your post as it relates to the effectiveness of my Chicago-based DC networking event. I have taken the time to contact several end user attendees, all of which represent 5 of the top 10 largest and most recognizable corporation names in Chicago and get there general feedback on why they continue to come to this event. The primary (and overwhelming) response is that it offers the perfect blend of industry contacts in a very manageable, intimate setting where not only can one connect with local peers but also create deeper relationships with those they share similar issues and challenges with.

Getting the right mix of attendees to vendors is a method Steve Manos exploits to keep attendees satisfied.

With a group of roughly 40-50 attendees and a ratio averaging 12:1 end user to vendor, it allows everyone from a data center operator to a CIO the opportunity to discuss real world issues, current innovations and foster’s an environment where they can learn about what each face on a day to day basis. We have heard loud and clear from the attendees that they are not opposed to talking to vendors that bring value, but that the bigger events make it tough as most of their time is occupied with those who are trying to sell to them and very little is spent on getting to discuss topics with peers (and how they are handling or have handled similar issues they face in their facilities).

But, not just any vendor can attend. Vendors need to be doing work for one of the attendees in order to attend. Which cuts down on the sales BS, as the user is right there.

Our event overcomes these issues by only allowing vendors that currently work for current members and have done an exceptional job. We then like to have those members make the introductions to the group based on what issues the client faced, how it was handled by vendor X and leave it up to members in the event to connect with that representative throughout the night if they are facing similar challenges. We are also at a point where we are featuring end users to share their stories as a keynote to the group to provide additional value in fostering mindshare. These topics can range anywhere from current projects (what is working, where they are struggling, new technology implemented), industry direction, green technologies (a big focus of many of our members), and good old fashion war stories. We believe that these types of keynotes/discussions offer more to the group than hearing about the latest in a particular “widget.” Finally, in knowing what particular issues our group will be facing or are currently challenged with, I can poll the group on trusted partners and invite them to that event so that they have the opportunity to possibly help without the need to force themselves on the group from a sales standpoint. It’s all about providing value above and beyond what Lee Tech does. Not that this isn't important to me in my quest to show how much we can help companies in the Central U.S, but I find that if you build the relationship on a solid foundation first, and do what’s best from the onset (whatever that may be), you will earn their business over time.

And, here is the focus on relationships.

With small groups, taking time to understand what each member is looking for and where I can help and then making sure they get that EVERY time, and a consistent gathering has created very strong relationships with one another in a very short amount of time. Over 25 of our active members are now coordinating, consulting and actively participating in one another’s endeavors to help each other where possible. This is what I feel what this industry sorely needs.

If you are interested in attending here is the next event with Steve's e-mail.

For your info, if you want to share, our next event will be on June 17^th in the Chicago area. Those that are interested in becoming a part of this group can reach me at smanos(at)leetechnologies(dot)com. We are always looking to grow the group and I’m certain others can contribute volumes to this endeavor.

Thanks Dave and please let me know if you need any additional information.

See the smiling faces. When is the last time you this many smiles at a data center event? Well, maybe in the bar after the event. Oh yeh, the Lee Technologies at Tap event is held in a bar. Is the secret to a successful data center events is to host them in bar? :-) I know DataCenterDynamics opens the bar at 4p, overlapping with presentations.

For those of you attending Uptime Symposium sorry I skipped the event. But, I am looking forward to visit my first Lee Technologies on Tap event.

The biggest thing I learn from sitting in presentations at Uptime is I don't have to go to Uptime to learn, the true value is in building relationships with the attendees.

Improving your Washington Data Center visit, spend extra time at Cave B Inn

March 5, 2010 Dave Ohara

If you ever go to Eastern Washington for a Data Center visit, don’t fall into the trap most do, booking your schedule tight to drive in and out.

I’ve fallen into this trap on my visits to Eastern Washington Data Center in the Quincy, WA area where Microsoft, Yahoo, Intuit, and ask.com have data centers. You leave late in the day after work or people arrive on an evening flight, then drive 2 – 2 1/2 hrs east to the Quincy, WA area. You ask where to stay and the overwhelming recommendation is Cave B Inn. You book the corporate rate that one of the companies has with Cave B Inn, and you arrive somewhere between 9 – 11p, the restaurant is closed, you have a full day the next day, then go home. You wonder to your room after checking in.

And don’t even notice the view as it is dark.

You get up in the morning and see the view.

You missed the wine tasting room.

I just got back from a night’s stay at Cave B Inn and didn’t visit a data center as we had a school auction we had bid on, so this was a pleasure trip, and got a chance to enjoy the visit. i told my wife I’ve been here before and she couldn’t believe how nice it was.

Here is a 360 degree view I shot this morning.

How nice is the hotel? When the Dave Matthews band plays at The Gorge Amphitheatre, he books the whole hotel for ten days.

Dave Matthews Band Tickets

The Gorge Amphitheatre
George, WA

If Dave Matthews Band can stay here for 10 days, it’s worth you spending a bit extra time. I am glad I did. And, there are many who have learned to make the time if they make frequent trips to Quincy, WA. But, first timers will miss out.

BTW, I couldn’t resist sending an e-mail to Mike Manos who has done this trip many times, telling him I was in the Cave B wine tasting room. I bought two cases of wine after this visit.

Hint: for you those of you bringing customers out to Quincy, don’t miss the opportunity to add the wine tasting. Who else gets to wine taste as part of a data center visit?

IBM’s Smarter Planet is a mass marketing of System Engineering

February 26, 2010 Dave Ohara

I just spent 2 full days at IBM’s Pulse 2010 conference, and got a chance to meet some interesting people. The one piece of irony I realized is when I graduated from college I had a choice of working for IBM or HP as an Industrial Engineer. I chose HP 30 years ago. I wonder what my life would be like if I had chosen IBM?

Although I probably wouldn’t have lasted too long at IBM and actually helped an IBM engineer leave to join Apple. Why is it relevant to talk about an engineers? Because part of what I figured out is IBM’s Smarter Planet is a rebranding and positioning of system engineering.

So what is a Systems Engineer? I found this post by Univ of Arizona.

Systems Engineering is an interdisciplinary process that ensures that the customer's needs are satisfied throughout a system's entire life cycle. This process is comprised of the following seven tasks.

State the problem. Stating the problem is the most important systems engineering task. It entails identifying customers, understanding customer needs, establishing the need for change, discovering requirements and defining system functions.

Investigate alternatives. Alternatives are investigated and evaluated based on performance, cost and risk.

Model the system. Running models clarifies requirements, reveals bottlenecks and fragmented activities, reduces cost and exposes duplication of efforts.

Integrate. Integration means designing interfaces and bringing system elements together so they work as a whole. This requires extensive communication and coordination.

Launch the system. Launching the system means running the system and producing outputs -- making the system do what it was intended to do.

Assess performance. Performance is assessed using evaluation criteria, technical performance measures and measures -- measurement is the key. If you cannot measure it, you cannot control it. If you cannot control it, you cannot improve it.

Re-evaluation. Re-evaluation should be a continual and iterative process with many parallel loops.

The seven steps are too complex for most, and IBM has done an excellent job to simplify the seven steps for the IT executives – Instrument, Interconnect, and Make them intelligent. Now I would potentially argue IBM’s approach is too simple, but marketing messages need to be simple and contain at most three points.

This idea clicked when I was interviewing District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority CIO, Mujib Lodhi and listened to him describe his approach to manage the Water and Sewer infrastructure as a system using IBM’s asset management tools. In the short term I had with Mujib he described what a system engineer would do to manage an aging water infrastructure.

IBM has an excellent section on smarter water management. Which is good if you are a Tivoli user. If not, there are many other vendors that have been in the water management business for decades.