TheRegister has an article about HP and Dell’s ENERGY STAR Servers.

HP and Dell claim energy efficiency server firsts

Power test pass with a catch

By Timothy Prickett Morgan • Get more from this author

Posted in Servers, 6th July 2009 20:40 GMT

Getting IT vendors to agree to any standard, even one that they have a big hand in shaping, is almost impossible. And so it is with the new Energy Star specification for servers, supposedly embraced by server makers to show the energy efficiency of their metal.

The Energy Star specification for servers, which debuted in May, is designed to gauge server power consumption so IT managers can shop for the most energy-efficient machines using an agreed yardstick. In this case, a yardstick established by the US Environmental Protection Agency's popular Energy Star program.

HP has their own site for ENERGY STAR servers.

Part of the ENERGY STAR specification are data sheets.  Here are a few HP has published.

HP ProLiant DL360 G6

• Combining concentrated 1U compute power, integrated Lights-Out management, and essential fault tolerance, the HP ProLiant DL360 G6 is optimized for space constrained installations.
  • Power and Performance Data Sheet (504633-xx1)

HP ProLiant DL380 G6

• The HP ProLiant DL380 G6 Server continues to deliver on its heritage of engineering excellence with increased flexibility and performance, enterprise-class uptime and manageability, 2-socket Intel Xeon performance, and 2U density for a variety of applications.
  • Power and Performance Data Sheet (491316-xx1)
  • Power and Performance Data Sheet (491315-xx1)
  • Power and Performance Data Sheet (504633-xx1)
  • Power and Performance Data Sheet (491335-xx1)

Access Power, Thermal and Utilization Parameters

• Windows Commands
• Linux Commands

GigaOm has an interview with Facebook VP Jonathan Heileger.

Heiliger had strong words for OEMs and system builders during his chat with Om. To compete with sites like Facebook and Google, Heiliger said, OEMs and system builders need to be more power- and cost-efficient. “You guys just don’t get it,” he said, adding that Facebook has reaped success from investing heavily in its infrastructure.

InternetNews focused on the Intel and AMD dig.

Intel, AMD Get Thumbs Down from Facebook

Head of the social network's technical operations say the latest and greatest from Intel and AMD don't make the grade.

June 25, 2009
By Andy Patrizio: More stories by this author:

SAN FRANCISCO – Intel and AMD just got a nasty smackdown from the person who run's Facebook's datacenters, saying the chips don't deliver on their promises.

Jonathan Heiliger, vice president of technical operations for Facebook, was being interview by GigaOm Network founder Om Malik here at the GigaOm Structure 09 conference. Malik asked him about unexpected problems in managing the fast-growing company's datacenters.

Reps from Intel (NASDQ: INTC) and AMD (NYSE: AMD), both running panels and present at the show, must have clenched their teeth when they heard this:

"The biggest thing … was less-than-anticipated performance gains from new microarchitectures, so new CPUs from guys like Intel and AMD. The performance gains they're touting in the press, we're not seeing in our applications," Heiliger told the audience.

He didn't let the tier one server vendors off any easier. "I'm not sure if I'm embarrassed or pleased for OEM vendors in the audience, but you guys don't get it. To build servers for a company like Facebook and Amazon, and other people who are operating fairly homogeneous applications, they have to be cheap and super power efficient," said Heiliger.

He added he's not sure why hardware vendors fail at the job, but thinks customers need to step up and apply pressure. ""Perhaps in the coming months we'll see more collaboration with people running small clusters and large clusters," he said.

Economist has an article on netbooks titled “Small and Disruptive.”

Small but disruptive

Jun 11th 2009 | SAN FRANCISCO AND TAIPEI
From The Economist print edition

Laptops are evolving—and forcing the rest of the computer industry to change

Imaginechina

IT WAS like waiting for Godot: in the end, the great man did not come. The crowd at Apple’s jamboree in San Francisco this week was visibly disappointed when Steve Jobs, the computer-maker’s legendary chief executive, did not even put in a brief appearance after a six-month medical leave. But another no-show was perhaps more important. Proving many techno-pundits wrong, Apple did not present a “tablet”—a pared-down computer in both size and abilities, with a touch screen. Had it done so, it might have helped settle a question that has preoccupied the personal computer (PC) industry for some time: are netbooks—cheap and basic laptops that are flying off the shelves—just a fad, or the future?

The answer is probably both, as an “iPad”, or whatever Apple’s device may be called, would have demonstrated. Netbooks are already being supplanted by a plethora of new gadgets, including tablets and increasingly computer-like mobile phones (see article). But the idea they embody, that a near-permanent connection to the internet permits simpler technology, is already changing the economics of the PC business.

As companies build low power devices that can be on all the time, connected to servers on all the time there is a disruption in the industry. Energy efficient devices that can be left on all the time are changing how people use computers and what the expect.  It is no longer the common case of I am going to sit at my PC to use Word or Excel.

Yet although netbooks have acquired many frills and mutated into new forms, the theory behind them endures: computers do not need to be stuffed with the latest whizz-bang technology if they have a high-speed connection to the “cloud” of services available online. At Computex firms showed devices equipped with WiMAX, a new wireless technology that allows for fast, ubiquitous wireless connections.

It is this combination of connectivity and cloud computing that makes netbooks and their successors so disruptive. Some mobile-network operators now throw in free netbooks if subscribers sign up for a mobile-broadband contract. This will put further pressure on prices, since mobile operators have more bargaining power than individual consumers, although it also opens a huge new distribution channel for computer-makers.

I recently participated in a NDA video shoot for a new product 6 months out which fits in this category, and it got me thinking more on this subject.

So, I placed my order for an iPhone 3G S which I’ll get on June 19..  My Apple friends will be happy to see after all the years at Microsoft, I’ll be back to using an Apple product.

When you look at HP’s new scale out servers ProLiant Z6000 G6.

you don’t see any fans or power supply. 

The module plugs into the power and cooling infrastructure

In this fact sheet.

Delivering unrestricted airflow through a shared power and cooling infrastructure in a 2U chassis lessens fan load, resulting in a 28 percent power decrease per server compared to traditional rack-based servers.(1)

and HP put the server on a scale

Removing up to 31 percent of weight per server and up to 838.5 tons of data center weight,(2) while reducing shipping as well as construction costs with a standardized, shared infrastructure.

the cabling’s been moved to front to improve access and airflow.

Reducing service and maintenance costs with front system cabling that allows easy access to key system components.

There are power sensors.

And air pressure sensors.