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Google surprised many with its youtube video released on Apr 13, 2011 on Google Data Center security which has 514,374 views.
I wonder Microsoft’s GFIS data center video on July 24, 2011 with 49,053 views was created in response to Google’s?
Who will be next? Amazon…Amazon…Is Amazon data center on YouTube?
DataCenterKnowledge posts on Facebook's 100KW Solar array.
Facebook Installs Solar Panels at New Data Center
April 16th, 2011 : Rich Miller
Facebook has built a large solar array next to its new data center in Prineville, Oregon (Photo: Rich Miller, Data Center Knowledge).
Facebook has installed a large array of solar panels at its new data center in Prineville, Oregon, which will supplement the local utility in providing electricity for the 300,000 square foot facility, which was officially opened at a ceremony yesterday.
For more than a year, the environmental group Greenpeace International has been bashing Facebook over its use of electricity generated by “dirty coal” to support its huge new Oregon data center – a campaign that continued Friday as Facebook opened the new facility.
The photo Rich has of the solar array on a cloudy day reminded me of a post I wrote 2 years ago on who Greenpeace's first data center target would be.
What is the First Greenpeace Data Center Target? Apple? Google? Microsoft?
TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2009 AT 9:20AM
Datacenterknowledge blogs on how quickly Apple is building its $1 billion dollar data center.
APPLE MOVING QUICKLY ON NC PROJECT
July 28th, 2009 : Rich Miller
Apple is known for keeping its new technology secret prior to launch.
And, I closed with the following.
How can Greenpeace, not already have a plan in place to address Apple’s data center for its environmental impact?
Now, you could say Greenpeace why not go after Google or Microsoft? Greenpeace could, but why haven’t they already. It is not worth it for media coverage. Going after Apple would get people’s attention.
If not Apple, who else makes sense to go after if you were Greenpeace?
With Earth Day coming up Facebook is the one company as a target for Greenpeace and the rest of the data center industry is relieved. Facebook is a convenient target being the only data center operator I know that had an option to source hydro or coal power for its data center and selected coal.
When Greenpeace went after environmental impact of PC products they targeted HP, Dell, and Apple. Is it time for Apple, Microsoft, and Google to feel the attention of Greenpeace or is Facebook the only high carbon impact data center user out there?
I'll be at Green:NET 2011 later this week and will be in this session.
GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP – ROOM 2
Dirty Data: How the Cloud is Powered and Why it Matters for the Climate
Greenpeace will release a new analysis that looks at leading IT companies (Facebook, Apple, Google, and more) and asks if IT, as it builds out the cloud, will perpetuate the dirty energy issues of older, entrenched industries or will be the innovative sector that creates a business model that prioritizes a future built on clean, renewable energy?
Speakers:Gary Cook - Senior IT Policy Analyst, Greenpeace International
Much of what you hear about data centers is from the vendors who have marketing budgets to sell solutions for power, cooling, and networking issues in data centers. But, you know what is one of the scarcest resources around? Data center executives. If vendors had a way to package up executives, we'd hear more. Wait maybe that is a way to think about the new wave of Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) tools. Data center executive in a box. Interesting idea, but that is a later post. Back to data center executives.
Whenever I sit down with a data center insider to catch up, we almost always discuss executive movement to other companies. In some ways it is a short hand way to discuss what is going on in the industry as it can mean many different things why an executive moves from one company to another.
News that a bunch of us have been discussing is Apple hiring Kevin Timmons (GM of Microsoft's data center services group). Don't expect any press releases from Apple or Microsoft on this one. Here is probably one of the last articles we'll see featuring an interview with Kevin Timmons talking about green data centers and knowledge sharing posted by DataCenterDynamics.
Datacenter Leaders Q&A Kevin Timmons, Microsoft
Kevin Timmons, General Manager, Data Center Operations, Microsoft believes in sustainability, knowledge sharing, security and modularity
Published 13th April, 2011 by Ambrose McNevin
DCD Q: What can the data center industry do to increase its influence over government policy?
KT, A: At Microsoft, we think there is an opportunity for everyone in the industry to help share our collective knowledge to help the entire industry evolve and influence policies that benefit all our customers and increase greater efficiencies. We are committed to driving software and technology innovations that help people and organizations improve the environment.
The position Kevin is going to fill is not known and is not the position vacated by the departed Olivier Sanche. Olivier's position has been filled by another data center operations executive.
It is such a small world in data centers and especially smaller for the executive rank, information flows as recruiters call and others want opinions on various candidates and companies to work for. Besides the executives, senior data center design engineers are heavily recruited like Facebook recently hired a senior mechanical engineer from Equinix and Google's Daniel Costello who also came from Microsoft. Mike Manos is proud of his renegade action to recruit Daniel from Intel to Microsoft while he had the job that Kevin Timmons had filled and now departed.
I called him [Daniel Costello] and told him I needed him for my program. No HR. No Recruiters. I wanted the best talent possible and he was it. I offered him the job on the spot over the phone. We were building something incredible.
One of the interesting problems is at many companies working in the data center group is not respected and as well paid as other technical positions. In fact, some technology companies probably don't even think of their data center staff as technical. Which then leaves the opening for the neglected to find greener pastures. At Google the data center group is respected. At Facebook, the data center group is respected. At Apple, most learn about data centers from the media as there is little news on Apple's data centers discussed.
In one of the data center insider conversations a friend jokingly mentioned The Manchurian Candidate where sleeper agents are placed in strategic positions, and later are activated for covert activities. With so many executives moving from competing companies will there be psychological analysis looking for latent devious action? Nah. But, it was good for a laugh. Which by the way is part of chatting about who is moving where. We eventually start laughing about some move somewhere which could make this appear like gossip. But, we know the data center executive shortage is real, and where the scarce resources go influences the system.
Data Center Gossip can be useful.
Have You Heard? Gossip Turns Out to Serve a Purpose
Published: August 16, 2005
...
People find it irresistible for good reason: Gossip not only helps clarify and enforce the rules that keep people working well together, studies suggest, but it circulates crucial information about the behavior of others that cannot be published in an office manual. As often as it sullies reputations, psychologists say, gossip offers a foothold for newcomers in a group and a safety net for group members who feel in danger of falling out.
"There has been a tendency to denigrate gossip as sloppy and unreliable" and unworthy of serious study, said David Sloan Wilson, a professor of biology and anthropology at the State University of New York at Binghamton and the author of "Darwin's Cathedral," a book on evolution and group behavior. "But gossip appears to be a very sophisticated, multifunctional interaction which is important in policing behaviors in a group and defining group membership."
Microsoft has a press announcement on the UN choosing ITPAC for its data center in Nairobi, Kenya.
Here is the specific part on the data center - ITPAC.
The ITPAC technology helps increase IT efficiency and reduces costs in a number of ways. It uses outside air for primary cooling, removing the need for mechanical cooling devices, and is based on a modular design that can be used to make the ITPAC modules easy to pre-manufacture, ship and install onsite. In this way, it dramatically reduces the typical datacenter carbon footprint and consumption of materials, such as water, concrete, steel, piping and copper, along with reducing additional carbon usage associated with the packaging and transporting of servers, equipment and supplies. It also provides a plug-and-play infrastructure to enable the rapid deployment and refresh of servers both today and in the future. In terms of efficiency, many traditional datacenters operate with a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratio of 2 or higher. Through thoughtful and efficient design, cooling strategies, and site selection, Microsoft has been able to reduce the PUE of its latest datacenters to operate in a range between 1.05 and 1.15. The eventual PUE range for UNEP will depend on the ambient weather conditions, computing capacity and IT services deployed.
Earth2Tech points out that the leading green data center companies - Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo will be at Green:NET 2011 where I'll be as well.
At Green:Net, Microsoft’s Environmental Strategist Rob Bernard will talk about the company’s green data center designs and its connected cities projects. We’ll also be featuring a discussion at Green:Net between Google’s Green Energy Czar Bill Weihl and Yahoo’s Director, Climate and Energy Strategy, Christina Page, about green data center tech, and Greenpeace will release new data on clean power and the cloud.
There is an environmental group in Washington state who wanted to eliminate the use of diesel generators at Microsoft’s data center expansion in Quincy, WA. Microsoft has approval to continue with the expansion.
The group is led by a former Quincy mayor.
The group, led by former Quincy mayor Patty Martin, asked the PCHB to halt construction at the site in northwest Quincy until MYTAPN’s appeal of a Department of Ecology permit allowing the company to install 13 new diesel generators on the site is heard in July.
