GigaOm has a post on green computing in the data center.

Green Computing Needs a Data Center Whisperer

By Stacey Higginbotham | Friday, November 20, 2009 | 5:05 PM PT | 0 comments | 17 tweets

As compute demand increases, demand for power in data centers is soaring. To help IT professionals halt the spread of watt-consuming servers, the industry needs to develop software that can communicate the ways in which the various layers of the data center perform and interact. They need a binary version of Cesar Millan — a data center whisperer.

Speaking at a panel held Wednesday night in Austin, Texas, several folks from the large server shops and a distinguished engineer who runs a data center for IBM spoke about the challenges of keeping power consumption down in a world where computing demand is going up. (For a truly in-depth look at this topic, check out our GigaOM Pro report — subscription required.) The panel went beyond just power and cooling (thank goodness) to focus on how companies are increasingly viewing power consumption in the data center as a whole, rather than merely as the sum of of the data center’s processors.

The IBM engineers achieved the results by creating an internal cloud computing initiative.

IBM’s Scott Winters said he saved 30 percent on his energy costs over three years while increasing his computing abilities by 50 percent and his storage by 150 percent. He did this in two primary ways: by virtualizing his data center and creating a pool of shared resources that are used on demand, and by paying attention to software he has running that tells him what’s happening on his servers.

An interesting way to tell the story of being aware of what is going on is the data center is whispering secrets.

“My data center was whispering secrets, and now I have a way to understand them,” Winters said. He said his IBM software and linking that software to the physical infrastructure helped him reach such an understanding, especially in regard to managing power consumption. It’s a strategy that HP has embraced with its products; there are also several startups pushing data center sensor networks that allow the data center’s server hardware and its physical infrastructure like the chillers and air conditioners to communicate.

The IBM expert does a good job of explaining what is next to the writer.

But as the facilities and IT infrastructure merge (the jobs of the facilities manager and the IT manager are also on a path to merge, according to members of the panel) standards are needed. The folks building the physical infrastructure typically use proprietary software in their products and sensors and getting that sensor network to talk to your servers can require a big programming effort. Once folks can manage their physical infrastructure and their hardware, the next step is to tie the physical and hardware layers to the application layer. That’s a big dream, and we’re still far off. But given the demand for computing and constraints on providing the power to meet that demand, it’s an issue that panels like the one Wednesday night will help solve.

Now, here is where the conflict occurs with an outsourced cloud computing company vs. the customer.  Whoever the outsource company is – Google, Amazon, Microsoft or IBM, their goal is to minimize their costs while maximizing revenue.  A cloud computing company wants easy to host services that are inefficient. because they make more money when the customer runs services requiring multiple server instances with more resources.  Their margins don’t improve because the customer runs a high utilization load.

So, in the zest for cloud computing, customers are signing up for suppliers who want you to be inefficient.  They’ll sell you their cloud computing infrastructure as lower cost than your own infrastructure, but is it as low as it could be?

The supplier is not going to do as was mentioned in the referenced post.

Once folks can manage their physical infrastructure and their hardware, the next step is to tie the physical and hardware layers to the application layer. That’s a big dream, and we’re still far off.

Cloud computing has its advantages, but the dominant players are going to run their own cloud computing infrastructure and tune the facilities, IT hardware and applications to be efficient – and be the low cost information suppliers.

If your goal is to be lowest cost in IT services think about your cloud computing whether you own it or rent it.

I had a bit of time today socializing with Apple friends, and of course iPhone discussions come up.  Here are 100 iPhone apps to support their green habits.  thanks to Amber Johnson for sending the link.

Here are the top 10.

Top 10

Green iPhone owners have raved for years about how great the following applications are. Based on usability, cost, and effectiveness, these t10 apps are the hands-down best.

1. Go Green: Displays a tip each time you launch it. Piece of pie.
2. Green Tips: Displays a tip at launch. Hit the refresh button for more tips.
3. The Green Lemur: By far the most full-featured of these three. Search, add tips to favorites, or browse by category.
4. Meter Read: Somewhat manual in usage (but then, no one said saving the planet would be easy), use MeterRead to log your electric meter’s reading. You can log your readings and use them to predict your electrical consumption, and thus, your upcoming bill. Try to be more efficient, and maybe the next time you check the meter, your readings will hit below the projected usage.
5. greenMeter: Uses the accelerometer to determine the drag and resistance of your car/driving habits in real time. There are several usage meters to monitor, though real-time MPG has been my favorite. Really helps tune your driving for better efficiencies and fewer pointless emissions.
6. shopgreen: By title, this doesn’t sound like it fits here, but it does. To use the app, just answer some questions about how you maintain your life. Answers that are good for the environment are tallied (like air-drying your clothes, or changing the furnace air filter), and the amount of CO2 you’ve saved is calculated. As a bonus, the CO2 savings gets you discounts at local, participating retailers for your efforts.
7. 3rd Whale: Much like other location-aware shopping apps, 3rdWhale finds you businesses nearby (select walking, biking, or driving distances). So what makes it green? The resulting businesses are supposedly eco-friendly, allowing you to patronize those taking care of the world around us.
8. Yowza: Yowza presents one of the more interesting ideas of the bunch. Also location aware, it brings up coupons for retailers nearby. So not only could it save you some cash, but it’s claim is that you can use the digital coupon right on your phone’s screen, rather than printing more paper that will just get tossed out.
9. Green Charging: This application ensures you do not overcharge your phone.
10. Green Wars: Now you can take on the challenge of earning green while going green. Green Wars is a new take on the classic DOS and TI-83 game Drug/Dope Wars. This simple but enjoyable buy-low-sell-high game can also help you learn a thing or two about how you can save green by going green in your own life.