C3 Energy Resource Management looks closer to announcing, job postings for sales, finance and HR

I was talking to some environmental friends at The Green Grid and one of the companies we chatted briefly about is www.c3-e.com

Energy Resource Management

C3 Mission

C3 enables organizations to maximize profitability and
cash flow by optimizing their enterprise energy strategy
and carbon footprint.

Curious I went to their site and saw they have positions open for sales, finance and HR which means they should be closer to announcing.

Hara would seem like the natural competitor to Hara.  Here is Hara's engineering positions open.

Engineering

Flex Developer
San Mateo, CA

Java Developer
San Mateo, CA

Java Developer
San Mateo, CA

Software Development Manager
San Mateo, CA

Here is C3-E.

Software Engineering

I am much more impressed with C3-E than Hara.  I can't find anyone I know who knows what the Hara technology is.  But, Hara is in the cloud.

Hara EEM: Cloud Infrastructure

Rich customer experience and lower cost of operations

Hara™ Environmental and Energy Management (Hara EEM) is powered by a state of the art cloud infrastructure that brings together analytics, integration services and standardized content to provide a rich customer experience and reduce total cost of operations. With this cloud-based delivery model, there is no software to install, no hardware to buy and users can start getting value out of the application in days instead of weeks and months.

For customers interested in alternate deployment and delivery models, Hara EEM is also architected to be location-independent from a deployment perspective.

Analytics

Hara EEM provides a rich set of reports and dashboards to slice and dice your environmental and energy information from various perspectives. Our easy to use user interface allows users to get to the information quickly and focus on decision making, instead of data entry and learning the application.

Integration

Hara EEM supports multiple multi-mode data gathering using automated and manual means. Customers can leverage a comprehensive set of web services to integrate Hara EEM with existing systems within their enterprise.

Content

Customers need outside content such as emission factors, best practices, incentives and rebates in order to make decisions related to various sustainability efforts in their organizations. Hara EEM provides pre-packaged content and a seamless user experience that combines customer specific data with standardized outside content.

When you get to the resource center for more information you need to provide information for a sales rep.

Programming for a Greener Data Center

The progress on energy efficient software is difficult for many.  If you are a mobile developer you think of the energy efficiency of your code.  If you are Google, Microsoft, or Facebook you think of the performance per watt.  But, there is a lot more that can be done.

The National Science Foundation has awarded a grant for greener software.

New approach to programming may boost ‘green’ computing

By Rachel Coker
Published on February 21, 2011

A Binghamton University computer scientist with an interest in “green” software development has received the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award for young researchers.

Yu David Liu received a five-year, $448,641 grant from the NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program. The highly competitive grants support junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research.

Part of the challenge is the lack of support for energy aware programming.

None of the mainstream computer languages supports energy-aware programming, he said. However, language designers often create a blueprint that can be extended. Java, for instance, could be extended as EnergyJava and remain 90 percent the same. Such moderate changes would make it possible for programmers to adopt it relatively easily.

Is VMware a top influencer in server hardware design? Yes

You can’t build data center hardware or software without addressing the cloud.  VMware’s focus on virtualization put them in a key position for the cloud.  Here is an interesting post from VMware office of the CTO’s Richard A. Brunner.

"Day-Zero" Enablement of New Microprocessors and Servers at VMware

Richard A. Brunner
An Office of the CTO Guest Blog
By Richard A. Brunner, Chief Platform Architect, Office of the CTO

…

In early 2009, my colleagues and I formed an internal server roadmap team, that has been meeting weekly since then, to plan for new microprocessor launches up to two years in advance. By tracking the microprocessor launches, we are generally able to support the launch of new servers, which are usually aligned. In this way we can ensure that we have timely support for the latest and greatest microprocessor and server technologies.

This got me thinking who has the most influence in the server hardware designs.  Here is the process VMware now uses for new processors.

Based on our experience over the last few years, we have developed the process around four phases of availability and maturity of new microprocessor and prototype components (see figure below). The timelines for these phases can be described relative to the day-zero date of a given microprocessor generation. Note that, as mentioned earlier, every new microprocessor generation has its own independent timeline that is seldom aligned with any other. (The timeframes discussed below are for a new major generation, such as the introduction of the Intel "Nehalem" generation; the timeframes for minor generational changes, such as the introduction of the Intel "Westmere" generation is more compressed.)

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  • 1st Phase CPU Prototypes: this is when VMware gets the very first samples of a new microprocessor (CPU) generation in very fragile platforms directly from AMD and Intel. This phase starts between 10 to 11 months before the day-zero date.
  • 2nd Phase CPU Prototypes: in this phase, VMware receives more mature microprocessor revisions that are adequate for us to finish our development processes. Typically, microprocessors in this phase show up between 7 to 8 months before the day-zero date. The same microprocessors also tend show up a few weeks later in the first phase OEM prototypes.
  • 3rd Phase OEM Prototypes: our server-vendor partners provide us the first prototypes of actual retail servers that will use the new microprocessor technology. This phase starts between 5 to 6.5 months before the day-zero date.
  • 4th Phase OEM Production: this is the final step where VMware validates candidate releases of vSphere on near production-level server platforms. This phase is usually 2 to 3 months before the day-zero date. If we are successful in our final internal testing, the certification window for partners opens soon thereafter.

Note the phase 3 when server OEMs get involved.

At the start of the 3rd phase, a number of the server vendors generously loan us early prototype platforms of their new servers populated with the new microprocessor generation. It is not possible to recognize all of our partners here, but companies such as AMD, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, IBM, Intel, HP, and many others have supported VMware in this way. These platforms allow enablement for server-vendor specific features by the vmkernel and I/O Device Driver Engineering teams.

Phase 4 has performance optimization.

One of the last stops for a new microprocessor generation is at the lab of our Performance Engineering team. This team characterizes the performance improvement we can expect to see from a new microprocessor generation. Oftentimes they find performance bottlenecks that require attention in either our code or the microprocessor itself. One of the most critical activities they perform is to run VMware's VMmark benchmark on these prototype systems to ensure that performance expectations have been met. This analysis always happens in the 4th phase and may happen in the 3rd phase if the server vendor platforms are stable enough.

Squarespace’s Green Data Center efforts

The Green Data Center blog, www.greenm3.com is now hosted on SquareSpace.  My #1 reason for moving was for a better platform to create a new look for the blog which so far I like.  I migrated my content over from TypePad which I’ll write another blog entry about that effort.  For this post I want to write about Squarespace’s Green Data Center efforts.

First where is Squarespace?  They are in NYC at Peer1 hosting.

PEER 1 hosts the Squarespace data center presence in New York City, providing solid connectivity and power resources. While being a PEER 1 customer, Squarespace's business has grown by 300 percent annually for the last three years and has signed on tens of thousands of subscribing customers.

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