The Political Pressures are Building on Green Data Centers

A friend in the UK sent this following.  And is an interesting political movement given US Assistant Secretary of Energy Presentation to the UN.

The authors of this report recently presented its findings to the UK Parliament, citing that the Impact of IT to the environment is more damaging than that of the Airline industry.  It makes for powerful reading and, whilst it does not single out specific suppliers or vendors for criticism, it’s content points to increased vocal concern over IT’s footprint.  I would be very interested in the international point of view on this.

I agree with his assessment on the report and it is interesting how they pulled this fact together to get public's attention. The pressures are going to build for anyone who has a large # of servers. Let's see what data centers get identified as bad for the environment. This is why I think Google has chosen the renewable energy area as a public relations issue.

It is estimated that a medium-sized server has roughly the

same annual carbon footprint as an SUV vehicle doing 15

miles per gallon

(29)

. The power required for a rack of highdensity

server blades can be 10-15 times greater than a

traditional server

(30)

.Carbon Neutral Company

(30)

Rakesh Kumar, Gartner Analyst, Sep 2006

(29)

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Three-Fourths want to adopt Green Data Centers, but only 1 in 7 have been succesful

The following press release from Symantec says 1 in 7 have successfully implemented green data centers. Where are these 1 in 7?  In my experience I would say it is more in single digit percentages.

News Release

Symantec Study Reveals Global 2000 Struggle To Adopt “Green” Data Centers

Server consolidation, virtualization are key factors in “going green”

CUPERTINO, Calif. – Nov. 20, 2007 – Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today announced the findings of its worldwide Green Data Center report, a supplement to the company’s recently released 2007 State of the Data Center study. Nearly three-fourths of respondents state they have interest in adopting a strategic green data center initiative; however, only one in seven have been successful at implementing a green data center, illustrating a stark contrast between interest and execution. For the purpose of this study, we define a green data center as having increased efficiencies in energy usage, power consumption, space utilization and reduction of polluting energy sources.

“Data center managers are running out of space and energy costs are skyrocketing, so they are motivated to ‘green’ the data center for cost reduction and efficiency purposes,” said Mark Bregman, executive vice president, chief technology officer, Symantec. “The report findings indicate that cost savings and constant business pressure to maintain performance and meet increasingly aggressive service level agreements are the main reasons for implementing many green strategies. For them it is beyond environmental concerns – it is about meeting business goals and reducing costs.”

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Virtualization talks at It Forum

Dugie's Penseive has a good summary of the virtualization presentation at IT Forum.  He also brought some good points from the Window Server 2008 Technical Briefing I am helping some others chase down the facts from the Micosoft folks on more accurate #'s.

Also I second, Dugie's point on

I recommend checking out Michael Manos’s clip.  Michael presented a session on Green data centers last week in Seattle , and there is some amazing work that Microsoft are doing in this space.

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History: How did I happen work on Green Data Center

The WSJ with MIT Sloan published an article today which appropriately describes one of the reasons I started working on Green Data Centers. After 14 years at Microsoft, 7 years at Apple, and 5 years at HP, I felt that it was time to do something different, and I quit with no idea what I was going to do.

One area I started working on and had an interest in was how many systems, especially home automation systems were put together for short term objectives of making the sale, and how frustrating it was for home owners when things broke to know the root cause of what broke and whether the repair actually really fixed the problem or systems were just rebooted to mask the problem. Which took me down the path of monitoring and metering. Narrowing down the area of what to focus on I discovered water well systems had the largest value impact to real estate values.  Land without water isn't worth a whole lot, and there were plenty of high end real estate being built on large acreage on the top of the hills with great views.15% of US homes are on well water systems, and the percentage is higher for vacation/2nd homes/future retirement.

Then my paths crossed with Pat Kennedy, CEO and founder of OSIsoft. In our discussion of real estate monitoring systems, Pat mentioned the problem of energy consumption in data centers, and how he wanted to measure the power consumption of applications. Having worked on system software and power management for both Microsoft and Apple, I was thinking how to do this, and how difficult it was given almost all the focus on power management was on laptops.  I remember in 1999, talking to Server OEMs about using Windows 2000 power management features and they just looked at me strange and asked why would you want to save energy on a server.

But, Pat hit on a good idea, I went back and thought about this more. Many of the same principles I was applying to home automation, water well monitoring systems applied to monitoring data centers. I researched this more, signed up for the EPA working group distribution, contacted more people, and even nominated the subject for a Microsoft internal Technical Readiness event with the help of Lewis Curtis and George Cerbone.

This last year has been an interesting ride, and I now write for TechNet Magazine, speak at a variety of events, consult with various companies, and I am back at Microsoft as a vendor working with a lot of people who are passionate about Green Data Centers.

My latest effort was to start with this blog, and get more information out there quickly and regularly on Green Data Centers.

Today is exactly my 18 month anniversary of leaving Microsoft and taking the risk to "Get Ahead by Going Backward"

-Dave Ohara

BUSINESS INSIGHT

Human Resources
How to Get Ahead
By Going Backward

Lessons from those who took career risks -- and succeeded
By WILLIAM J. WHITE
December 1, 2007

When it comes to advancing a career, sometimes the best way to take a step forward is to take a step back.

For most people, a promotion is the cure for a stagnating career. They've accomplished and learned all they can at one job, so they aim for the next one up the ladder, hoping it will bring them bigger personal and financial rewards.

But a few pursue a much riskier strategy. Instead of trying to move up, they take a lower-level job that gives them valuable new skills and experience. They're prepared to accept a short-term loss of income and prestige, betting that the knowledge they gain will lead to a better job down the road.

Read more