Climate Savers Smart Computing Catalog Does not work

InfoWorld wrote in a blog about the problems with Climate Savers Smart Computing Catalog.  Having worked at Apple and Microsoft and advised multiple marketing teams and their efforts to create logo programs and product catalogs for Win 3.1, Win95, Win 2k, WinXP and Vista, I can tell you they never work when it is up to the supplier to fill out the catalog.  I remember on WinXP the catalog was dominated by a handful of companies like IBM and Novell who filled out every version of products in the software catalog.

When you go to the Climate Savers Smart Computing Product Catalog.  You get the following possible results from the vendors. Lenovo - 71, Dell - 24, Fujitsu - 26, Fujitsu Siemens - 21, HP - 38, Sun - 1.  And here is example of an entry.

OptiPlex 745 Energy Smart DT

SKU:
Category: Desktop
Manufacturer: Dell
Website: Visit Product Site
Sales Contact Phone:
Sales Contact Email:
Description: Energy Star 4.0 qualified, EPEAT Silver qualified, Intel processors, select graphics cards, one or two HDD, other add-in modules accepted. > 80% efficient power supply.
Available In: North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Japan, Latin America

The InfoWorld blog is a good report on the current state.  But, even over time it will not get better, because the suppliers are not going to present their products in way that answers a simple question of "what device should I buy if I want to spend $1,500, and energy consumption is one of my top issues?"

Climate Savers green catalog proves unripe
Filed under: Hardware

I've had green hardware and gadgetry on the brain these past couple of weeks, no doubt thanks to the holiday season. If you're looking to stock your home or your office with some energy-efficient computing wares -- not just PCs but also mobile devices, servers, and software -- you might consider perusing the Climate Saver's Smart Computing Product Catalog.

The catalog contains 317 product listings (at least as I write this), which you can sort by product category (Desktop, Mobile, Server, and the oh-so unhelpful Other), manufacturer, and/or region -- that is, where the product is available.

While somewhat useful, the catalog could certainly use some sprucing up. For example, it doesn't have a particularly elegant UI -- the word spartan would be far more apt. Further, when you perform a search, you're presented with a long list of product names, the product type, and the manufacturer name. You don't get any more details until you click the product name. It would make more sense to add at least one descriptive sentence below each product name in the search results page. Otherwise, a user has little incentive to randomly click uninformative product names such as "Surveyor" or "Z-One Digital IBA."

Clicking on a product name takes you to a page where you'll find a product description, a link to the vendor site, and sometimes and image. Said description might be a basic list of specs -- or a wordy description of the product, clearly written by the vendor's marketing team as opposed to a neutral third party. Pricing information is notably absent.

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Chicago next Green Data Center Location

In ZDNet GreenTech Pastures blog, Microsoft's latest data center in Northlake, IL is discussed as a Green Location.

From a tech industry standpoint, one big side effect of the software as a service (SaaS) movement will be the build-out of massive data centers capable of scaling to handle ever-growing user traffic. That doesn’t sound so green now, does it?

No wonder Google refuses to reveal just how much power its operations consume on a worldwide basis. In all fairness, arch-rival Microsoft also holds certain information related to its data centers pretty close to the vest. But the big Seattle-based software developer was eager to trumpet its move last month to invest about $500 million in a major data center located in Northlake, Ill.

The facility, being developed by green data center design expert Ascent in partnership with real estate company The Koman Group, will be Microsoft’s single largest data center when it comes online in the June 2008 timeframe.

Data Centers are interesting distribution logistics problems applied to information instead of goods. Chicago given its history of being a hub of commerce works well for information distribution.

Phil Horstmann, CEO of Ascent, says his company looks at each data center as an intersection of a lot of vitally important utilities—namely power, water and connectivity. The Northlake facility will feature a number of design innovations, such as an arrangement to tie right into nearby electricity transmission lines. Because Chicago is a deregulated market, his company can buy from 15 different utility companies.

Ascent's marketing site for the Northlake Data Center facility gives you an idea of the additional factors which made the site appealing.

Other green features of the area are cold air allows airside ecomomization for cooling, and Chicago power has a low carbon footprint. This Computerworld article discusses the most energy-efficient locations.

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Path to Green: Prioritize and Focus

This weekend in reading some other blogs, I went to scobelizer.com.

In reading scoble's latest 2 entries, http://scobleizer.com/2007/12/15/my-feedback-for-microsofts-mapping-team/ and http://scobleizer.com/2007/12/15/surviving-the-2008-recession/ each had 18 - 19 things he was telling the audience to do.

Why am I writing about Robert's entry?  It reminds that Green is a broad topic and you can go on for hours talking about all the Green things you could do in a data center - eWaste, energy efficiency, cooling systems, UPS, building construction, blades, virtualization, storage systems, networks, power supplies, processors, design isues, power management, RAM, solid state drives, renewable energy, carbon credits. There are dozens of vendors ready to sell you green upgrades.

If you are going to successful in creating a Green Data Center you need to prioritize the changes and focus on develop a strategy of how you will measure the effectiveness of change.

Robert has some good suggestions for his audience, but how do you know which ones have the highest return?  Being Green requires an iterative approach and measurement system to determine how much greener you are after each change, and whether you may have take a step backward.  It is easy to throw out a bunch of ideas, it is hard to execute and prove the effectiveness.

Keep this in mind when implementing Green Data Center projects. It is easy to have the Robert Scobles of the world tell you all the different things you should do to make a Green Data Center. It's hard to prioritize and focus.

Another related topic is my post at /2007/12/its-not-easy-go.html

I am basing part of my opinion on the time I was at Microsoft watching Robert Scoble operate.

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IT Process Automation Vendors

Part of a Green Data Center is  process automation to minimize the resources to make changes, and make the changes faster. This article on searchdatacenter.com points to findings from the Gartner Data Center Conference.

Organizations are increasingly ready to invest in IT process automation (ITPA) technology, software that

aims to make IT operations more efficient, according to findings from the Gartner Data Center Conference in Las Vegas last month. According to David Williams, a research vice president at the Stamford, Conn.-based research firm, , about one-third of attendees had moved beyond the tire-kicking stage and were ready to buy.

And goes on to highlight vendors in this space.

Three of the most visible independent IT process automation vendors are NetIQ Corp., Opalis, and Optinuity Inc., and all have recently announced new IT process automation products. In October 2007, NetIQ introduced a software platform called Aegis that automates predefined workflows for such processes as patch management, virtual machine provisioning and incident management and integrates with existing service automation tools from third-party vendors. In November 2007, Opalis launched a new version of its Opalis Integration Server that enables IT process automation within service-oriented architecture and provides a testing environment for IT process workflow prior to deployment. Also in November, Optinuity introduced its Oasis, a system that integrates and automates policy management, monitoring and job scheduling for IT operations.

What's the reason for all this vendor activity? Both Williams and Mann say that the time is finally right for automation due to the complexity of IT infrastructures and taxing workloads of IT staff. "IT process automation has been around as a concept for a long time," said Mann. "Because of the growing complexity of IT, data centers are looking to either simplify their environments or fill gaps with automation tools that enable half the staff to manage the same workload." Williams points to other specific drivers of the IT process automation market. "High availability, disaster recovery and ITIL are all pushing data centers to seek operational efficiency gains," he said. "Using IT process automation tools to eliminate repetitive, manual processes is a good way to achieve that."

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It's Not Easy Going Green in the Data Center

NetworkWorld has a good article on the Reality of Virtualization and Going Green.

Data center managers see green, battle virtualization hangovers in '08

Data center managers who championed virtualization and green computing in 2007 now face the task of delivering the benefits they promised -- something industry watchers say will be no small feat.

Just as virtualization is no slam dunk, neither is green computing. Industry watchers say that working toward a greener computing environment isn't going to be easy for most data center managers due to technical, political and other reasons outside the control of IT.

"Legislation is coming about putting corporate responsibility programs in place, but in a lot of cases IT doesn't fall under the umbrella of corporate responsibility," says Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president of global enterprise research at the Yankee Group. "IT needs to start understanding more about data center facilities and find ways to design data centers to eat up less power."

The problem is very few of these Data Center managers have energy monitoring systems to measure the before and after results of their virtualization/green projects.  So, when it comes to proving they are greener, they'll be stuck without data. 

You can address this issue by creating an Energy Supply Chain Management system. For ideas see Energy Management as a Corporate Strategy.

For most industries, the cost of energy is outpacing all other variable costs. For example, the cost of natural gas increased over 250 percent from 1993 to 2006. The cost of fuels and power increased over 110 percent during this same period; the bulk of the increase, 81 percent, occurring in the last four years. Managers are asking, “What can we do to better manage these costs?” “How can we better utilize our valuable renewable and nonrenewable resources?”

Additionally, companies are now recognizing that their customers expect them to be part of the national and global energy sustainability solution. Devising strategies to meet our current and future energy demands in an environmentally responsible way is no longer the sole work of academia and government.

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