IT Leaders Share Green Data Center predictions

December 20, 2007 Dave Ohara

Infoworld has an article with comments from a broad range of companies. The most interesting comments I found are:

Paul Marcoux, vice president of engineering, Cisco development operations, and "green guru," Cisco
Website: Cisco corporate social responsibility page
1. Heading into 2008, companies will continue to emphasize their social responsibility behavior, creating an environment for industry leaders to combine the power of innovation with collaboration to create the most sustainable model for addressing global climate change. As a result, across business and IT functions, we'll begin to see industry standards and green languages emerge in 2008 to foster greater communication and collaboration.

2. If you can't measure it; you can't manage it. In 2008, we'll see a slew of technologies developed to offer real-time monitoring intelligence to measure energy consumption for products. By 2009, there will be few products available that cannot be monitored for energy consumption.

Pat Tiernan, VP of social and environmental responsibility, HP
Website: HP's environmental sustainability page
Green IT will have a more significant focus as we move into 2008. This includes designing products with the entire lifecycle in mind. In addition to energy use, companies will be more vigilant in implementing plans for disposal, reuse, and recycling. Green strategy will also become an argument for the optimization of IT resources, as well as for saving money, with more energy-efficient products.

When will a Web site use Green to promote itself?

December 20, 2007 Dave Ohara

It hasn't happened yet, but I am keeping my eyes open for the web site that says visiting its site is good for the environment due to its zero carbon emissions or renewable energy.

MSNBC has an article that Organic Distillers are marketing that they are good for the environment.

Drink this and you may feel pleasantly green

Organic distillers, brewers hope eco-sensitive brands will catch on

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By Jennifer Alsever

MSNBC contributor

updated 4:12 p.m. PT, Wed., Dec. 19, 2007

When sipping that beer or vodka tonic at the next holiday party, take heart: Your revelry may actually be good for the environment.

Or at least that’s the pitch coming from makers of organic tequila, gin, vodka, brandy, beer and wine that are finding their way onto store shelves and fine restaurant menus — all in the name of healthier socializing and being green.

“Sip tequila and save the world, that’s our motto,” said Enrico Caruso, senior vice president of sales for 4 Copas Tequila, a Newport Beach, Calif., maker of tequila that is certified organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Caruso said 4 Copas uses no pesticides or chemicals in farming the agave plants used in its tequila and uses only organic yeast in fermentation.

At $42 to $80, 4 Copas tequila is not cheap, but it is certified organic.

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Google Tax Break Approved SC Data Center

December 20, 2007 Dave Ohara

Google got its Tax Breaks in SC.

The google guys are smart and leveraging their brand recognition to help get politicians reelected, bringing media attention to their small town. 30 years of no property tax to employ 200 people.

RICHLAND COUNTY, SC (WIS) - Google won't pay property taxes in Richland County for 30 years.

Tuesday night, County Council decided on its tax incentive plan for a Google data center in Blythewood.

WIS News 10's Craig Melvin talked to County Councilman Damon Jeter and County Administrator Milton Pope. They said Google has committed to spend $600 million in Richland County. The internet giant is expected to create at least 200 new jobs with an average salary of $60,000 a year.

What the news doesn't clarify is of the $600 million spent in Richland county, a large part is capital equipment, installed by specialized technicians who are sent to the facility for installation. I would be curious how much of the local labor will get of the $600 million of construction cost.

Memory Solution to Reduce Energy Consumption

December 20, 2007 Dave Ohara

In the IT industry there is a perfect storm for server hardware innovation with multi-core processors, virtualization, power management, and 64 bit being delivered in high volume. Another component - storage is changing as well. Here is one example of the changes coming in energy efficient storage besides SSD.

SUNNYVALE and MILPITAS, Calif., Nov 14, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Spansion Inc. (Nasdaq: SPSN), the world's largest pure-play provider of Flash memory solutions, and Virident Inc., an innovator focused on energy-efficient, scalable system solutions for the Internet data center, today announced the two companies will develop and market a new generation of memory solutions designed to dramatically reduce power consumption and provide excellent system performance in Internet data centers. Spansion also announced it has made an equity investment in Virident.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060118/SFW077LOGO)

This innovative partnership will combine the revolutionary Spansion(R) MirrorBit(R) Eclipse(TM) family with Virident platform technology to create a new generation of memory solutions. This breakthrough memory approach will enable a significant expansion of main system memory in data center servers. The new memory will incorporate specific optimizations for server applications to enable fast read performance and high capacity, yet consume much less energy than power-hungry DRAM. MirrorBit Eclipse Flash memory consumes as little as one-tenth the power of DRAM on a per-Gigabyte basis.

Today, major Internet companies select server infrastructure for the delivery of their services in an environment constrained by the power demands and cost curves of DRAM, and the slow response times of the hard disk. The Virident technology together with Spansion MirrorBit Eclipse Flash memory opens up the possibility of storing much larger datasets in main server memory, providing excellent overall system throughput while living within the power and cooling constraints of the Internet data center.

EDS Eight Tips to Reduce IT Environmental Impact, lack critical tip

December 20, 2007 Dave Ohara

EDS has a press release for their eight tips to reduce the Environmental Impact of IT. Their list is good, but they miss the need for an Energy monitoring system. If you don't put a monitoring system in place as I talk about in my TechNet Article, you'll have no idea how effective the tips that EDS suggests are in reducing your energy costs. EDS touts their innovative thought leadership in:

To help corporations and governments kick-off the new year right, the EDS Fellows have highlighted eight ways CIOs can extend the life of existing facilities and reduce the environmental impact of computing in 2008.

The title of EDS Fellow is awarded to the company’s most innovative thought leaders in recognition of their exceptional achievements. Each Fellow has a proven track record of creating world-class solutions for clients. In addition to their academic achievements and invention history, the 24 Fellows average 25 years of industry experience and innovative technology implementations.

One of their tips on maintenance Is one where a monitoring system can help you determine when maintenance is done poorly and actually decreases your efficiency. There are some maintenance guides who have suggested that up to 50% of maintenance is ineffective or worse causes another failure due to error. How many of you have taken your car in for maintenance to find there is a new problem which you think has been caused by your last maintenance call? You can't challenge the car dealer, because you can't prove your car's state before and after the maintenance event. Also, ineffective maintenance is a waste which is not environmentallly friendly. A goal should be to do the maintance which has measureable impact to your performance.

Perform Rigorous Maintenance
The fifth option is more fundamental, but also very achievable. Data center managers can improve the efficiency of their facilities by rigorous maintenance to ensure all equipment is operating at the peak of efficiency as well as modifying layout and configuration of equipment to reduce cooling requirements. These and many more efficiency steps will increase overall data center efficiency and lower the carbon footprint.