Decisions for a Green Data Center, Get Out of Your Own Way

WSJ has a science article which helps to explain why companies are so slow in greening their data centers.

Get Out of Your Own Way

Studies Show the Value of Not Overthinking a Decision
June 27, 2008; Page A9

Fishing in the stream of consciousness, researchers now can detect our intentions and predict our choices before we are aware of them ourselves. The brain, they have found, appears to make up its mind 10 seconds before we become conscious of a decision -- an eternity at the speed of thought.

Their findings challenge conventional notions of choice.

[Image]

Corbis

"We think our decisions are conscious," said neuroscientist John-Dylan Haynes at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, who is pioneering this research. "But these data show that consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg. This doesn't rule out free will, but it does make it implausible."

Results of their experiments are interesting.

Such experiments suggest that our best reasons for some choices we make are understood only by our cells. The findings lend credence to researchers who argue that many important decisions may be best made by going with our gut -- not by thinking about them too much.

Dutch researchers led by psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis at the University of Amsterdam recently found that people struggling to make relatively complicated consumer choices -- which car to buy, apartment to rent or vacation to take -- appeared to make sounder decisions when they were distracted and unable to focus consciously on the problem.

Moreover, the more factors to be considered in a decision, the more likely the unconscious brain handled it all better, they reported in the peer-reviewed journal Science in 2006. "The idea that conscious deliberation before making a decision is always good is simply one of those illusions consciousness creates for us," Dr. Dijksterhuis said.

As you get teams working together together, are you willing to take risks? Try something no one else has tried to save energy. The answer is a resounding NO from most companies. "This is our data center!" Yet, as this research shows, we are making mistakes in judgement all the time.  And in a corporate environment huge effort is spent to prove we did not make a mistake and the data is there to prove the right decision was made.

When is the last time you heard of a failed virtualization project?  There is tons of data to prove it was the right thing to do. But, you know someone is failing in their execution, but you don't hear the horror stories.  These stories will come with time, because there are way too many consultants making lots of money virtualizing servers.

This is why an energy monitoring system and using metrics like PUE are critical to evaluate objectively in big picture did the green project work.

Is your Green IT team set up to be efficient taking small risks to be more efficient or is it overthinking?

Read more

Microsoft Presentation on Containers at GigaOM's Structure 08 - a PUE of 1.3!

PCWorld reports on a Container presentation by Microsoft's Daniel Costello, Director of data center research at GigaOm's Structure 08.

"The idea of modular, portable data centers is key to the industry's future," said Daniel Costello, Microsoft director of data center research, in a presentation at GigaOM's Structure 08 conference in San Francisco. "That's why I'm here to talk about data centers, not just for Microsoft but for our customers as well."

Buying these boxes from server vendors can be more energy-efficient and cost-effective than building a new, traditional data center, he said, and Microsoft sees them as more than just a way to add extra computing capacity at short notice. "We see them as a primary packaging unit," he said.

Using shipping containers is part of an effort by Microsoft to radically rethink its data centers, as it tries to add more computing capacity in a way that is cost effective and power efficient. "At Microsoft, we're questioning every component in the data center, up to and including the roof," Costello said. That includes "eliminating concrete from our data center bills."

"The definition of a datacenter has changed. It's not just bricks and mortar any more, and moving forward, we think it can be a lot more energy efficient," he said.

But vendors building portable data centers today are filling them with equipment that was designed for traditional data centers. "Moving forward, we need to design systems specifically for this form factor. If we look at the containers, that form factor will change over time as well."

Daniel covers the efficiencies in PUE.

They can offer a better "power unit efficiency" ratio than do traditional data centers, he said. PUE is a measure of a data center's power efficiency. If a server demands 500 watts and the PUE of a data center is 3.0, the power from the grid needed to run the server will be 1500 watts, according to a definition from the Green Grid industry consortium.

"We've seen PUE at a peak of 1.3" in modular data centers, Costello said, compared with between 1.6 and 2.0 for a traditional data center.

The containers can accommodate 1,000 watts per square foot, allowing companies to power a lot more servers in a given area, he said. Many companies are unable to add more equipment to their data centers because power supplies and cooling equipment are at maximum capacity. The portable data centers are an alternative to building new facilities or extending old ones.

And, the portable data center.

But he thinks portable data centers will be deployed widely to provide services to end users. "We used to talk about a PC on every desk," he said. "But how about a data center in every town?"

Which reminds me of a conversation when I was talking to Christian Belady at a Uptime Institute event.  Christian said he thinks power for data center is becoming scare. I told him I think what will happen in the future is Microsoft guys will drive around in a town looking for what buildings/businesses have power infrastructure in place. Buy those buildings with good power and networking infrastructure, level the building and put a container data center in the space in months.

Read more

Greenest Show on Earth: Democrats Tackle Politically Correct Convention

Front Page WSJ points out the challenge of hosting a 50,000 political spectacular Democratic party event that is politically correct.  Can they host a Green event and succeed without being attacked for their practices?  We will see.

The Greenest Show on Earth:
Democrats Gear Up for Denver

From Organic Fanny Packs to 'Pure' Trash,
Party Planners Face Logistical Nightmare

By STEPHANIE SIMON
June 25, 2008; Page A1

DENVER -- As the Mile High City gears up to host a Democratic bash for 50,000, organizers are discovering the perils of trying to stage a political spectacle that's also politically correct.

Consider the fanny packs.

[See more]

With biodegradable balloons and organic snacks, Denver Democrats hope to stage the "greenest convention" ever. See examples.

The host committee for the Democratic National Convention wanted 15,000 fanny packs for volunteers. But they had to be made of organic cotton. By unionized labor. In the USA.

Official merchandiser Bob DeMasse scoured the country. His weary conclusion: "That just doesn't exist."

Ditto for the baseball caps. "We have a union cap or an organic cap," Mr. DeMasse says. "But we don't have a union-organic offering."

Much of the hand-wringing can be blamed on Denver's Democratic mayor, John Hickenlooper, who challenged his party and his city to "make this the greenest convention in the history of the planet."

Convention organizers hired the first-ever Director of Greening, longtime environmental activist Andrea Robinson. Her response to the mayor's challenge: "That terrifies me!"

At first I felt sorry for the environmental activist Andrea Robinson, and decided to look up her background as an activist.  I found her acting list  http://www.us.imdb.com/name/nm0732365/ with appearances on CSI Miami, Joey, Doc, West Wing, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, ( there are 24 entries)

Then I went to the Democratic Committee web site. http://www.demconvention.com/meet-the-green-team/.

Meet the Green Team

Andrea Robinson

Andrea Robinson
Director, Sustainability & Greening

Andrea is the first person to ever hold the position of “Director of Greening” for the DNCC and began creating the sustainability plan in September 2007.  She is responsible for constructing, developing, and managing the sustainability and greening efforts for the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Andrea works with all DNCC Convention venues, departments, construction and production teams to adopt and implement environmentally responsible practices in all aspects of the convention planning and restoration phases. She serves as the Co-Chair of the Denver Mayors Energy Task Force and Denver Mayors Waste Minimization Task Force and works closely with the City of Denver and DNCC venues to create a long-term legacy of sustainability in Denver before, during and after the Convention.

With more than 25 years in the environmental field, Ms. Robinson has a long history of greening large scale events, developing corporate sustainability practices, championing renewable energy, endangered species & habitat protection issues for political campaigns and creating waste diversion and reduction programs. Most recently, Robinson managed the greening of the New York, Shanghai and Johannesburg venues for Vice President Al Gore's Live Earth Concerts for the Climate Crisis, the largest musical event in world history. At Live Earth, she also single-handedly built and managed relationships with over 650 international non-profit, intergovernmental and civil society organizations focused on solving the climate crisis. She has worked extensively with a variety of environmental non-profit organizations, including the Sierra Club and Environment Colorado.  Ms. Robinson received her degree in Environmental Science from University of California at Santa Barbara with an honors thesis on Biodiversity and the United Nations Earth Summit.

I don’t see how she has 25 years of experience given she started acting in 1995 on Baywatch Nights.  But, hey this must be part of being an actress.  She started her environmental work when she was 12. She did work for Al Gore, and he did invent the Internet. :-)

She does have some learning on how long it takes for a product to biodegrade. Was she paying attention to her science courses as part of her environmental studies degree?

To test whether celebratory balloons advertised as biodegradable actually will decompose, Ms. Robinson buried samples in a steaming compost heap.

…

But remember those balloons? She checked the compost heap last week -- and found them still intact. She has added more liquid to try to get them to degrade.

And if they don't? "The balloons will be there," she promises.

The convention's greening gurus say they're doing the best they can with the most current information available.

Can you claim lack of information as an excuse?

Read more

Green (Resource Efficient) products are more competitive with rising energy prices

WSJ has a few interesting articles on Green efforts winning vs. other industries due to the fact that Green strategies uses less resources. In this article they make the point that energy intensive products are increasing in prices faster than Greener products.

Green Products Gain
From New Price Equation

They Find New Buyers
As High Energy Costs
Hurt Regular Brands

By ARDEN DALE

Does it finally pay to go green?

Consumers typically have paid a premium for environmentally friendly products. But with soaring energy prices pushing up the price of mainstream goods, green products are becoming just as -- or even more -- affordable these days.

The reason is that environmentally friendly products usually have less fossil-fuel content than competing nongreen brands. Their manufacture also tends to consume less oil, since green entrepreneurs favor renewable-energy and energy-saving practices.

[photo]

TerraCycle Inc.

A TerraCycle bag made from juice pouches

The new price parity -- and, in some cases, advantage -- is allowing businesses to draw in the growing ranks of consumers who want to go green, but have so far resisted because of the higher cost. It also is giving some companies incentive to branch out into other eco-friendly products and even adopt more energy-saving manufacturing techniques.

"We try to leverage situations like this to grow into new markets," says Jeff Mendelsohn, founder and chief executive officer of New Leaf Paper LLC, a maker of recycled paper. "Where there's instability in prices, buyers tend to be more open to new sourcing, and that's a general market strategy, not just green."

This same phenomenon will occur in data center operators.  The Greenest data centers are going to be more competitive as energy costs increase.

Read more