Microsoft CIO Uses MPG Analogy for Problem with Green IT

October 24, 2008 Dave Ohara

Ran across this post by Microsoft’s CIO Tony Scott on news.com

You are here for an environmental conference, EcoForum. I'm curious what is going on in that area? I know power is a big issue
Scott: Most CIOs have come to recognize that both their employees and the customers of the company want to know that the company that they are either working for or buying products from is acting in an ecologically responsible way and that you take these issues seriously. From a Microsoft standpoint, we have some great products on virtualization. We're also here talking about that and here learning what other companies are doing.

In our own space we've gone from 8 percent to 25 percent virtualization in our data centers in just a year. Next year we think we are going to hit 50 percent. That's as dramatic a progress as I've seen, any company anywhere.

One of the things I am convinced of is that the entire technology community is going to have to come together to solve some of these issues. I came out of automotive. There was a day when if you wanted to know car gas mileage you had to write down the mileage, then drive and write down the mileage again. Then you went to the gas station and did long division to figure out what your gas mileage was. Eventually as the world got interested in this a chip got built in every car. Most cars have a chip built in to tell you what your miles per gallon is.

We don't have the functional equivalent to that in the IT world. As a CIO, you really want to know, what is this app costing me, all up? It's the people resources and the energy costs. The tools to do it are emerging but we are not there yet.

It shouldn't be that hard. If the technology community works together and develops the right standards and interfaces, one day you will be able to say here's my compute factor or my miles per gallon in terms of the technologies we use. With that we should be able to do a better job of managing our resources. I'm hopeful we could get that done.

With all Microsoft’s talk on PUE the data is in the data center on power consumed by servers.

The next step is getting the applications to calculate power used to complete the work, publishing a watts per unit of work.

Hopefully one of these days the application developers will pull their head out of a feature focused view, and think about resources they consume.

Wipro Technologies Focuses on Green IT Offerings

October 22, 2008 Dave Ohara

EquityBulls has a post about Wipro Technologies focus on Green IT Offerings.

Stock Report

Wipro focusing on Green IT offerings

Wipro strengthened its suite of Green IT offerings which includes Consulting, Green Data Centers, Carbon Accounting, Paperless Office and Freight Management solutions. The green suite of offerings saw traction both in terms of deals as well as industry recognition.

Wipro embarked on a first of its kind initiative for a leading Telecom Service provider in India which involves construction of a completely “green” N ational Data Center for the company’s nationwide IT and Telecom requirements. The project will not only ensure visible environmental benefits but will also bring potentially huge cost savings in terms of power, water and lighting ensuring natural resources are optimized to the maximum. The scope of the project includes futuristic design, supply, installation, commissioning and operations for Data Center and NOC.

Wipro Technologies and a leading Retail organization in the US recently collaborated to win Oracle’s 'Empower the Green Enterprise' award for Implementation of Oracle I-Expenses module with integration to Peoplesoft payroll. Wipro helped the client organization move their legacy travel expense system to Oracle I-expenses platform and significantly reduced the consumption of paper, making the process more eco-friendly.

As Enterprises world-wide are beginning to consciously reduce their contribution to Global Warming by reducing emissions of Green House Gases, Wipro has introduced a Carbon Accounting Tool, that will help enterprises to measure, manage, monitor and monetize their carbon di-oxide emissions resulting from their operations globally.

US CTO Candidates, GOOG, AMZN, OR MSFT -Purpose Develop Environmental Friendly Tech

October 22, 2008 Dave Ohara

BusinessWeek writes on the idea of Obama’s idea for a US CTO.

The Short List for U.S. Chief Technology Officer

Barack Obama has pledged to name a cabinet-level CTO to oversee a job-creating national broadband buildout if he's elected. Big names abound

By Tom Lowry

Barack Obama says that the U.S. is not doing nearly enough to create jobs through technology. Shortly after he launched his campaign, the Illinois Senator promised that if elected, he would create the first-ever Cabinet-level post of chief technology officer. The economic crisis has since made it certain that a White House CTO would become one of Obama's most important advisers, should he triumph in November.

Candidates for the job are Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.

Among the candidates who would be considered for the job, say Washington insiders, are Vint Cerf, Google's (GOOG) "chief internet evangelist," who is often cited as one of the fathers of the Internet; Microsoft (MSFT) chief executive officer Steve Ballmer; Amazon (AMZN) CEO Jeffrey Bezos; and Ed Felten, a prominent professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University.

Broadband is one focus as well as a $50 billion VC fund for environmental friendly technology.

A White House CTO would be expected to help create incentive programs to expand broadband's reach, particularly tax credits for smaller carriers. But the tech czar would almost certainly be deeply involved in overseeing a federally-backed $50 billion venture capital fund that Obama has proposed to develop more environmentally friendly technology.

It is interesting to imagine a US CTO with one of these high tech executives. Tech company politics are taken to a new level.

Fuel-Saving Devices for the Car

October 21, 2008 Dave Ohara

There are three devices now out there for saving fuel in the car.

Building a DIY Fuel-Saving Gadget, Cheap Tech Gets Big Results

Recently, I discussed a couple of high-tech gadgets for fuel economy, theScanGauge and the HKS CAMP2. Both plug into the OBD II port on your 1996-up vehicle to give you a real-time mileage readout. These devices are really great to help you fine-tune your driving style for the best fuel economy. And I've just started evaluating a third device, the PLX Kiwi, which is so consumer-oriented and so much fun to use, it might even help retrain the driving habits of all those nongearheads in your family.

I have a carchip device.

If you want to get more monitor and meter your car consider one of these devices.

The carchip is the cheapest device $100, but is not a real time feedback the way the other devices are.

Plus I only drive 3,000 miles a year. Recently added amazon.com prime and a kindle to my list of purchases, so I get out less and less. More time to think. :-)

Yes, PUE is the Next Battle Ground

October 21, 2008 Dave Ohara

Microsoft’s Steve Clayton posted an interesting question.

Is PUE the new battleground?

I’m reading a lot about data centers of late – so much so that I’m even spelling it the US way already (sigh). What is becoming increasingly clear to me though is that PUE may well be the new battleground between some of the industry heavyweights.

In very basic terms, PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) is the ratio of power incoming to a data center to power used. The theoretical ideal is 1.0 of course which means you’re not wasting any energy. As Mike Manos points out this is all part of the “Industrialization of IT” that he and our GFS team works on. Google and Sun have both been waxing lyrical about PUE of late with some impressive numbers, particularly from Google who cite a PUE of 1.13 in one datacenter. Very impressive indeed.

Yes PUE is the next battleground.

Why how many servers you have is not a number to be proud of. As Google has found being the largest data center brings a critical eye.

A better number for people relate to market is their PUE. It is closest thing we have to a MPG. Ideally there will performance per watt, but given the range of work done in data centers I can’t think of what the performance metric would be.

Last week I talked to Google’s Erik Teetzal about Google’s PUE calculations, and I’ve been thinking of a good post based on our conversation. What I think surprised Google is how much coverage they received regarding their PUE. The main benefit of Google’s press is there are thousands more people who have heard the term PUE.

As Steve Clayton mentions Microsoft’s Mike Manos says the Container Data Center has a PUE of 1.22. Google’s is 1.21. Microsoft’s numbers are higher though because they count their office space in the overhead to run the data center. I think Microsoft is willing to count the office space given they have 1/3 of the reported number of employees Google has in their data centers.

Sun has achieved a PUE of 1.28 in their data centers, and I need to talk to Sun’s Dean Nelson to get more details.

Noticeably absent from the PUE discussion is IBM and HP. How efficient are the data centers that IBM and HP build? What is their PUE?

Should there be an independent auditing of PUE to ensure accuracy?

A good side effect is the data center vendors are thinking of how to position their products improving PUE.