Blogs vs. Twitter – Big vs. Small

Microsoft Research has an article discussing efforts by their researchers to understand blogs vs. twitter.  At first I wasn’t going to blog this article, but it brings up interesting points to consider in data centers of the big vs. small.  Which is a good question to ask in data centers.  Is it best to be big or small in data centers?

Researchers Ride the Twitter Wave

By Rob Knies

August 6, 2009 2:00 PM PT

He rocks in the treetops all the day long,

Hoppin’ and a-boppin’ and a-singin’ his song.

All the little birds on Jaybird Street

Love to hear the robin go tweet tweet tweet …

* * *

When L.A. R&B singer Bobby Day took Jimmie Thomas’ lyrics to the top of the charts in the summer of 1958—a tune memorably revived in 1972 by a 13-year-old Michael Jackson—there was no way to foresee how those words would resonate a half-century later.

But they certainly do. Twitter, the wildly popular micro-blogging service, has become an Internet sensation, with millions flocking to the site each month to post a jittery stream of brief status updates. Whether it’s Ashton Kutcher or your cousin Sue, these days, it seems, everybody wants to emulate Rockin’ Robin.

There will be few people arguing for small data centers as the whole supply chain system is set up to maximize profits by building bigger more complex data centers.  What is the right size for data centers?  The problem is the data center construction teams think from their construction and provisioning view.  The whole social network effect of what happens with something like Twitter is beyond the data center construction team.

“Blogging has long been studied as a medium of information diffusion, and micro-blogging has started to be used for marketing. Analyzing the differences and similarities in terms of information-diffusion structure and efficiency can yield valuable knowledge to the proper use of each.”

Aren’t data centers built for information diffusion?

What types of data centers are ideal for information diffusion?  Bet you Facebook and Twitter can look at their data center as social networks instead of buildings.

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Disney & Verizon join Green Data Center Movement

NetworkWorld writes about Disney and Verizon making green data center announcements.

Disney, Verizon go green in the data center

Disney, Verizon lay out IT energy efficiency plans at Green Grid event

By Jon Brodkin , Network World , 10/06/2009

Energy efficiency in the data center is a top priority for Disney and Verizon, technology executives from the companies said last week. But the industry is still in the early stages of understanding how best to measure effectiveness, they said.

Disney has a companywide goal to reduce electricity consumption by 10% between 2006 and 2013, and the data center has to play a big role in achieving that objective, says Denis Weber, director of IT critical facilities infrastructure for the Walt Disney Co.

Five tools to prevent energy waste in the data center

For Disney, energy efficiency is being achieved through a series of small improvements, Weber said in an interview with Network World.

"Some of it just comes down to cleaning the facility up," Weber says. "And I don't mean with a dust pail and so on and a broom, but cleaning the data center up from obstructions and ensuring that every one of our floor tiles is sealed properly for air flow. Blanking panels -- not only that we have them but that they're in the right spot. Variable speed fans and motors on our CRAC units, increasing temperature settings across the board. These are all things that are not unique to Disney. But we have done it and that's where we've started to make progress."

The green grid was able to leverage their NYSE closing bell ringing to pull Disney and Verizon.

Disney and Verizon officials discussed their energy efficiency programs at the New York Stock Exchange last week during an event hosted by the Green Grid industry consortium.

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VMware opens its Green Data Center

Seattletimes has an article on VMware’s new Wenatachee green data center.

VMWare opens a green data center in Wenatchee

Posted by Sharon Chan

vmware.jpg

While a tax law prompted Microsoft to move its cloud business Azure out of Washington state, the state just attracted a software company, VMWare, to build its data center in Wenatchee.

VMWare, a software company and Microsoft competitor in Palo Alto, Calif., opened a 61,000-square-foot data center in Wenatchee in January to consolidate several smaller labs and data centers the company was using to run and test its virtualization software. The company's chief executive officer Paul Maritz, is a former top exeuctive at Microsoft.

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Obama Orders Federal to Green its Data Centers in Executive Order

InformationWeek Government reports on Obama’s executive order.

Obama Orders Federal IT To Get Greener

An Executive Order mandates that federal agencies implement green data center strategies, double-sided printing, and PC power management, as part of a broader sustainability push.

By J. Nicholas Hoover
InformationWeek
October 6, 2009 02:55 PM

An executive order signed by President Obama requires that federal agencies take further steps to ensure that their IT purchases are energy efficient or otherwise environmentally friendly.

The mandates are part of Executive Order 13514, which sets sustainability goals for the U.S. government. Within 90 days, agencies are required to set a target for reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2020 and to recycle or otherwise divert 50% of their waste by 2015.

"In order to create a clean energy economy that will increase our nation's prosperity, promote energy security, protect the interests of taxpayers, and safeguard the health of our environment, the federal government must lead by example," Obama wrote in the order.

The order means that sustainability will increasingly be factored into government acquisition of IT products and services. It's "going to make all of us look at what we do with IT with a new eye," said Jeff Eagan, electronics stewardship coordinator for the Department of Energy, during a panel discussion at 1105 Media's Virtualization, Cloud Computing & Green IT Summit in Washington.

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Apple Quits US Chamber of Commerce over GHG issue

Mercury News reports on Apple quitting the US Chamber of Commerce.

Apple quits U.S. Chamber of Commerce over global warming views

By Dana Hull

Adding momentum to the revolt against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Apple on Monday resigned from the business group because of its opposition to federal efforts to limit greenhouse gases.

Apple is the fourth company and the largest, as well as the first tech company, to part ways with the chamber as the debate over global warming legislation heats up in Congress. It is also the most significant defector because Apple is a leading American brand and consumers strongly identify with its products.

And the NRDC jumps in as well.

"Apple's departure is a clear signal that more and more of the chamber's members want it to download a new tune when it comes to climate change," said Peter Altman of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Apple further explains its position.

"Apple is committed to protecting the environment and the communities in which we operate around the world," Catherine Novelli, Apple's vice president of worldwide government affairs, said in a letter to Thomas Donahue, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce president and CEO. "We strongly object to the Chamber's recent comments opposing the EPA's effort to limit greenhouse gases."

The move comes amid efforts by Apple to burnish its green image. The Cupertino-based company revealed its carbon footprint — or total greenhouse-gas emissions — for the first time last month, announcing on its Web site that 53 percent of the 10.2 million tons of annual carbon emissions it takes responsibility for comes from consumer use of its products.

The company has taken a broad view of greenhouse gas emissions, using a "life-cycle analysis" to calculate greenhouse gas emissions for each product, from production to transportation, consumer use and recycling.

"We believe it has resulted in the broadest possible measure of the carbon footprint for each of our new products," Apple said in response to a lengthy questionnaire by the Carbon Disclosure Project, which publishes emissions data for the world's largest corporations. "No other electronics company reports this information at the product level, but we think they should."

and news.com reports on Apple being a top green brand according to another study.

Report praises Apple's environmental efforts

by Jim Dalrymple

Apple won praise for its latest efforts to rid its products of harmful chemicals in a new report released Tuesday from environmental organizations ChemSec and Clean Production Action.

While Greenpeace seems to have completely missed Apple's environmental advances in its latest report, ChemSec and Clean Production Action's report, "Greening Consumer Electronics: Moving Away from Bromine and Chlorine," highlights Apple's efforts as one of seven companies who have come up with solutions negating the use of harmful chemicals. Apple was the only computer maker to make the list.

With Apple winning points as a green leader they are joining Wal-mart who has also strategically chosen to make green a competitive advantage.

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