Intel’s Microserver – 25 watts at idle

Intel has been attention for the market needs for low power servers – little green servers. CNet news writes on a new ‘microserver’ standard Intel is proposing.

Intel seeks new 'microserver' standard

by Stephen Shankland

SAN FRANCISCO--In September, Intel introduced its back-to-the-future idea of tiny "microservers." Now the company wants to make the design into a standard others can use, too.

The chipmaker will offer its design specification to the Server System Infrastructure Forum by the end of the year, said Jason Waxman, general manager of Intel's high-density computing group. If the group's board votes its approval for the specification, group members may use the designs royalty-free, he said in a meeting with reporters here.

"Before the end of the year, it will happen," Waxman said.

An Intel 'microserver'

An Intel 'microserver'

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The computer industry is in constant tension between proprietary designs and standards that anyone may use. The former can mean tidy profits for companies, as long as the technology is widely adopted, but the latter can spur broader adoption. Intel's primary business, selling processors, benefits more from the latter when it comes to cultivating a new server market segment.

What is inside the Intel’s offering?

What's inside?
The diminutive server consists of a single quad-core processor and four memory banks. Intel showed 16 microservers housed in an 8.75-inch-tall chassis that supplies them all with power, cooling, and a network connection to the outside world. Along the bottom of the chassis is a bay with 16 "sleds" that each has a trio of 2.5-inch hard drives that directly connect to each microserver.

The present microserver uses a 1.86GHz quad-core processor, the "Lynnfield" model of Intel's new "Nehalem" generation. Its top power consumption is 45 watts, but early in 2010, Intel will release a dual-core "Clarkdale" model that consumes only 30 watts when running flat-out.

That's at the top end, though. Intel's goal is for the entire microserver--which also includes memory and supporting chips--to idle at just 25 watts of power.

An interesting part not discussed is how much is the microserver?

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Data Center Site Selection – NC rides Apple and Google Wave

Hickoryrecord.com has an article highlighting 5 North Carolina counties promoting the data center corridor. Below is a picture of Apple’s under construction data center.

5 counties promote data center corridor

Robert C. Reed

image

Construction is under way on the $1 billion Apple data center in Maiden.

By John  Dayberry | Hickory Daily Record

Published: October 28, 2009

Maiden - Scott Millar said establishing an information technology corridor stretching northwest from Charlotte could transform the region's economy.

"Partnering with Caldwell, Burke, Alexander and Iredell counties to market this to the world may give all the counties new business opportunities," said Millar, president of the Catawba County Economic Development Corp.

But what I found mind blowing is there were 40 site selection consultants at the event.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Millar and other economic development officials from the five counties outlined plans for a North Carolina data center corridor during a marketing event that attracted nearly 40 U.S. site selection consultants specializing in data center locations.

The regional economic development group is riding the Google and Apple and wave.

California-based Google opened a $600 million data center in Caldwell County in 2008.

When Apple announced plans for its $1 billion Maiden data center in July, economic development officials saw magnified potential for a data center corridor in the region.

Apple's arrival in the region also heightened interest on the part of site selection consultants from New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and other cities, Millar said.

Attendance at the Data Center Information Exchange blossomed.

"Eight (consultants) came the first year, 18 came last year and 38 came this year," Millar said.

"We're getting attention."

But do you think 40 site selection consultants know how to pick data center sites.  I would maybe guess 4 out of the 40 really know what they are doing.  But, how do you find the people who know what they are doing?  Do you think these guys know where Apple and Google is going to buy next?  Why buy where Apple and Google already bought?

There is a even a site selection magazine.

Site Selection Magazine, a nationally recognized publication, recently acknowledged a region anchored by financial data centers in Charlotte, Apple in Catawba County, Google in Caldwell County and the state's data center in Rutherford County as an emerging data center cluster that is attracting attention within the industry.

The site is here.

And, while all these site selection consultants were in NC, I was in Missouri, arriving in Kansas City, stopping in Columbia, and about to head to St. Louis.  One of the appealing parts of Missouri is the learning infrastructure.

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AFCOM Green IT survey

Reuters has a news release written by GreenBiz.com.

Green IT Hits the Mainstream in Data Centers

Tue Oct 27, 2009 3:00am EDT

content by Greener World Media

By Matthew Wheeland - Greener World Media

Over on the GreenBiz.com side of my job, we talk quite a lot about the nature of "green consumer" surveys -- how even over the course of 20 years, there's been very little change in the number of people who say they'd pay more for green products (always the vast majority says they will), while the actual market for green products is only growing ever so slightly.

Survey says:

That, however, doesn't seem to be the case for green IT: a study conducted by AFCOM at its recent Data Center World conference finds that the an ever-increasing number of data center and facility managers (71.3 percent, to be precise -- what we could easily call "the vast majority") have already adopted at least some green IT projects.

Conclusions.

What she found most interesting is how quickly and thoroughly the concept of greening the data center has taken off. "Where maybe five or six years ago green IT was a concept that people were starting to look at, it is no longer just a concept: It's here and it's being taken seriously."

The big reason, of course, has to do with exactly those two top results from the survey: green IT saves money.

"[Green IT] extends a positive savings to the corporation, which is looking at data centers as big wasters of energy -- executives are asking what they're going to do about it," Eckhaus explained

Even so, one of the wrinkles in the study shows that despite C-suite concern about data center energy use, the biggest obstacle to implementing these projects is that there's not enough money to get these projects started: 39 percent said budgets were too tight to purchase more efficient servers or cooling systems.

Gap closing between IT and Facilities.

Another interesting finding in the survey is that, even though there may still be gap between the data center and the C-suite, it seems like the longstanding gap between the IT and Facilities departments is closing: of the 436 respondents to the survey, 59 percent were from the IT department and 31% from Facilities.

With this gap closing -- in essence, by making sure that IT managers are also the ones seeing the energy bill for their systems -- it suggests that energy efficiency will pick up all the more quickly.

And, the marketing pitch for the next conference. :-)

As with all trend surveys, AFCOM plans to undertake another one during the next Data Center World, coming up in March in Nashville. But in the meantime, the first round of survey results suggests great progress toward green, efficient IT systems.

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Mike Manos’s presentation at 2009 Gartner Data Center Conference

Gartner’s Data Center Conference is coming up and I am building my agenda.  Mike Manos’s presentation will be an interesting one to watch.

Regulation. It's Real. It's Coming. It's Expensive.

Wednesday, 02 December 2009
01:45 PM-02:45 PM

Speaker: Mike Manos
Location: Octavius 2
Session Type: Solution Provider Session

Energy regulation is coming. The US House of Representatives has already passed its Cap and Trade legislation and the Senate has a bill in committee. In Europe it already exists. The operational and cost impact on datacenters in the today's regulatory environment is substantial. In this presentation Mr. Manos will provide a detailed overview of the pending industry-impacting legislation and what you will need to do to negate its impact.

I’ve seen Mike present many times and it is always entertaining.  But, what I am most interested in is the crowd that attends Mike’s session and whether they get it.

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Google positions itself #1 in Green Data Centers, hosts Secretary of Energy

cnet news has a post on US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

Google's warm reception for secretary of energy

by Tom Krazit

Google CEO Eric Schmidt (left) and U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu at Google headquarters Monday.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--For a bunch of search engineers, Google employees care an awful lot about energy and the environment.

Google hosted an event for employees Monday featuring Steven Chu, the U.S. secretary of energy under President Obama and a man Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said "may become one of the most influential scientists of our generation, if he isn't already." Chu took about an hour to speak to a packed room of Google employees followinghis announcement of $151 million in funding for new energy-related projects as part of the ARPA-E program.

Part of the format has Schmidt interviewing Chu.

Schmidt, who serves as an adviser to the administration on President Obama's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, asked Chu what it's like being the senior scientist in the government. He's actually the first scientist to hold the secretary of energy position, and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997.

"It's funny in a macabre sort of way. I don't think Congress treats me like your average cabinet member," Chu said with a wry chuckle. He said he's spent much of his first year on the job talking to Congress about the problems with energy use and the environment, and that legislators are receptive, for the most part.

"I think the president has made it very clear that science plays such an integral role in the decisions we have to make," Chu said. He was preaching to the choir at the Googleplex.

On a regular basis I hear Green IT is a fad and not important.  Google has done a great job of providing a way for its staff to work together to use less energy for Google services. 

What those people who think Green IT is a fad miss is having your staff focus on making things greener, means you have benchmarked your performance. And continually evaluate new ways to reduce energy consumption and reduce your carbon footprint.  This saves money over the long haul and makes it easier to provide new services.

The winners in internet services are going to go to those who have the highest performance per watt.  Google is in a race and many think the race isn’t worth the effort.  Amazon gets it. Who else?

I bet you Eric Schmidt is helping the federal gov’t understand how much more efficient it would be to host services in the Google cloud vs federal data centers.

Can Google be the lowest cost utility for data center services?  Who is competing with Google to be the lowest cost?  The lowest cost provider will be the most efficient using energy.

Being the greenest is another way to say you are the lowest cost provider of IT services.

Still think Green IT will be a fad?

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