Microsoft Container has evaporative water cooling

November 18, 2009 Dave Ohara

Information week has an interview with Microsoft President Bob Muglia. Which reveals Microsoft’s container is providing evaporative cooling in the containers.

InformationWeek: There's a next-generation container on the show floor?

Bob Muglia: In Chicago, we used the previous generation of container. The one on the show floor incorporates advances coming out of Microsoft Research. *~~Our servers have no fans in them.~~ Ambient air is drawn over a membrane onto which a small amount of water is released. I think it's two gallons an hour. The slow release of water drops the temperature of ambient air coming in through a system of louvers by 20 or 25 degrees and that's sufficient to keep the servers cool enough. You have to realize servers run comfortably at 95 degrees. Maybe you and I are not comfortable working at 95 degrees, but servers are.

*Note: this quote is struck out due to a reader pointing out the server fan noise. See this post for specifics.

Dell Servers inside Windows Azure Cloud Containers at PDC 09

November 18, 2009 Dave Ohara

Here is a youtube video of the Windows Azure container at PDC 09.

With Dell inside.

Steve Clayton has an image.

DataCenterKnowledge has a post as well.

Optimized for Outdoors?
The Generation 4 container on display at PDC looks to be completely optimized for outdoor use, with a design that relies upon fresh air (”free cooling”) rather than air conditioning. While we’re not on-site at PDC and haven’t been able to inspect the container, it features louvers on the exterior of the container to draw fresh air into the cold aisle and expel hot air from the rear of the hot aisle. Here’s a look at a video of the container shot by a PDC attendee:

The container features the branding for Windows Azure, Microsoft’s developer-focused cloud computing platform. Windows Azure will run at facilities in Chicago, San Antonio, Dublin, Amsterdam, Singapore and Hong Kong.

100 iPhone apps to support Green Habits

November 18, 2009 Dave Ohara

I had a bit of time today socializing with Apple friends, and of course iPhone discussions come up. Here are 100 iPhone apps to support their green habits. thanks to Amber Johnson for sending the link.

Here are the top 10.

Top 10

Green iPhone owners have raved for years about how great the following applications are. Based on usability, cost, and effectiveness, these t10 apps are the hands-down best.

Go Green: Displays a tip each time you launch it. Piece of pie.

Green Tips: Displays a tip at launch. Hit the refresh button for more tips.

The Green Lemur: By far the most full-featured of these three. Search, add tips to favorites, or browse by category.

Meter Read: Somewhat manual in usage (but then, no one said saving the planet would be easy), use MeterRead to log your electric meter’s reading. You can log your readings and use them to predict your electrical consumption, and thus, your upcoming bill. Try to be more efficient, and maybe the next time you check the meter, your readings will hit below the projected usage.

greenMeter: Uses the accelerometer to determine the drag and resistance of your car/driving habits in real time. There are several usage meters to monitor, though real-time MPG has been my favorite. Really helps tune your driving for better efficiencies and fewer pointless emissions.

shopgreen: By title, this doesn’t sound like it fits here, but it does. To use the app, just answer some questions about how you maintain your life. Answers that are good for the environment are tallied (like air-drying your clothes, or changing the furnace air filter), and the amount of CO2 you’ve saved is calculated. As a bonus, the CO2 savings gets you discounts at local, participating retailers for your efforts.

3rd Whale: Much like other location-aware shopping apps, 3rdWhale finds you businesses nearby (select walking, biking, or driving distances). So what makes it green? The resulting businesses are supposedly eco-friendly, allowing you to patronize those taking care of the world around us.

Yowza: Yowza presents one of the more interesting ideas of the bunch. Also location aware, it brings up coupons for retailers nearby. So not only could it save you some cash, but it’s claim is that you can use the digital coupon right on your phone’s screen, rather than printing more paper that will just get tossed out.

Green Charging: This application ensures you do not overcharge your phone.

Green Wars: Now you can take on the challenge of earning green while going green. Green Wars is a new take on the classic DOS and TI-83 game Drug/Dope Wars. This simple but enjoyable buy-low-sell-high game can also help you learn a thing or two about how you can save green by going green in your own life.

APC Smart-UPS update, greener and intelligent

November 17, 2009 Dave Ohara

APC released new versions of its Smart-UPS with greener features and more intelligence.

I had a ten year old Smart-UPS, but stopped using it with my desktop machines to save energy, but these latest UPS are 97% efficient.

And these latest versions are smarter than my old UPS.

user-friendly features like an LCD interface with diagnostic capabilities and advanced energy management that delivers clear and timely energy consumption metrics

I got a chance to talk to Ray Munkelwitz, product manager APC by Schneider electric and he says the life of the batteries are extended as well.

This technology adjusts a battery’s lifetime based on environmental conditions to provide advanced notification.

When there is end of life, batteries are recycled.

Smart-UPS feature a user replaceable battery. Over time, typically 3 to 5 years, usage and temperature degrade the UPS batteries which need to be replaced. APC recycles used batteries and almost 100% of the battery lead content is reused, protecting the environment. With each purchase of a genuine APC replacement battery, you get free freight back to APC for proper disposal of your old batteries (currently available in USA only.) Yet another “green” related aspect of the Smart-UPS.

http://www.apc.com/tools/upgrade_selector/show_option_descriptions.cfm?desc=rbc&country=US&lang=en

My one wish for the product is per port power monitoring. There is power monitoring for the whole UPS, but not per socket. If there was per socket, this unit would help measure power consumption per device which is useful in performance lab conditions.

Energy savings claims for liquid cooling, no transparency on claims

November 17, 2009 Dave Ohara

Greenbang has an article on liquid cooling.

Immersing servers in liquid can be a good thing

By Greenbang on Nov 17, 2009 in Data centres, Featured

If you’ve ever accidentally spilled tea on your laptop, you understand why liquids seem like one of the things you want to keep out of data centres, not in them. But one firm says surrounding server components with water and liquid coolant is an ideal way to save energy and money.

The UK-based Iceotope launched its new liquid-cooled server technology today at the Supercomputing 2009 conference in Portland, Oregon.

“We have spent 18 months developing this technology in stealth mode, with input from a number of interested customers,” said Dan Chester, CEO of Iceotope. “We believe that we will see a huge growth in the use of liquid-cooled servers as people see the ease with which these systems can be deployed.”

Iceotope claims its system is the first to use modular “liquid immersion” of server components and can reduce data centre cooling costs by 93 per cent. That’s no small feat when you consider a data centre with around 1,000 servers can spend more than $260,000 a year on air cooling systems.

The claim of 95% savinsg is mentioned on their web site.

Because of the greater thermal efficiency of this “end to end liquid” cooling path, the building water circuit can be run much warmer – potentially eliminating the need for chiller plant and enabling year-round free cooling. With this approach, the 3 year cooling cost of a 1 megawatt data centre could be reduced from around $788,400 to around $52,560; a 93% ($735,840) reduction compared to air cooling. By enabling servers to be packed more tightly without compromising the cooling efficiency, the same approach could reduce the space required for the servers by 84%.

I am amazed companies make claims like the above without any transparency on how they came up with these numbers.