Triple Bottom Line - social, economic, and environment responsibility, can BP be Green in light of the Gulf Spill?

May 10, 2010 Dave Ohara

Being green is an overused term. Many of the enlightened speak of triple bottom line.

The triple bottom line (abbreviated as "TBL" or "3BL", and also known as "people, planet, profit" or "the three pillars"^[1]) captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational (and societal) success: economic, ecological and social. With the ratification of the United Nations and ICLEI TBL standard for urban and community accounting in early 2007, this became the dominant approach to public sector full cost accounting. Similar UN standards apply to natural capital and human capital measurement to assist in measurements required by TBL, e.g. the ecoBudget standard for reporting ecological footprint.

BP is claiming its Green.

BP touts itself as 'green,' but faces PR disaster with 'BP oil spill'

GALLERY

Deepwater Horizon explosion in Gulf of Mexico sends oil slick toward U.S. coastline

Cleanup and containment efforts continue after an oil platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil is leaking into the water at a rate of up to 5,000 barrels a day.

By Paul Farhi

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 6, 2010

What do you call a gigantic man-made disaster that is threatening to despoil the ecosystems and wreck the economies of the Gulf Coast? The answer is important, if you happen to be one of the companies responsible for it.

The massive slick spreading toward Louisiana has gone by several names since crude oil began gushing from a damaged drilling rig on April 20. Media accounts have referred to it as "the Gulf oil spill," "the Deepwater Horizon spill" and the "Gulf Coast disaster."

President Obama, leaving little doubt about whom he considers responsible for the epic mess, put a brand name on it in remarks in Louisiana on Sunday. The president dubbed it "the BP oil spill," after the company (formerly British Petroleum) that leased the now-damaged drilling platform. The Environmental Protection Agency refers to it the same way in its official pronouncements.

The Greenest Data Center may be the one you don't build

May 10, 2010 Dave Ohara

A regular question is what is a green data center. One simple answer could be I was able to avoid building a new one. Zero carbon footprint is easy to achieve with no building.

TriplePundit discusses Dell, HP, and Wells Fargo efforts to not build a data center.

IT Giants: The Greenest Data Center is the One That Isn’t Built

By Sheila Samuelson | May 10th, 2010 View Comments

Image source: Data Center Knowledge

Last month, Dell made the somewhat shocking announcement that it may never build another data center. The company was referring to the fact that it’s doubled its workload using no extra power and building no new data centers, simply by squeezing more capacity out of its existing servers. With an industry standard for data server utilization at about 12 to18 percent, there is ample room for improvement. What Dell realized was that by getting rid of its underutilized assets and swapping out the oldest and most outdated 25 percent of servers each year for the newest virtualization models, it would easily recoup its capital expenditures through reduced energy costs.

Riding the Green Data Center Waves, Surfing is the new career

May 10, 2010 Dave Ohara

Lately I have been thinking about "Waves" as a metaphor. I can thank the catalyst for the idea from my daughter who wanted to make her school science project "What makes waves?" She was thinking it was boats make waves as they go by our house and go faster than they should for a no wake zone that many ignore. But, I also explained that there are many more waves created by the wind, creating wind waves.

They usually result from the wind blowing over a vast enough stretch of fluid surface. Some waves in the oceans can travel thousands of miles before reaching land. Wind waves range in size from small ripples to huge rogue waves.^[1]

She got it when I shot this video from our house.

This got me thinking about methods that could use waves. I implemented a big wave-picking system in Apple Computer Distribution when Apple hired me for my distribution logistics expertise, increasing productivity over 100%. The same ideas are being used finally in IT buying racks and containers of equipment, looking efficiencies in a wave-picking method.

Wave Picking is an application of a Short Interval Scheduling, to assign the workload into a intervals (waves) to allow management to coordinate the several parallel and sequential activities to complete the work. The Wave data includes the workload by order or function (case picking, repack picking, pallet movement, pick position replenishment, packing, etc.) providing management the information to calculate staff requirements and assign staff by function, with the expectation that the work in each function, within each wave, can be started and be completed at about the same time. There are two basic planning elements and benefits of Wave Picking.

To organize the sequence of orders and assignment to waves, consistent with routing, loading and planned departure times of shipping vehicles or production requirements, etc, to reduce the space required for shipping dock handling to assemble orders and load; and

To assign staff to each wave and function within a wave, with the expectation that all the work assigned to each wave will be completed within the wave period, providing management with the ability to monitor and manage performance throughout the day, and respond in a timely way to problems that occur, and more effectively utilize the staffing throughout the shift.

Another way to think about waves is being a surfer. Seth Godin just posted on "Surfing is the new career" and uses the wave metaphor as well.

Surfing is the new career

Three months ago I wrote about farming and hunting. It seems, though, that the growth industry of our generation is surfing.

Talk to surfers and they'll explain that the entire sport comes down to the hunt for that blissful moment that combines three unstable elements in combination: the wave is just a little too big to handle, the board is going just a little too fast, and the ride could end at any moment.

And explains how some are making their careers using a Surfing method.

We see successful musicians and writers do this all the time. Now, though, it's not unusual to watch someone surf in their development of shareware, or in the videos they post online or risks they take in their personal blog.

So many of the conversations I have every day could easily be replaced with, "so, where's the next wave? Tell me about your last one..."

This is actually a pretty good description of the method I use to figure out where there are Green Data Center waves. Checking out different areas, people who are doing great work, learning from others mistakes. Keep on moving and practicing.

Thanks to my daughter I think about waves more. Also, here is her video, since I already posted about her brother as inspiration, and she would be mad if she read my blog and I didn't say how she is an inspiration too. :-)

Google & Microsoft adoption of Containers and Cloud Computing has a common pattern - cost containment

May 10, 2010 Dave Ohara

Cloud Computing has reached record levels of media interest and confusion. Containers had a lot of interest in the data center industry and there are some efforts like Cisco to combine cloud computing and containers.

Cisco targets Data Center Containers for Federal/Defense market saves 50% capital and 30% operating costs

Containers have gone through its hype phase, and now we'll see how many start buying containers. There is some new media coverage on Cisco's move in containers.

Cisco claims that by purchasing a portable data center—which cost around $1.2 million for a 40-foot, fully loaded model and some $600,000 for a 20-footer—an enterprise can save 50 percent in capital expenses and 30 percent in operating expenses compared with a similar-sized, permanent land-based facility. But those are very general numbers.

But what clicked in conversations this past 4 days is there is another way to view why Google and Microsoft both are using containers and cloud computing.

Cost Containment.

Process of maintaining organizational costs within a specified budget; restraining expenditures to meet organizational or project financial targets.

Data Center Containers are enclosures of compute allowing a more accurate cost accounting of IT. Much easier than thousands of feet of white space with power and cooling systems that need to be allocated across the load put in the space.

Cloud computing is a virtual enclosure of compute that you pay for as you go. Easy and smaller increments of cost containment IT.

Both of these solutions support better management of budgets.

Cloud computing means so many different things to different people, and what almost all miss is this is a way to adopt a cost containment mindset. There are other ways to put cost containment in IT and the data center that are even better than Cloud Computing as there is more to IT systems than cost.

Mother's Day Stand-up Paddle Boarding with PerfectWave and a bit of data center networking

May 9, 2010 Dave Ohara

Mother's Day was a perfect weather day here in Seattle, and the OHarder's (the new name for when the Ohara and Harder family get together) had Mother's Day Brunch to celebrate the day and new Stand-up Paddle Boards they had delivered from PerfectWave. Both Hilary Ohara and Vanessa Harder had tried stand-up paddle boarding in Hawaii and wanted to make it part of their regular exercise routine, so stand-up paddle boards have been on the wish list for a while.

Below is the gang before we started the lessons with PerfectWave owner Bobby, who is in the middle with Hawaiian Shaka hand sign.

Bobby's giving us lessons. He is the one standing in the below picture.

It's hard to stand when I have my son on the board and he is having fun pretending he is surfing. He already skateboards and snowboards, so surfing is on his list.

But, I eventually get up when he settles down.

Overall a great day for all, and I was busy cooking bacon and pancakes for 20 people, quadrupling the buttermilk pancake recipe.

Hilary and Vanessa did a great job researching what kind of paddle board to get and where to buy it from. They checked out brands like Surftech Laird. What local shops or REI they should buy from. A week ago, they found the place they wanted to buy their boards - PerfectWave, a local shop.

Founded by Bobby Arzadon, a local boy from the Island of Kauai, Hawaii, the Perfect Wave Surf Shop is your direct link to Hawaii, without leaving the mainland.

The Perfect Wave Surf Shop is located in the Northwest, approximately ten miles east of Seattle in Kirkland, Washington.

Ninety percent of the surfboards we carry are made in Hawaii. Surfboards can be custom ordered to suit your tastes. We also carry local surfboards made here in the Northwest along with a full line of accessories, for the expert or beginner.

The girls called me and asked me to come by the shop and met Bobby before buying the boards. We talked about how he designs his own boards in addition to carrying other brands. I asked him what he does for his day job, and he says he runs the CAD shop at Casne. I told him yeh, I know Casne, they are one of system integrators for OSIsoft data center real time monitoring solution.

Casne Engineering, Inc. was founded in 1979 based on a firm belief that there is great value in the engineering process. The engineering process is what matures the owner’s ideas from a dream to reality. This is the vehicle that allows the owner to make informed decisions along the way.

Looking into the future, we see a continuing need for the engineering process, and Casne Engineering remains fully committed to our mission:

" Engineering Excellence Through Teamwork
Anchored in Trust, Integrity, and Commitment. "

One of the people who came over to try the stand-up paddle board is Bobby's Casne co-worker , Nick Wiley, who coincidentally was at OSIsoft's user conference when I was there and we were both at the Data Center Birds of a Feather lunch meeting as we made the connection we were both at the table with HP's Dave Rotheroe.

So, in between paddling and cooking, we talked a bit of data center shop and agreed to catch up later as we both agreed data center monitoring has a lot of potential and is in its early stages compared to other industries.

I am going to have a hard time topping this Mother's day next year. But, maybe a Mother's day brunch paddling on the lake with the OHarder's is a new tradition.