Facebook dodges Holy Hand Grenade thrown by Greenpeace's Gary Cook at Data Center Energy Summit

October 16, 2010 Dave Ohara

I was going to live blog the SVLG Data Center Energy Summit on Oct 14, 2010, but after the first post I was sitting with some data center friends and we spent too much time discussing technical details during the Facebook and eBay presentation.

Holistic Approaches to Reducing Energy Use - Customer
Presented Case Studies
KC Mares, MegaWatt Consulting, DCES Co-Chair (moderator)
Dan Lee, Facebook
Veerendra Mular, Facebook
Rick Rehyner, eBay

Then I was in constant networking and didn't have time to blog.

One of the more entertaining moments is when Gary Cook from Greenpeace asked the last question in the Facebook session. Who is Gary Cook? Gary is the Greenpeace policy analyst who has been responding to Facebook's position on its data centers being coal powered.

Dear Barry:

Thanks for your response.

We appreciate your recognition that Facebook has a coal problem with its Oregon data center. However, where we disagree is your claim to be powerless to do anything about it as, like Greenpeace and others, Facebook simply has to buy whatever electricity is available. This is not the case for Greenpeace, and is certainly not the case for Facebook, who is an industrial scale consumer of electricity.

Gary got his chance to ask a question in the Facebook & eBay panel.

The Facebook engineers are the three guys to the left. eBay is to the right. And, far right is moderator KC Mares.

Gary Cook had a well thought out question.

The problem is instead of asking a simple quick question like "Facebook and eBay can you comment on your energy sources being coal powered." Gary went into a long series of questions and issues directed at Facebook that I lost track of, and there was almost no way for Facebook to answer his question.

When I tell others about Greenpeace asking the question it reminds of the infamous Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch Monty Python skit.

KC Mares took the question, and allowed Facebook's engineers to dodge the environmental hand grenade. I would expect eBay sighed in relief as they were not the intended target.

Later I was talking to another speaker at the conference and mentioned Gary Cook was there and they said "oh where is he?" which at first caught me be surprise. Then, I remembered I am at the event as press and not a data center builder, so what do I have to fear talking to Gary.

Attending data center events we learn to recognize a variety of people. Some you stir towards, some you stir away. I would expect most don't greet Gary with a look of "hey haven't seen you for a while, what are you up to" "oh, same old thing looking to corner the Facebook guys and get them to go to 100% renewable energy."

I hope you are laughing. I am writing this.

The Data Center Energy Summit was a great event to connect with great people. My apologies again for not being able to blog more during the event as I was too busy networking. and having some good laughs.

Data Center Efficiency Summit 2010, Live Blogging

October 14, 2010 Dave Ohara

Today I am going to Live blog at the Data Center Efficiency Summit 2010 at least until I get pulled into too many other meetings.

KC Mares kicks off and discusses the low carbon data center.

KC did a good job of describing where the data center industry is at and how energy efficiency and being greener fits in the future. Simple changes - changing temperature and humidity settings and changing containment.

Case Studies is part of the sharing and there is a long list.

Host sites for case studies:

AOL

Brocade

California Franchise Board

Oracle

eBay

Facebook

Kaiser Permanente

Microsoft

NetApp

Stanford University

Syracuse University

Verizon

Yahoo

Dave Stevens, CTO discusses the company, and the data center industry.

Brocade consolidated 5 data centers to 1. Mike tells the story of running out of power, and why he stays in California. We create jobs that create more jobs.

Here is a slide on the storage growth.

and Dave discusses the growth of data centers.

Dave makes the point the following is unsustainable.

and Future looks Virtual

Here is what Brocade's data center was like.

here is the new

What is the energy efficiency?

And the end results?

NYSE Mahwah Data Center Aerial views

October 12, 2010 Dave Ohara

60 minutes covered the opening of the NYSE data center and they promised not to disclose the site location.

Robot Traders of the NYSE

In a secret new building in New Jersey, high-speed computers decide which stocks to buy and sell. Could this kind of automated "trading floor" lead to Wall Street's next "flash crash"?

In Steve Kroft's "60 Minutes" report on high-frequency trading, you heard how most stock trades in the U.S. are no longer made by humans, but by computers capable of buying and selling stocks at warp speed.

I won't give the address. Yet. :-) I did find the address in a public source though. Just lucky researching low latency technology NYSE uses and there it was the address.

Here are pictures from Bing Maps and Google maps.

Any guesses on the power on site given the cooling picture below?

Here is the bare dirt.

Here is the building under construction.

Here is the completed building with a Google address location pin.

Cooling

One substation on the North.

And another on the South.

And a picture inside the data center.

Gartner says Green increasing as selection criteria for Asia PC buyers

October 12, 2010 Dave Ohara

Gartner has a press release on its new findings regarding PC buyers in Asia.

Gartner Says Environmental Sustainability is Becoming a More Important Criterion in PC Brand Selection in Asia Pacific

PC Providers Need to Prove Capabilities to Remain Viable as PC Replacement Cycle Takes Off

Singapore, October 12, 2010 — Personal computer (PC) upgrades in Asia Pacific are in full swing in the second half of 2010 and businesses are placing a greater emphasis on environmental sustainability in their choice of PC brand, according to new research from Gartner, Inc. However, analysts say PC providers are not offering the right mix of capabilities and messaging on sustainability and risk being excluded from lucrative opportunities.

The Asia Pacific PC market is forecast to grow 20.4 percent in 2010 and continue to grow at a compound average growth rate (CAGR) of 20.8 percent between 2009 and 2014. In the PC markets of Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia, stronger growth for 2010 and 2011 is expected as replacements gain momentum.

In some ways I think this press release is for the PC manufacturers.

Gartner advises PC providers to build sustainability capabilities and messaging on top of a robust offering of products with proven reliability, service and support, and also stress the long-term cost savings.

“When PC buyers are prepared to invest in this, they will want credible information and a choice of products and providers. The pressure to act responsibly and contribute to the sustainability of the environment cannot be ignored. These actions only will improve and increase with time as more products become available and the cost for going green becomes negligible.”

Data Center as a Platform example, Facebook and Zynga

October 11, 2010 Dave Ohara

Zynga is strategically placed for performance connecting to Facebook’s data centers. Facebook is a platform for developers and Newsweek covers some of the dynamics and Green (money) in data center ecosystems.

FarmVille Living

The tense ‘friendship’ between Facebook and its biggest game developer.

Photos: Facebook's Most Addictive Social Games

Facebook's Most Addictive Social Games

Part of the lore around Facebook is that Mark Zuckerberg, its 26-year-old founder, does not care about money. But for a guy who doesn’t care about money he is awfully good at squeezing it out of his business partners. Over the past two years, Facebook has evolved from a social-networking site into something much bigger: it has become a huge online arcade where each month more than 200 million people play videogames that run as applications on top of Facebook.

San Francisco–based Zynga, the biggest Facebook game developer, has become a software powerhouse in its own right, generating an estimated $500 million in revenue this year by selling virtual goods to people hooked on its games, which include FarmVille and Mafia Wars. (Zynga won’t comment on revenue projections.) There’s no cost to play the games, but if you want to jump ahead faster, you can spend real money on virtual goods.

Facebook is collecting green/revenue from Zynga via advertising.

As soon as Zynga began to boom, Facebook began to put on the squeeze. Earlier this year Facebook stopped letting apps makers like Zynga promote their games by sending notifications to users. The new policy was great for users, who were sick of being bombarded with promos about games. It was also great for Facebook, because by depriving game makers of their free promos, it pushed them to spend more on buying advertising space from Facebook.

and Facebook credits.

The next and bigger challenge came when Facebook introduced Facebook Credits and indicated it would eventually require all partners to use them. That move led to tension between Zynga and Facebook. But this past May, after some haggling, the two companies struck a five-year deal in which Zynga agreed to use Facebook Credits.

Facebook is a channel to end users. Amazon has their channel. Google has their channel. Monetizing access to users is a platform play. Microsoft’s Windows was one of the biggest platform plays. Doesn’t this sound like a description of the old Microsoft.

The fact is, Zynga had no choice. TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington claimed Facebook had developers in a “Darth Vader death grip,” and described the situation between Facebook and game makers this way: “Imagine a 400-pound bully strangling another kid while simultaneously rummaging through his pockets for lunch money. And he’s speaking quite calmly the whole time about what great friends they still are.”