Who will replace the departed Oliver Sanche at Apple?

December 2, 2010 Dave Ohara

It’s one week since Oliver has left this Earth, and his service is on Dec 3, 2010 in France.

Please take note that the religious ceremony for Olivier will take place on Friday, December 3rd 2010 at 2.30 PM in his home town of Pignan in France ( Eglise de Pignan, 3 rue de l'église, 34570 PIGNAN, FRANCE).

There will be an open casket on friday morning at the " Complexe funeraire Grammont, Avenue Albert Einstein , 34000 Montpellier "

I talked to one of Olivier’s close friend Charles Kalko yesterday who was one of the last to see Olivier in the US. Charles drove Olivier to the airport for some vacation time in Barcelona with his brother which is where Olivier passed away. Charles and I are both mad and sad that Olivier is not coming back on a plane.

Every day I am talking to data center people and with going to Gartner I am sure the subject will come up. “Who will Apple hire to fill Olivier’s shoes?”

I am biased on this subject. I worked at Apple from 1985-1992 in product development, not IT where data centers are at Apple. On the other hand one of my best friends from those Apple days worked in IT and her boss Pete Solvik went on to be Cisco’s CIO, so I worked with the IT folks often. Apple IT uses a lot of IBM HW. In fact, one of the projects I worked on was to design and specify a distribution logistics SW solution for AS/400.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours with Olivier on the eBay data center project and travelling to various data center conferences with him. One of Olivier’s AT&T DC friends had just gone through the interview process at Microsoft to fill Mike Manos’s job ,and suggested Olivier would be a good candidate. Olivier thought about Microsoft, but wasn’t passionate about going to Redmond. He liked his job at eBay. If he was going to make a move he would rather go to Google where he has friends.

One day Olivier said he was going to interview at Apple. What did I think? I reminded him Apple was established in 1976. The company is over 33 years old. Product development is totally different than support groups like IT, facilities and real estate where data centers are. There are friends I know who tried to make the point Apple IT needed to run the data centers like a web company not enterprise SW. But, try talking to IT that has people with over 20 years of time at Apple. The scary thing is if I was still at Apple I would be there 25 years, and there are friends I know who are there longer.

Olivier and I talked many times before he took the job at Apple. And when he did take the job he was pumped as he had his dream job to work at Apple. Did I say Apple was a loyal Mac user. I remember when I left HP to go to Apple, I was pumped as well. I took my 5 year Apple award and Photoshop Olivier’s name on the plaque.

Tomorrow is your first day. :-)

Here is in hopes of your success, and making it to 5 years with many Apple memories.

Olivier responded.

Dave,
It was great having you over on Friday. It was the perfect end for this chapter in my life, and a great beginning for the next one... a good way to transition our friendship from eBay to Apple...

…

I look forward to a plaque like this one... but Steve has to sign it!!!
Have a great day tomorrow with your daughter's birthday. Emilie LOVES her iPod touch and got a great cover for it....
Be well,
O.

A couple of days later. Olivier says.

I was very impressed with your photoshop skills! We will have to compare with the real one once I get it :)

So far it's going great... drinking from a fire-hose ....

Let me know when you are back in the bay area...

O.

There are people Apple could try to recruit from Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and Microsoft. But how many have the passion for Apple and Mac that Olivier had?

While I am in LV next week I am sure there will be rumors on who will apply for the job. The data center world is small, and it is hard for people to do things without others finding out.

I have my own ideas on who would be possible candidates, especially since I know who applied for the job before Olivier got it and who was applying after Olivier joined.

But, I am not going to pull a wikileak and post a list of people which would jeopardize their current jobs. We’ll see who Apple eventually hires. It will most likely be a none event. Unless I find a a good reason to blog about who Apple hires and how they will continue the green data center momentum.

One of the more entertaining surprise to both Olivier and I is how almost all his interview candidates read my post about his joining Apple as they Google searched his name.

Apple Recruits eBay Data Center Executive Olivier Sanche, Can Apple Change Data Centers the way they changed cell phone and media players?

They would many times comment on Olivier’s position on the environment. Hiring managers typically say they want to hire someone with passion for the job. With one post Olivier and I made it so almost all candidates were filtered for people who had a passion to change the world with greener data centers.

How cool is that?

Will CUE be as popular as PUE? Don't think so

December 2, 2010 Dave Ohara

Today the Green Grid announced the CUE metric, Carbon Usage Effectiveness metric to help measure the carbon impact of IT equipment.

CUE is defined as

The carbon emissions divided by your IT load. Provides a ratio of kg/CO2/kWHr where the best is 0. Note you can be near zero with hydroelectric or nuclear power sourcing.

I think a simpler way to understand the metric is.

You can pick your CEF by site selection.

You can pick your PUE by data center design.

Multiple them and you get the CUE.

But I think this is a metric that will not be popular. Why? Because what is really important to many people is the total number of metric tons of CO2. That's an easy number for people to understand.

PUE is an easy metric for people to grasp as the closer to 1.0 the better. PUE is discussed much more than DCiE.

The news is being spread by the Green IT press.

James Niccolai at PC World.

Green Grid Creates Metrics for Carbon and Water

By James Niccolai, IDG News

The Green Grid consortium, which developed the widely-used PUE metric for measuring energy efficiency in data centers, is developing two more metrics to address carbon emissions and water usage, it said Thursday.

Rich Miller at Data Center Knowledge.

Green Grid Creates Metrics for Carbon, Water
December 2nd, 2010 : Rich Miller
Expanding its focus on sustainability, The Green Grid today announced the creation of two new metrics to measure carbon and water use in data centers. The new metrics, Carbon Usage Effectiveness (CUE) and the upcoming Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE), are designed to build upon the momentum of The Green Grid’s widely-used Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric.

Penny Jones at Data Center Dynamics.

The Green Grid gives birth to two new metrics

Carbon and water are the next targets of the standards body

(12/2/2010)

Penny Jones

The Green Grid is going beyond PUE, unleashing two new metrics on the data center industry it said it hopes will gain the same amount of global traction – CUE and WUE.

Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is now used around the world to measure the amount and effectiveness of power used within the data center. It is hoped that CUE (carbon usage effectiveness) and WUE (water usage effectiveness) will create some more particular challenges in the data center.

One way to view metrics is to change behavior.

Is CUE a ratio of carbon emissions for power going to drive changes in behavior?

Is the total Carbon impact a number people can understand?

You could have a low CUE with horrible IT utilization and a high total carbon impact. Or you could have a high CUE, high utilization IT with lots of private cloud type of technologies and a low total carbon foot print.

What behavior do you want to drive?

I think the intent is right, the question is whether it will change behaviors.

GreenM3 metrics on Olivier Sanche passing away post

December 1, 2010 Dave Ohara

48 hours after learning my dear friend Olivier passed away, I am not more than 10 miles from his home in Los Gatos, 5 miles from his office in Cupertino, and would normally have been thinking about what we will talk about in a 45 minute conversation. But, he is not here. He is in France with his family, and I'll never see him again.

It was fun helping to increase Olivier's visibility in the industry. it's sad to tell the industry he is gone at 41.

I've been watching the web traffic on what has been discussed and how the news has spread.

Here is my web traffic over the last few days to www.greenm3.com. The last 48 hours has seen my web traffic 4-5x increase, beating any other post traffic, including his joining Apple and big announcements by Google. Note: the blog traffic on 12/01 is not a complete day and will most likely double.

According to Google Analytics 12% of the traffic to the post is coming from Apple domains and 4% eBay domains (his most recent employers). Note; the actual traffic from each of those companies is much higher as many employees access blog posts not from work.

PCmag has an Apple statement about Olivier.

Apple Data Director Dies Of Heart Attack

Olivier Sanche, Apple's eco-minded director of global data centeroperations, died of a heart attack last Thursday at the age of 41.

"We are saddened by Olivier's passing. We will miss him tremendously and our thoughts are with his family," said an Apple spokesperson.

The Twitter activity has been high which is what I think contributed to PCmag writing, and news continues to spread. http://twitter.com/#!/search/olivier%20sanche

CNET news has a blog post.

Apple data center chief dies at 41

by Greg Sandoval

Olivier Sanche, Apple's chief of global data centers

(Credit: Olivier Sanche's Facebook page)

Olivier Sanche, the man who oversaw Apple's global data center operations, died on Thursday, Apple has confirmed.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20024242-37.html#ixzz16sO6h1tQ

So you think Green IT is not an important topic? Gartner Green Data Center Roundtable full

November 30, 2010 Dave Ohara

Next week I am heading off to Gartner Data Center Conference in LV, Dec 6 - 9, 2010. My calendar is pretty full; meeting with friends who will be there, meeting people in person I've met virtually, and interviewing many vendors on their green data center solutions.

It will be interesting going to see how the messaging has changed. Also some of my past clients are presenting and it will be cool to see how well their presentations are accepted.

Green IT and Green Data Centers are viewed by some as not important as it was last year. But, there SearchCIO throws this article up.

Consolidation, compliance pushing demand for a green data center

By Laura Smith, Features Writer

01 Dec 2010 | SearchCIO.com

John Phelps was not surprised when the Gartner Data Center Conferenceroundtable he's hosting -- its subject is the green data center -- was the first to fill up with reservations. He's been speaking about green IT for a few years now, and says the topic has just "gelled" for CIOs this year.

The Green Data Center is maturing as people figure out there is a regulatory aspect they need to think about along with energy efficiency.

In the past, conference audiences were a mix of a few IT managers looking at the green data center for its environmental benefits, and more people looking to the concept to save money, said Phelps, a research vice president at Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn. "Now we have both: the first group looking to save money, and the others realizing that with the possibility of regulations, 'I might bypass problems if I pay attention to the green issue too,'" he said.

Indeed, green IT has gone from a whisper to a shout. Understanding best practices in energy-efficient IT is critical to their profession, said two-thirds of IT managers responding to a recent survey by CDW LLC. The percentage of organizations that cite energy efficiency as a key consideration when they buy new IT equipment jumped from 26% in 2009 to 39% in 2010, according to CDW's third annual Energy Efficient IT Report. The Vernon Hills, Ill.-based IT solutions provider, which surveyed 756 IT professionals in the public and private sectors for the report, also found that 79% of organizations are consolidating data centers or have a strategy to do so, with many citing energy reduction as a top driver.

I'll have a busy couple of days at Gartner DC as it is one of the few data center conferences that has higher level executives who the data center managers work for.

Mike Manos says Adieu to Olivier Sanche

November 29, 2010 Dave Ohara

Mike Manos writes a post saying Adieu to Olivier after talking to Olivier’s brother and wife in France. I couldn’t agree more with what Mike writes in his post. Mike and Olivier are special people in the data center industry and I had the pleasure of making sure Olivier and Mike met in person at Data Center Dynamics SF in July 2009 when Olivier was still at eBay and Mike was with Digital Realty Trust. It would be a bit harder to arrange a meeting with Mike at Nokia and Olivier at Apple, but as Mike says.

Many people know the public Olivier, the Olivier they saw at press conferences, or speaking engagements, and the like. Some of us, got to know Olivier much better. The data center industry is small indeed and those of us who have had the pleasure and terror at working in the worlds largest infrastructures know a special kind of bond. We routinely meet off-hours and have dinner and drinks. Its a small cadre of names you probably know, or have heard about, joined in the fact that we have all dealt with or are dealing with challenges most data center environments will never see. In these less formal affairs, company positions melted away, technological challenges came to the fore, and most importantly the real people behind these companies emerge. In these forums, you could always count on Olivier to be a warm and calming force. He was incredibly intelligent, and although he might disagree, you could count on him to champion the free discussion of ideas.

Mike does a good job of describing why I also enjoyed hanging out with Olivier.

Olivier was the type of person who could light up a room with his mere presence. It was as if he embraced the entire room in one giant hug even if they were strangers. He could sit quietly mulling a topic, pensively going through his calculations and explode into the conversation and rigorously debate everyone. That passion never belied his ability to learn, to adapt, to incorporate new thinking into his persona either. Through the years we knew each other I saw him forge his ideas through debate, always evolving.

The last time I saw Olivier in person was at SVLG’s Data Center Energy Efficiency summit where we sat together critiquing the presentations. A confession, Olivier and I were so busy talking which is why I couldn’t live blog the event. Spending time with Olivier was always enjoyable and took priority.

Olivier’s energy will be sorely missed by those of us who got to spend time with him.

It was in those types of forums where I truly met Olivier. The man who was so dedicated to his family, and the light of his life little Emilie. His honesty and direct to the point style made it easy to understand where you stood, and where he was coming from.

More information about memorial services and the like will be coming out shortly and they are trying to get the word out to all of his friends.

The world has lost a great mind, Apple has lost a visionary, His family has lost their world, and I have lost a good friend.

Adieu, Dear Olivier, You and your family will be in my thoughts and prayers.

Your friend,

Mike Manos

\Mm

Olivier’s passion is well expressed from his Facebook page.

My daddy is going to "Think Different"...

By Olivier Sanche · View Photos

An event 20 years in the making... I am going to fulfill a long time dream and join Apple next month to lead their Data Center team.

I absolutely LOVED my time at eBay. Some of the smartest, most passionate and amazing people work here; I am leaving far too soon... but I cannot believe that I came all the way here and would pass on this opportunity...

This was by far the hardest decision I ever had to make professionally, but as my next CEO once said: "have the courage to follow your heart and
intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."