If Facebook can host a hack-a-thon for urban planning, why not try a data center plan

Facebook recently held a hack-a-thon for its new campus.

Hoping to Win Over a Town, Facebook Holds Urban Planning "Hack-a-thon"

Facebook is moving from tony Palo Alto to blue-collar Belle Haven, and they want to woo residents with community-oriented design.

Some social networks still function better in the flesh, and so, on Saturday, Facebook played host to a massive “design charrette” that brought four busloads of architects, designers, and urban planners together for an all-day cram session devoted to re-imagining Menlo Park’s Belle Haven community, soon-to-be home of the company’s global headquarters.

Here are one of the concepts.

We asked him what ideas particularly fired his fancy. “I like the idea of taking advantage of the bay land right next door,” he said. “I like the idea of connecting the rail line, which right now isn’t active. If it was active, we could use that to get Facebook employees to the campus.”

[Team Red's "Circle of Friends" concept]

Crowd-sourcing was applied to come up with new ideas.

Facebook says it wants to change the fortress vibe and embrace the community. So to kick things off on Saturday, designers took morning bus tours of the adjacent Belle Haven neighborhood -- several dozen local residents came along to lend their thoughts -- and then broke into Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green teams. Teams of 20 to 40 each rolled up their T-shirts and began cranking out as many hand sketches and digital models as they could before an after-dinner deadline: a show-your-work presentation before a packed assembly of fellow architects, Facebook reps, Menlo Park city officials, and a sprinkling of nearby residents. The day’s mission, as Norman tells it: “creating a sense of community” -- or perhaps, more to the point, to create a larger sense of community, one that very conspicuously features Facebook.

[Another concept, for a footbridge linking the campus with the surrounding blocks]

Why can’t the same be applied to a data center design?  Too radical of an idea.  Let’s see who likes and dislikes the idea?

HP announces New Zealand Data Center with Carbon Emissions Reporting

HP announced a new green data center in New Zealand.

HP Announces Multimillion-dollar Next-generation Data Center in Waikato, New Zealand

Data center to help organizations simplify IT and invest more in innovation

AUCKLAND, New Zealand, March 9, 2011

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HP today announced a multimillion-dollar investment to build and lease a next-generation data center to be located in the Waikato district.

Part of the data center is a carbon emissions reporting service.

the HP Carbon Emissions Management Service, an assessment service that helps organizations calculate energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions emanating from the use of IT. This will assist organizations with compliance-based carbon footprint reporting.

The data center of course supports cloud computing.

The facility will provide the infrastructure organizations need for cloud computing services, application modernization and data center transformation, enabling clients to devote more resources to innovation and increase productivity.

“New Zealand has a vibrant economy which encourages technology innovation and environmental sustainability. HP’s energy-efficient data center in New Zealand, incorporating a high standard of design and capabilities, will support digital infrastructure growth and initiatives,” said Rasika Versleijen-Pradhan, senior IT services analyst, IDC New Zealand. “The facility will assist the New Zealand IT industry and provide a local platform for the provision of new high-tech infrastructure services to the region well into the future.”

HP launches Energy Services as an alternative to IBM Smarter Planet, partners with Hara and C3

HP launched its Energy and Sustainability Management Solution and I had an interview with Jay Allardyce, Director, Growth Initiatives, Energy and Sustainability Management, EB and Ken Hamilton, Director, Global Energy and Sustainability Services, HP Technology Consulting along with customer references from executives with Hara, and Avaya.

My first question was this is great you talk about energy what about water?  Jay and Ken both went into more detail on how their solution addresses the growing need for managing water as a resource in addition to energy.  I regularly use water awareness as a test to see if companies are really thinking about sustainability.  I saw an IBM presentation 4 years ago, where an executive discussed water as a resource we need to focus on.  Both HP and IBM pass my simple test, they think of water in addition to energy in their resource management solution.

Here is HP’s Energy and Sustainability Management Services page.

Here is IBM’s Smarter Planet page.

IBM’s marketing machine is tough to beat.  Here is a 8:36 video that has 39,764 views.

HP signed up two top companies to work with - Hara and C3.

Open approach to partnering

To enhance the overall solution and customer experience, HP also announced an ESM partner network in which HP, along with organizations that complement HP’s services, will evaluate a client’s environmental impact and develop best practices for improving resource utilization.

“Customers are seeking solutions that optimize both sustainability and energy management throughout their organizations,” said Amit Chatterjee, chief executive officer and founder, Hara. “Pairing our environmental and energy management solutions with HP’s industry reach and expert delivery provides clients with a superior, holistic approach to identify, prioritize and act on energy- and resource-efficiency strategies that drive cost savings, minimize risk and create value.”

There is no mention of C3, but GreenTech Media choose to make it part of their headline.

HP Teams With C3, Hara for Energy Consulting

Did HP invest in the companies as well? No comment, it says.

Hewlett-Packard wants to become a big player in energy management and energy efficiency, so it has reached out to two rising stars for help.

The company has launched a series of nine consulting services that will leverage the software from Hara and C3 to lower energy and resources consumption, retool organizations for efficiency and make energy reporting and accounting easier. HP's consulting services will focus on reducing energy in overall operations and will not, in most circumstances, get involved in redesigning finished products, according to Jay Allardyce, director of growth initiatives in the energy and sustainability management group. We asked if HP invested in either or both companies and Allardyce declined to comment.

ZDNet also covers the announcement and lists the 9 service offerings.  2 are data center focused.

• HP Critical Facility Sustainability Tradeoff Analysis, an analysis of the impact that certain data center design approaches might have
• HP Critical Facilities Energy Certification Service, a service for helping achieve certifications such as LEED or the EPA’s Energy Star for Data Centers

We’ve reached a new stage of green data centers where both HP and IBM are offering services where the data center is part of an overall sustainability strategy for a company.

China’s Huawei breaking down barriers of Network and Server gear

GigaOm covers Huawei’s move into Cisco’s space.

Cisco Beware! Huawei Plans a Data Center Push

By Stacey Higginbotham Mar. 9, 2011, 12:30pm PT No Comments

Chinese telecommunications equipment vendor Huawei has plans to invade the enterprise IT market according to a research note out this morning from Deutsche Bank. An analyst at the firm expects the company to introduce a line of servers, low-end switches, security, VoIP and storage products designed for the enterprise before the end of this year. Huawei recently reported $2 billion in revenue from the enterprise and organized the company into three operating segments: carrier, enterprise and devices.

WSJ discusses Huawei’s growth in the Enterprise.

By Lilly Vitorovich and Molly Neal

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Global telecoms equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. expects revenue from its enterprise division to increase eightfold over the next three to five years as it takes advantage of new growth opportunities emerging from cloud computing, a senior company executive told Dow Jones Newswires.

In a departure from its main focus on network infrastructure, the Chinese company said it is reorganising its business around four major areas - network infrastructure, enterprise business, devices, and other. Enterprise sales are expected to double to $4 billion in 2011 and hit $15 billion in three to five years, said William Xu, executive vice president of Huawei and president of Huawei Enterprise Business.

Check out Huawei’s server page.

Server

Overview

We are now entering a new era in which telecommunication and IT industry are integrated.
In this new era, IT can totally change the development of an enterprise.
Based on the understanding of customer requirements, Huawei provides technologically-advanced server products and competitive solutions, which helps customers make profit continuously.
Currently, Huawei has released TecalTM T8000 blade servers and R series rack servers into the market. These products help in telecommunication and internet operations, and energy industry. By using the products, Huawei helps users to handle the technical difficulties in saving energy, improving performance, and developing new architecture.

Will one of the biggest change in IT hardware be the arrival of China’s companies?

Nathan Myhrvold says #1 problem is we need more power

WSJ has an interview with Nathan Myhrvold at the ECO:nomics conference.  I read the article this morning and was thinking whether to post or not, but then I ran into Nathan an hour ago and said hi.  How can I not take it as a sign to post given I hadn’t seen Nathan for???  I can’t remember how long it has been. 

Nathan makes an interesting point in the article that it is hard to argue with.

MR. MURRAY: You've done a lot of work in the energy area. Can you talk about where you're focusing your effort there?

MR. MYHRVOLD: The single biggest problem we have to focus on in this century is how to get every citizen of Earth roughly the same per-capita energy we enjoy in the developed world. China is developing. India is developing. Brazil is developing. They all want the lifestyle we have. The world's energy problem is about how we expand our energy budget by a factor of 10 or more, and short of incredible disaster or war, I don't know how we stop that.

We don't have any viable way to do it. I don't believe that problem can be solved with any combination of existing technologies.

Can you imagine a world where every citizen has roughly the same per-capita energy?  That is a tough problem.

MR. MURRAY: Do you have another idea that can reach that kind of scale?

MR. MYHRVOLD: We're trying, but don't just bet on me. The way we're going to solve this problem is the way we've solved all of the great technological problems like this in the past, which is you get a lot of people innovating.

Although the bigger news about Nathan is his new $462 cookbook.

Cook From It? First, Try Lifting It

Ryan Matthew Smith/The Cooking Lab LLC

The long-awaited “Modernist Cuisine” is a visual roller coaster through the current world of food and cooking tools. More Photos »

By MICHAEL RUHLMAN

Published: March 8, 2011

DESCENDING this week on the culinary scene like a meteor,“Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking” is the self-published six-volume masterwork from a team led by Nathan Myhrvold, the multimillionaire tech visionary who, as a friend of mine said, “decided to play Renaissance doge with food.”