Michael Dell talks about Servers and China which gives you an idea of data centers

Michael Dell had an interview with Fortune magazine that includes a transcript.

Transcript: Michael Dell addresses Dell's future

July 17, 2012: 3:55 PM ET

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Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO, Dell, was interviewed by Fortune's Andy Serwer at Brainstorm Tech in Aspen. They talked about the PC market, the enterprise, China, and Apple. 

In the interview here was the part that gets my attention.

ANDY SERWER:  Michael, what about your business in China?  What is that like and are you feeling the effects of any slowdown there?

MICHAEL DELL:  It's on the order of a $5-billion business, so it's a sizeable business for us.  It's the largest business outside the United States.  I can tell you that there are some challenges in China right now.

ANDY SERWER:  Be more specific, it's a really important topic I think.

MICHAEL DELL:  I'm going to be there in early September with our board of directors.  I'll give you a better update after that.  But I think, generally speaking, the demand for technology in China is tremendous.  You know, we think about 60 percent of the Chinese Internet runs on Dell servers, and so we have a huge success in selling our infrastructure solutions to those Chinese companies.  Anybody who's doing anything mission critical like stock exchange, a bank, a power grid, you know, those are our customers.  You know, we're designing the IT architecture for, you know, a lot of the key state-owned enterprises with our services group.  And we've acquired Bearingpoint to be able to kind of fuel that.

So, our business is fully integrated in China across all aspects, and it's 100 percent Dell owned.  So, we love the business, it's an important business.  And emerging markets are a big deal for us because the next billion users are coming from these countries and the next ten.

Data Centers are not specifically mentioned.  But, here is another piece of data.  Here are 15 Dell data center engineers who were at 7x24 Exchange who later had a group offsite.  There are some top people recruited from other companies.  Most of these guys were brand new to Dell working on a new data center service.

 

HP and IBM have also been focusing on China data center projects.  It is tough to know who is winning in China, but Michael Dell is confident he has 60% of the server business. 

 

 

One of Dell's customers in China is Tencent.

ANDY SERWER:  I'm digressing, Michael.  Maybe it's a flashback.  In any event.  I want to know what your relationship with the consumer is.  What do you make for the consumer and how important is it?  And how much does it tie into the enterprise from your perspective?

MICHAEL DELL:  It absolutely ties in, and you're right, the consumerization of IT is a big deal.  And the growth in mobility and in smart phones and tablets is absolutely an enormous part of what's going on in IT.  And it has all sorts of implications across the whole, you know, sort of ecosystem.

So, you know, I'll give you an example.  One of our customers is a company in China called Tencent.  And Tencent has like 650 million customers and they're all people who use phones.

Here is a Dell Power and Cooling web page.

Power and Cooling Technologies

 

1. Power and Cooling Technologies
   • The Value of Power and Cooling
     • What are Power and Cooling Technologies?
     • Benefits of Power and Cooling Optimization
     • Case Studies
   • Your Power and Cooling Strategy
     • The Dell Difference
     • Assess Your Needs
     • Design Your Solution
     • Partners
   • Implementing Power and Cooling
     • Deploying Power and Cooling Technology
     • Performance and Functionality
   • Power and Cooling Components
     • Services
     • High-efficiency Servers
     • Cooling and Containment
     • Power Delivery
     • Rack Infrastructure
     • Systems Management
     • Power Management

Monitoring a Container Data Center Solution, HP shows OSIsoft implementation

Containers are popular with almost all data center solution providers.  Part of the modular approach is a consistent way to monitory the data center infrastructure.

HP gave a presentation on its solution at OSIsoft's user conference and you can see the presentation here.

Here are few slides that gives you an idea of what was presented.

Dell shrinks the Container Data Center to 45kW, targeting the Military Market

Ever since the 40' container wave started I have made the point that most have not gone through the exercise on what is the right size for a container.  Dell has announced the MDC - Mobile data center - 45 kW of IT capacity.

The Dell press release is here.

Deployable to any location, Dell’s Tactical Mobile Data Center can expand customers’ current data center, used as a back-up or recovery site to provide disaster recovery services or create new data centers in remote locations. The system can operate under a wide range of temperatures and conditions allowing for powerful operations in many environments. 

“Many of our military and government customers are forced to quickly deploy to remote environments, like combat outposts in Afghanistan, or even in more developed communities following a natural disaster,” said Joe Ayers, vice president and general manager, Dell Federal. “In today’s operational environment in order to have access to the tools and information most organizations need to accomplish their mission, they must also have a robust IT infrastructure, and we’ve designed this solution specifically to meet the needs of these very special customers.”

It fits in military airframes and can be forklifted into place. Dimensions look to be 108"L x 88"W x 96"H an ISU-96 size used by the military.

I wonder if Dell will offer the color options that AAR mobile systems does.

Oops Natural Gas's CO2 footprint could be higher than Coal

Forbes has an article that accounts for Natural Gas through its life cycle, not just in consumption.

Traditionally, we use emission numbers just for the power plant itself, that is, how much CO₂ does a coal plant emit in producing a kWhr of electricity versus a gas plant versus a wind turbine, etc. These numbers have some emissions from other parts of the plant life-cycle such as construction and mining, as these dominate the emissions for energy sources like nuclear, hydro and wind which emit no GHG during operation.

Until now, the average equivalent grams of CO₂emitted per kWhr produced has been calculated as 975 gCO₂/kWhr from coal; 600 gCO₂/kWhr from natural gas; 90 gCO₂/kWhr from hydro; 55 gCO₂/kWhr from solar; 15 gCO₂/kWhr from wind, and 15 gCO₂/kWhr from nuclear (Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology; GHG from Power Plants).

One calculation that has stirred debate is that the natural gas number is as high as 1200 gCO2/kWhr.

However, new studies by Robert Howarth and associates at Cornell University (GHG Footprint of Natural Gas; National Climate Assessment; thanks to atomikrabbit for pointing me in this direction) provide emissions data from the entire natural gas life-cycle. Their results bump this number for gas from 600 gCO₂/kWhr to over 1,200 gCO₂/kWhr, making natural gas the largest emitter of GHGs in electricity generation. On the other hand, Howarth and company have been challenged by others that say their numbers are too high (BusinessWeek), particularly Lawrence M. Cathles, also of Cornell. Cathles contends that gas is still better than coal with respect to global warming. Even if Cathles is correct and 600 gCO₂/kWhr is still the number for gas, it’s not that much better than coal compared to ther energy sources like hydro and nuclear.

For those of you have just switched to a power generation mix that has more natural gas than coal, you may be stuck again.  And, your carbon footprint may be much bigger than you thought.

TSA Pre is great, my experience through SEA and PDX

I fly much more than I would like to.  And, many of you fly even more.  As we all experience Security can be the biggest pain.

TSA Pre is a new program to help the frequent travelers like us.

TSA Pre✓™ is a pre-screening initiative that makes risk assessments on passengers who voluntarily participate prior to their arrival at the airport checkpoint.

TSA Pre✓™ includes U.S. citizens who are members of existing Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Trusted Traveler programs including Global Entry, NEXUS, and SENTRI programs as well as eligible airline frequent flyers.

If TSA determines a passenger is eligible for expedited screening, information is embedded in the barcode of the passenger’s boarding pass. TSA reads the barcode at designated checkpoints and the passenger may be referred to a lane where they will undergo expedited screening, which could include no longer removing the following items:

• Shoes
• 3-1-1 compliant bag from carry-on
• Laptop from bag
• Light outerwear/jacket
• Belt

Pre TSA works for me in SEA and just yesterday I went through PDX.

Q. Where is TSA Pre✓™ available?
A. Certain frequent flyers from Delta and American Airlines and certain members of CBP's Trusted Traveler programs, including Global Entry, SENTRI, and NEXUS, who are U.S. citizens, are eligible to participate in this program, which could qualify them for expedited screening at select checkpoints with the following airlines:

Alaska Airlines – Portland International Airport and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

I went through Security this week in under five minutes at both SEA and PDX.  Woot!

I have one more trip to PDX in two weeks and then no more travel until Sept.  Time to take a break from all this data center travel.