All Articles from Dave Ohara -Green Data Center News

Articles from Dave Ohara

49-72 of 318 « 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 12 13 14 »
1. GM announces Atlanta Data Center with 1,000 employees, realizing outsourcing IT was not such a good idea
  
  Explore greenm3.com Jan 10 2013
  
  WSJ has an article on GM's new Atlanta data center. The part that caught attention is how GM is choosing reduce its outsourcing to 10% of its IT. GM wants to bring 90% of its IT work back in house to direct new developments and reduce the overlap of current services. The auto maker has already hired more than 700 IT workers to staff innovation centers in Austin, Texas, and Warren, Mich. A fourth site, of similar scale, will be announced later this year. "Our strategy is to reach the top talent in the US market and tap the nearby universities," GM Chief Information Officer Randy Mott said on Thursday. "These are going to be the best jobs in the IT industry over the next five years since GM is on a transformation journey. They will work on everything from design of vehicles to high touch for the consumer ...
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2. Coal use is going up in Europe vs. the USA, renewable energy replaces nuclear and gas, not coal
  
  Explore greenm3.com Jan 9 2013 Construction , Emissions , Fossil Fuel
  
  The Economist has an article on the use of Coal in Europe and how the renewable energy deployed is not replacing coal. WHILE coal production and use plummet in America, in Europe “we have some kind of golden age of coal,” says Anne-Sophie Corbeau of the International Energy Agency. The amount of electricity generated from coal is rising at annualised rates of as much as 50% in some European countries. Since coal is by the far the most polluting source of electricity, with more greenhouse gas produced per kilowatt hour than any other fossil fuel, this is making a mockery of European environmental aspirations. How did it happen? The article closes with a summary of the situation. If policies work as intended, electricity from renewables will gradually take a larger share of overall generation, and Europe will end up with a much greener form of energy. But at the moment ...
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  Mentions: Europe International Energy Agency The Economist
3. Think Different, Infrastructure as an executive position, example Google's SVP Urs Hoelzle
  
  Explore greenm3.com Dec 10 2012 Cloud Computing
  
  3 years ago I was introduced to how differently Google thinks of the word infrastructure when a Google guy I met said he worked on Google Infrastructure. My context was from thinking of the definition. Definition of INFRASTRUCTURE 1 : the underlying foundation or basic framework (as of a system or organization) 2 : the permanent installations required for military purposes 3 : the system of public works of a country, state, or region;also : the resources (as personnel, buildings, or equipment) required for an activity So, he worked in the data center group. No, he worked on Google Infrastructure. Search - the underlying foundation or basic framework of the company. Cities are built on infrastructure which is where we commonly get the use of the word. The term typically refers to the technical structures that support a society, such as roads,bridges, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, telecommunications, and so forth, and can ...
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  Mentions: Google
4. Are you blind in the the data center world? You can't see and remember everything, so at times yes
  
  Explore greenm3.com Dec 9 2012
  
  If you asked an experienced data center person how many times a day they are blind to what is going on. They don't know. Why? Because, you are asking them to see what they don't perceive, how many times you miss seeing something. i-Perception has a post on research done to discover the frequency of when people miss a fight. If you don't think this research applies, then you are probably of a mindset that you have a photographic memory and can remember all kind of details. But, it is impossible to have a perfect photographic memory. The Truth About Photographic Memory It's impossible to recover images with perfect accuracy. The myth of photographic memory. By William Lee Adams, published on March 01, 2006 - last reviewed on August 07, 2008 59-year-old Akira Haraguchi recited from memory the first 83,431 decimal places of pi, earning a ...
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5. Google's Data Center Photos continue to make the news, Slate publishes Photo Blog post
  
  Explore greenm3.com Dec 6 2012 Construction , Cloud Computing
  
  Google's data center photos continue to show life. Slate has a post just of the photos. Meeting the Wizard: Inside Google's Data Centers By Christopher Jobson | Posted Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012, at 9:30 AM ET 12 So it turns out the Internet really is a series of tubes. Last October, for the first time ever, Google posted dozens of rare photographs inside and around its data centers revealing the absurd level of organization, energy, and design that goes into powering some of the largest, most powerful systems plugged into the Internet. My absolute favorite aspect is the color-coordinated design of their infrastructure as it correlates to the Google logo. What wonderful attention to detail. See many more photos of their eight data centers and Street View imagery of their Lenoir, N.C., data center at Where the Internet Lives. All photos by Connie Zhou.
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  Mentions: Google
6. What Data Center facility staff is 75% 55-65 yrs old? Uptime Fall Conference 2012
  
  Explore greenm3.com Dec 5 2012 Construction , Cloud Computing
  
  I was reading the post on Uptimes' Fall Conference 2012 at the Altanta Ritz Carlton, and the post starts with this comment of the problem of retiring people. One of the predominant themes of the event (and persistent discussions in the industry in general) is the looming retirement of the current generation of data center professionals. The data center industry doesn’t have a very good farm system: an organization or activity that serves as a training ground for higher-level endeavors. Now, I am used to hanging with old people. I am 52, but when I saw this comment, I was thinking whoa what a different world of people are at this event. “Over 75% of our facilities staff are between 55-65 years old,” one attendee said. “We all grew up in the industry together.” And many organizations worry that all of these skilled, experienced people are going to retire ...
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7. Shh, a secret on why the Green Data Center is popular, it's the money
  
  Explore greenm3.com Dec 4 2012 Construction , Solar
  
  One of things I figured out long time ago as an Industrial Engineer is efficiency is good to some, but not all. If you talk about being Green you get almost all the people saying being green is good with few fighting the green initiative. And what is behind a big of being green? A big part is being efficient. Chris Crosby does a good job of giving an insiders view of the secret of being green in the data center business. “We all talk about being green like it’s our ticket to corporate sainthood, but really we just keep improving the energy efficiency of our data center operations because it helps us make more money”. ... You really thought that all this incessant talk about being “green” was about saving the planet? How quaint. Well, why don’t you come sit up front here and let me explain a ...
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8. Greenpeace creates bogus Green AWS site
  
  Explore greenm3.com Nov 29 2012 Construction , Emissions , Fossil Fuel
  
  Greenpeace has launched a GreenAWS site that makes it seem like it is Amazon, but it is not. How do you know?
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  Mentions: Greenpeace Amazon.com
9. Google receives Modular Data Center Cooling Patent
  
  Explore greenm3.com Nov 27 2012 Construction , Servers
  
  The USPTO has awarded Google patent #8,320,125 United States Patent 8,320,125 Hamburgen , et al. November 27, 2012 Modular data center cooling Abstract A datacenter cooling apparatus includes a portable housing having lifting and transporting structures for moving the apparatus, opposed sides in the housing, at least one of the opposed sides defining one or more air passage openings arranged to capture warmed air from rack-mounted electronics, opposed ends in the housing, at least one of the opposed ends defining one or more air passage openings positioned to allow lateral passage of captured air into and out of the housing, and one or more cooling coils associated with the housing to receive and cool the captured warm air, and provide the cooled air for circulation into a datacenter workspace.
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  Mentions: Google CA
10. Google Adopts Water as key to save Energy in Data Centers, pumps 3.85x better than fans
  
  Explore greenm3.com Nov 13 2012 Construction , Container , Servers
  
  Data Center traditionally uses raised floor and in room CRAC units to supply cooling. Google shared a month ago its hot aisle containment with water heat exchange which is the 5th iteration since 2006. Google shared its thinking in evaluating heat removal methods. So should you pump heat or use a fan? Google modeled a 10MW IT load. The fans use 3.85x more energy than a pump!!! Google found what it had created was so unique they could patent the innovation.
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  Mentions: Google
11. Google's Data Center Water use spans from ocean to reclaimed to industrial to storm to none
  
  Explore greenm3.com Nov 13 2012 Construction , Cloud Computing
  
  Joe Kava, VP of Data Centers at Google presented a keynote session at 7x24 Exchange Phoenix. One of the topics Joe discussed is the range of water used to cool Google's data centers. Many discuss one technology as the best. Google shows the wide range it uses to be the most efficient and sustainable at multiple sites. Sea Water in Hamina Reclaimed Water is used in Georgia. Industrial Canal Water in Belgium. Storm Water in South Carolina. And No water. or least little in Ireland. Joe has been talking about water use in Google Data Centers since 2009. Below is a video of Joe presenting at the 2009 Google Efficient Data Center Summit discussing the use of storm canal water in the cooling systems
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  Mentions: Google
12. Paul Rand's Design Principles to think about in Data Centers
  
  Explore greenm3.com Nov 5 2012
  
  John Maeda, President of RISD gave one of the better design focused presentations at GigaOm Roadmap. One area that John focused on is how he brought Paul Rand to MIT to present. Who is Paul Rand? PAUL RAND (BORN PERETZ ROSENBAUM, AUGUST 15, 1914 – NOVEMBER 26, 1996) was a well-known American graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs. Rand was educated at the Pratt Institute (1929-1932), the Parsons School of Design (1932-1933), and the Art Students League (1933-1934). He was one of the originators of the Swiss Style of graphic design. From 1956 to 1969, and beginning again in 1974, Rand taught design at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Rand was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972. He designed many posters and corporate identities, including the logos for IBM, UPS and ABC. Rand died of cancer in 1996. Here is ...
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  Mentions: IBM MIT
13. Will Diesel shortages be the next unwelcome event after Sandy?
  
  Explore greenm3.com Nov 1 2012 Data Center Outages
  
  There are hundreds of diesel generators running to make-up for the power outages after Sandy. FEMA has deployed hundreds of diesel generators in addition to the existing ones in place. "Power generation tends to drive all the response and recovery activities," said FEMA chief Craig Fugate on Tuesday, adding that his agency had deployed hundreds of generators around the East Coast before the storm. The EPA has issued a waiver for low sulfur diesel. NEW YORK | Wed Oct 31, 2012 4:57pm EDT (Reuters) - The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday granted New Jersey a temporary waiver on Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULSD) requirements to help counter a shortfall in fuel supplies in parts of the state following Hurricane Sandy. The waiver allows for the sale of diesel fuel that exceeds standards of 15 parts per million of sulfur under limited conditions effective immediately, according to a letter from EPA administrator ...
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  Mentions: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
14. Green Data Center Blog is on diesel generators with manual fuel delivery, up to 4hrs before someone needs to hike up the stairs
  
  Explore greenm3.com Oct 31 2012
  
  Squarespace is the Blog hosting service I use for the Green Data Center Blog. Squarespace is in Peer1 facility which is without utility power, and a flooded basement where the diesel fuel is stored. Yesterday I received this e-mail. Dear Customer, I have some unfortunate news to share. Our primary data center, Peer1, in Lower Manhattan lost power yesterday at about 4:30PM local time. At that time, we smoothly made the transition to generator power and took comfort over the fact that we had enough fuel to last three to four days. (Peer1 stayed online during the last 3 major natural disasters in the area, including a blackout that lasted for days.) At 8:30PM yesterday, we received reports that the lobby in the data center's building was beginning to take on water. By 10:30PM, as is sadly the case in most of Lower Manhattan, Peer1's ...
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15. Woohoo, Dell ships 1,000,000th server from Data Center Solutions Group
  
  Explore greenm3.com Oct 31 2012 Cloud Computing , Servers
  
  Dell started 5 years with a different idea to develop custom servers for the Internet companies who had different needs than enterprise IT. Yesterday Dell announced its 1,000,000th server shipment. One Million Reasons to Celebrate – DCS Ships its One Millionth Server Tracy Davis, VP/ GM—Dell DCS Team 30 Oct 2012 9:00 AM 0 The idea behind Dell Data Center Solutions (DCS) all started with a sketch on the back of a napkin. A new breed of customer – Internet companies building giant data center capacity – found themselves in need of a new type of server to support their massive scale. This trend didn't go unnoticed over at Dell. In 2007, an intrepid band of scrappy, entrepreneurial-minded engineers under Forrest Norrod saw this opportunity and created a business targeted at specifically addressing these unique needs, and a new server segment along the way. They began creating solutions ...
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  Mentions: Dell
16. Which East Coast Data Center will run out of diesel fuel first?
  
  Explore greenm3.com Oct 29 2012 Construction , Data Center Outages
  
  Data center operators on the US East Coast are bracing for Hurricane Sandy’s landfall, expected by meteorologists on Monday evening. Providers with substantial data center presence in the region, including Equinix, Savvis, Telx and Sungard Availability Services, have taken the basic steps to make sure their facilities are prepared to keep operational through prolonged power outages.
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  Mentions: SunGard Availability Services SunGard Telx
17. Google shares its data center cooling best practice - water and hot aisle containment "hot huts"
  
  Explore greenm3.com Oct 23 2012 Construction , Container , Cloud Computing , Servers
  
  Google has an end user friendly explanation of its data center cooling. Our emphasis on cooling systems might come as a surprise, until you consider how warm a personal computer can become during use. Data centers, which house thousands of computers, need to stay within a specific operating temperature range. Even though we run our facilities hotter than a typical data center, we need cooling systems - both to prevent server breakdowns and to provide a reasonable working environment for technicians working on the data center floor.After servers, the second largest consumer of power in a data center is the cooling system. We needed a cooling system which minimized our overall energy consumption. For this reason, we designed our own cooling systems from the ground up. The interior of a hot hut row Google uses hot aisle containment (hot huts) creating a higher delta T across the water cooling coils ...
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  Mentions: Intel Google IBM
18. Google's super secret PUE plan is leaked
  
  Explore greenm3.com Oct 18 2012
  
  OK, this is too easy to just keep on writing about Google's data center images. I think the release of the photos is better than a conference event. Well, not all, but many. One funny post is the top 10 easter eggs. 10 Easter eggs from inside a Google data center The one I missed is this picture of the Google super secret PUE plan. The author doesn't get it that the sub 1.0 PUE would be a good goal, not a bad one. When you’re a big tech company, it’s never a good idea to let your secret plans leak out. In this case however, they might just want to rethink the plan entirely.
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  Mentions: Google
19. Photographs of 8 Google Data Center Locations - Usa (6), Finland, Belgium
  
  Explore greenm3.com Oct 18 2012 Construction
  
  It's been a day since Google showed the inside of its data centers and in watching the media react I decided to spend a bit more time looking at what Google has done. What I think almost everyone has missed is 8, yes eight data centers have photograph collections. I had an e-mail conversation with the photographer and we both commented on how beautiful the Hamina area is. How many data center locations have a water front view and a sauna? Well it turns out many of Google's data centers have water front views, but not saunas. This building in Hamina, Finland, holds the best of both worlds – a conference room for work and a sauna for after work. Both are available to employees whenever they like. The Lenoir site looks quite nice in a night time view. The Dalles has its waterfront view. Belgium has its own ...
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  Mentions: Google
20. The Atlantlic slips a digit, 1.5% not 15% of energy used in Data Centers
  
  Explore greenm3.com Oct 17 2012 Construction , Cloud Computing , Servers
  
  The Atlantic choose to write an article on the top 5 things they learned from Google's disclosure. The Five Coolest Things We Learned from Google's Data Center Tour Google Share Print article Email article Comments (3) REBECCA GREENFIELD2,128 Views2:27 PM ET The usually cagey Google has decided to let the world inside one of its data centers, putting up an explanatory website complete with pretty pictures a virtual YouTube tour and a Street View tour. In addition, Google also let Wired's Steven Levy actually walk around the center in Lenoir, North Carolina, giving us more information ever about the hubs that power all the Google related Internetting we do. It's a lot. Here are the five awesomest things we learned. One thing they didn't learn is how much power data centers use. 4. So many cords. The place is huge This one site ...
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  Mentions: Google
21. Google's Strategy of Using Images to tell the Data Center Story works
  
  Explore greenm3.com Oct 17 2012 Construction
  
  This morning I got a chance to chat with the Google folks about their blog post announcing an inside look at their data centers. Google had successfully used video to tell the story of send. Videos are good, but I've always been a still image type of person. One of the ideas we discussed is the power of images. The images are a status of what is seen. When you show images people use their own perspectives to evaluate the truth of the image. If you go to the original Google post by Urs Hoelzle it is not long. The images shared tell a much bigger story. One image from street view is this blue curtained area. What is behind the curtain? One of the funnier ones is where the writer focused on the stormtrooper. Google Stormtrooper Guards Company's Data Center Secrets In Street View (PHOTOS) The Huffington ...
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  Mentions: Google Google Data Center
22. Joyent CTO discusses data center as Information Factory
  
  Explore greenm3.com Oct 17 2012 Construction , Cloud Computing
  
  Joyent's CTO Jason Hoffman just presented on the idea of data centers as Information Factories. at GigaOm Structure Europe. Here is my post on the same concept of data centers as information factories 3 years ago. Can you Green the Data Center? Maybe if you think in terms of an Information Factory WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2009 AT 3:14AM I have been writing on the Green Data Center topic for over 2 years with 1,000 blog posts. And, one of the things I have found is the name “data center” is not an accurate description to the layman of what data centers do. Are data centers the “center of data”? In the past there was one corporate building that was the place where data was housed for the corporation. The standard for Fortune 500 companies now is to have multiple data centers around the world to provide information ...
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  Mentions: Europe
23. Are Spatial Skills one of the under valued skills of a data center engineer?
  
  Explore greenm3.com Oct 10 2012
  
  Designing a data center is a skill that you don't go to school for and learn from a book. Book learning works for math, science, english and of course reading. So, what kind of skill is needed to design a data center. One of the challenges is trade-off of getting things just right to reduce or eliminate the single point of failures. Operations and maintenance costs are not hidden surprises. Here is an article on Spatial Intelligence to get you thinking of whether spatial skills are a different skill set to look for in a data center engineer. The last two paragraphs explain the value of engineers. I think we often don’t realize that engineers have invented so many things that we take for granted in our everyday lives. Consider this. The device you are reading this article from right now was invented by engineers who utilized their ...
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24. Why Renewable Energy is the Right Decision for Google's Green Data Center
  
  Explore greenm3.com Sep 26 2012 Fuel Cell , Wind
  
  Google was nice enough to let me know yesterday that they would make a renewable energy announcement today, and I have a bit of time to think about the impact of the announcement. More renewable energy for our data centers September 26, 2012 We announced our commitment to carbon neutrality back in 2007, and since then we’ve been finding ways to power our operations with as much renewable energy as possible. In our latest step toward this end, we just signed an agreement with the Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA) to green the energy supply to our Oklahoma data center with 48 MW of wind energy from the Canadian Hills Wind Project in Oklahoma, which is expected to come online later this year. ... This brings the total amount of renewable energy for which Google has contracted to over 260 MW. The press release went live at 7:00a PT ...
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  Mentions: Amazon.com Google
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