Articles from Preston Gralla

1. The Smart Grid: IT vendors' new cash cow? Explore greenercomputing.com (Sep 15 2009) The Smart Grid will certainly help greeen the planet. But increasingly, IT vendors are looking to it for another kind of green --- cash. Multiple billions of dollars are at stake annually. Cisco, IBM, and other big-name IT vendors have already targeted the Smart Grid. But there are plenty of other vendors in the hunt for Smart Grid market share that might surprise you. Take Siemens, for example. Siemens is in IT as well as industries such as building technology, motors, automation, and others. Increasingly, it's targeting energy as well. (Read Full Article)

   Comment Mentions:   New York Times   The New York Times   Cisco

2. Why IT Pros Will Become Chief Green Officers Explore greenercomputing.com (Aug 25 2009) Monitoring , Carbon Footprint The next big corporate "C"-level job will be the Chief Green Officer (CGO). And if IT staff plays their cards right, they'll walk right into that high-paying, high-visibility, high-payoff job. Here's why. Greening an enterprise requires far more than a background in energy, engineering, or the environment. It's all about data, and the people who know best how to manage that data will become CGOs. Greening an enterprise requires that someone measure initial energy use and carbon footprint at a granular level, constantly monitor that use, put a plan into effect for reducing the carbon footprint, and then continue to monitor, measure, and refine the plan. Who in an enterprise is best suited to perform this kind of monitoring and planning? IT folks. They do it every day as part of their jobs. (Read Full Article)

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3. Is Gmail the World's Greenest Email? Explore greenercomputing.com (Aug 21 2009) Carbon Footprint , Emissions , Cloud Computing , Servers Google's efforts to make its data centers as energy efficient as possible have some arguing that Gmail is the greenest of them all. (Read Full Article)

   Comment Mentions:   Google   Microsoft Corp

4. Green IT's New Frontier: "Power-Capping" the Data Center Explore greenercomputing.com (Aug 13 2009) Power and Cooling , Cloud Computing , Servers Looking to get the most energy savings out of your data center? The newest technique, called "power-capping," may be your answer, even though at first blush it sounds like a very scary proposition. Power-capping does exactly what it says: It limits the amount of electricity that servers can consume at any given time. This not only controls the amount of electricity used in a data center, but also increases data center density. So enterprises save in two ways: Lower utility bills, and less real estate needed for their data center. (Read Full Article)

   Comment Mentions:   Intel   InfoWorld   IBM

5. To Green the Data Center, IT Has to Feel Some Pain Explore Reuters.com (Jul 25 2009) Monitoring If truly green data centers are ever to become a reality, IT departments will have to feel some pain if they don't reduce their energy use --- and reap the benefits if they do. Today, though, too often, IT departments don't even pay their own energy bills, as a recently released survey found. In order to green IT, that has to change. A recently released report from Brocade about Green IT is eye-opening. The report surveyed more than 1,000 senior IT decision makers in North America, Western Europe, the Nordic region, Turkey, and Dubai. (Read Full Article)

   Comment Mentions:   Europe   Brocade

6. Is the Smart Grid Finally at the Tipping Point? Explore greenercomputing.com (Jul 21 2009) The Smart Grid has gotten plenty of hype and little action, but in the last few days there are serious signs that it may finally be at the tipping point. What the smart grid needs most of all, of course, is money. Without it, the grid will languish, and IT won't reap its benefits. Yesterday, the federal government gave the grid a big boost with more than $57 million in stimumlus money. That's a very big boost. The federal dollars will go towards a wide variety of projects across the country, from Massachusetts to Nevada, California, and out to Hawaii. None directly affect IT at least for now. For example, more than $5.6 million is going to the Consolidated Edison Company of New York, to "develop and demonstrate true interoperability between an energy delivery company and retail electric consumers." (Read Full Article)

   Comment Mentions:   Department of Energy

7. Will the Feds Manhandle your Data Center? Explore greenercomputing.com (Jul 9 2009) Fossil Fuel , Cloud Computing The agreement just reached by the G8 to reduce greenhouse emissions may not be a particularly strong one, but it will inevitably lead to increased U.S. attempts to halt global warming. And that means that your data center may be in the cross-hairs. Data centers are power-hungry, and ultimately lead to significant emissions. So one way or another, they'll be affected by regulations such as cap-and-trade ones related to CO2. (Read Full Article)

   Comment Mentions:   Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory   Steven Chu   Microsoft Corp

8. Have Chinese Spies Hacked into the U.S. Power Grid? Explore greenercomputing.com (Jun 30 2009) Networking More bad news on the security front for the Smart Grid: The Wall Street Journal reports that the electric utility industry is negotiating with a defense contractor to determine whether spies from China and elsewhere have already hacked into the U.S. power grid. According to the Wall Street Journal: The electric-utility industry is planning a pilot initiative to see whether Chinese spies have infiltrated computer networks running the power grid, according to people familiar with the effort. Officials of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., an industry regulatory group, are negotiating with a defense contractor for the job of searching for breaches by cyberspies, according to people familiar with the plans. (Read Full Article)

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9. Are tiny processors the future of green data centers? Explore greenercomputing.com (Jun 12 2009) Cloud Computing , Servers Think virtualization in a data center, and you most likely think of the latest generation of multi-core chips, such as Intel's recently released Nehalem-EX processor, which comes with eight cores a a whopping 2,300,000,000 transistors. But the future of green data centers may be in the opposite end of the spectrum, with server clusters built using many small, power-efficient processors. The Power of Software blog gives a very good rundown about the possibility of using small computers and processors instead of large ones like the Nehalem-EX. It mentions the Dell XS11-VX8, also called "Fortuna." The Via Nano powers Fortuna, and it's a 64-bit chip that offers hardware virtualization for Hyper-V. Amazingly, it uses only 29 watts when at full load, and 15 watts when idling, according to the blog --- less power than a UPS uses. Load up plenty of these devices and you can get ... (Read Full Article)

   Comment Mentions:   Intel

10. Obama's New CTO: Big on Green IT Explore greenercomputing.com (Apr 21 2009) n one more signal that Green IT will get a boost from the Obama administration, the newly appointed federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra has shown that he's well aware of the importance of Green IT, and will likely have a focus on it during his tenure in the federal government. Until his appointment, Chopra has been Virginia's Secretary of Technology. He's been widely recognized as an IT innovator in government, but not as well know is his recognition of the importance of Green IT. Nearly a year ago, Chopra was interviewed by Government Technology magazine in an article about how to cut data center energy consumption. He told the magazine: "Data centers are the energy hogs of the 21st century, and if we all believe we need to have renewable energy and energy independence in this country, those of us in the IT community must step ... (Read Full Article)

    Comment Mentions:   Microsoft Corp

11. Warning: More Security Dangers of Green IT Explore greenercomputing.com (Apr 7 2009) Cloud Computing , Networking Green IT offers plenty of bottom-line benefits and does good for the environment. But it also carries with it a variety of unforeseen security dangers. If you don't pay attention to them, you could be putting your company at risk. (Read Full Article)

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