1. Views and Opinions on Green IT

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    1. Flexibility, software, simplification driving hardware changes by Doug Mohney

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      Flexibility, software, simplification driving hardware changes by Doug Mohney

      Las Vegas, Nevada -- The flexibility of software and the desire for simplicity continues to drive changes throughout the IT world. Managers want fewer servers and boxes from fewer (but not a single, sole-source) vendor and the ability to add, subtract, and move around functions between servers without having to lock those functions onto one platform. At CTIA this week, Ciena is preaching “consolidation” for network operators with a data center twist. Service provider are currently operating parallel optical and packet (IP) networks, said Ciena’s Industry Marketing Director Barry Zipp. If you’re into the 7 layer model, one layer is optical transport with IP stacked on top of it.

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      Mentions: Doug Mohney Ciena

    2. Network Energy Demands - Can They Really Be Cut By 90 Percent? by Peter Judge

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      Network Energy Demands - Can They Really Be Cut By 90 Percent? by Peter Judge

      A cloud-enabled world uses more networking. So, since we’re all moving to the cloud, now would be a very good time to look closely at communications. But the greening of networks is generating a lot of confusion right now. How much energy do cloud access networks need? If you listen to some people (Australia’s CEET institute, say) it’s about ten times as much as the data centers that power them. If you listen to others (green experts connected to Britain’s Intellect group), it’s only about ten percent.

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      Mentions: Peter Judge

    3. The little guys: Survival vs Green by Doug Mohney

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      The little guys: Survival vs Green by Doug Mohney

      Are data center operators burned out from working on energy efficiency? A survey from the Uptime Institute suggests it. About 50 percent of respondents in North America said they consider energy efficiency to be very important in their companies, according to a summary piece published by IDG News. Last year, the number was 52 percent while in 2011 it was 58 percent, with the decline bigger at smaller data centers. An Uptime Institute spokesperson attributed the lack of interest to a combination of factors, including less resources (people, money) to devote to energy efficiency projects, and some "sick of hearing" about success stories with big budget projects.

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      Mentions: Uptime Institute Doug Mohney

    4. Reaping the Big Benefits of Small Business Cloud Computing by Matt Smith

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      Reaping the Big Benefits of Small Business Cloud Computing by Matt Smith

      Are you using the cloud in your organization? Thirty percent of small businesses are currently using paid cloud services, while another 48 percent plan on adopting the cloud in the next 2-3 years. With such a rapid rise in small business cloud users, it’s worth taking a closer look at the technology. Cloud computing has the potential to level the playing field between small businesses and large enterprises. With the cloud, small businesses can gain access to the same software and solutions as the larger players for a fraction of the cost. Technologies such as customer relationship management software, secure data storage, and even office applications can now be accessed through the cloud. Most cloud options are also more flexible than physical technology assets—they can be expanded or scaled back as your business grows and changes.

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      Mentions: Dell Matt Smith

    5. Open Compute's Switches: Has SDN Failed? by Peter Judge

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      Open Compute's Switches: Has SDN Failed? by Peter Judge

      The news that the Facebook-backed Open Compute project is designing bare metal data centre switches has caused a lot of excitement, and possibly confusion. Open Compute wants commoditised data center hardware - for giant users like Facebook, but with implications for plenty of other data centers. It has previously open-sourced some bare-metal server designs, and also offered generic chip sockets and interconnnects as well as storage approaches. The “top-of-rack” network switch is big next step.

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      Mentions: Google Facebook Peter Judge

    6. Green shows up in PERSPECTIVES 13 by Doug Mohney

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      Green shows up in PERSPECTIVES 13 by Doug Mohney

      Last week I was in Orlando, Florida for GENBAND's user event, PERSPECTIVES 13. Two minutes into the open keynote, GENBAND Chairman David Walsh is talking about the need of data centers to "power up and cool down" -- not exactly a message I was expecting at a carrier and enterprise-focused event. "Bandwidth, power, and infrastructure costs have all gone down over the past decade," Walsh said. "Power costs have gone up 50 to 100 percent." Walsh's day job is a Managing Director of One Equity Partners, a firm that manages $10 billion in private investments for JPMorgan Chase & Company. His favorite green topic for his address was Inertech, a company that designs and manufactures modular data center pods and energy-efficient cooling systems. 

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      Mentions: Doug Mohney LEED

    7. Network Energy Demands - Panic Over? by Peter Judge

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      Network Energy Demands - Panic Over? by Peter Judge

      A couple of weeks ago, I read a report that suggested the energy demand of cloud data centers was dwarfed by the energy used in mobile cloud access. How can we manage and reduce this, I asked? As it turns out, perhaps I should have read the report a bit more critically. The study, from Melbourne’s Center for Energy Efficient Telecommunications (CEET) said that nine tenths of the power used in consumer cloud computing services (Facebook, Google and the like) went on the wireless networks (4G and Wi-Fi) used to access them.

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      Mentions: Google Facebook Peter Judge

    8. Flashy PR isn’t making green go by Doug Mohney

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      Flashy PR isn’t making green go by Doug Mohney

      Being green is old. It doesn’t matter if it is saving energy and water within the data center or finding renewable power, the sizzle that once surrounded green has been slowly eroded by the fact that the most practical and reasonable near-term solutions are dull and boring. I say this all against the backdrop of Europe and Japan back-peddling on cutting carbon emissions because they’re trying to ditch nuclear – a “grey” power choice, given the consequences of a major accident. The U.S. steadily grows its production of natural gas through fracking and may even end up as an oil exporter while the developing world uses a patchwork of fossil fuels and renewables to run its data centers and broadband infrastructure.

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      Mentions: Greenpeace Europe Facebook

    9. Why Greenpeace Likes Google, Not Facebook by Peter Judge

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      Why Greenpeace Likes Google, Not Facebook by Peter Judge

      Data center energy use is an issue on two levels. Energy is a major cost, and everyone wants their data centers deliver as many MIPs (or LOLs or OMGs) per dollar as they possibly can. That means reducing the electricity bill wherever possible, and getting the best MIPs per MegaWatt-hour (MWh). But also, energy is political. Big companies with a public profile to maintain need to be seen to be doing the right thing. Environmental activists want everyone to do the right thing by the planet - so they put pressure on the most public targets, to get visible public action and responses which promote the kinds of action they want.

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      Mentions: Apple Greenpeace Amazon.com

    10. New green data center builds vs. software - I'm with the software (sorta) by Doug Mohney

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      New green data center builds vs. software - I'm with the software (sorta) by Doug Mohney

      If you aren't hip to the latest fad of building/moving your data center to some northern climate for free cooling and renewable power, you can relocate right next to a liquified natural gas plant for a reduction in power usage. I myself am leaning towards more software tweaks as a better solution for most cases. TeraCool, as described in this DataCenterKnowledge piece, has come up with a way to use waste heat from a data center to warm natural gas. This would generate power -- liquid to gas spins a turbine to get electricity. Excess cooling from the LNG infrastructure is applied to data center operations. The various techniques are all patent pending, of course.

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      Mentions: Doug Mohney

    11. Cloud Energy Use - Don't Forget The Wireless Network by Peter Judge

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      Cloud Energy Use - Don't Forget The Wireless Network by Peter Judge

      There’s good news this week on data center energy use by the giants. Facebook has started to post energy (and water) efficiency figures for its data centers on public dashboards, and Google is successfully pushing providers like Duke Energy to use more renewable energy. But there’s been a big question raised about the energy use of the cloud as a whole.

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      Mentions: Amazon.com Google Facebook

    12. Better efficiency through better storage – haven’t we been here before? by Doug Mohney

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      Better efficiency through better storage – haven’t we been here before? by Doug Mohney

      New research out of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs and MIT claims data energy usage can be cut by 35 percent by simply storing fewer copies of files. I’m having some déjà vu all over again since de-duping has been proposed before. It’s all on paper (well, disk) at the moment, with plans to test network coding next year with “eventually” commercializing the software technology – and hey, if it’s that great, why not simply open source it rather than take 5 years to implement?

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      Mentions: Doug Mohney MIT

    13. Natural Gas Plants Could Power Data Centres For Nothing by Peter Judge

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      Natural Gas Plants Could Power Data Centres For Nothing by Peter Judge

      As everyone looks for ways to get more efficient use of the energy they have, do any data centres fancy energy for free? Most countries have a substantial thermodynamic opportunity. Parts of their critical infrastructure are wasting energy - and in particular, discarding cooling. This waste is enough in many cases to power large data centres, using energy and refrigeration which is currently being thrown away. The opportunity is in liquid natural gas (LNG) plants.

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      Mentions: Uptime Institute Peter Judge

    14. Europe's continued green rollback will ripple by Doug Mohney

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      Europe's continued green rollback will ripple by Doug Mohney

      A recent news glut about green data centers popping up in Northern Europe is overshadowing more fundamental changes on green energy costs. Incentives to go north for carbon credits may not as great since Germany is backing down on its investments, causing investor concern, according to the Financial Times (FT). "...[J]itters are clearly growing about the cost of talking climate change and building a green electricity infrastructure in the world's oldest industrial powers," says Pilita Clark, Environmental Correspondent at FT.

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      Mentions: Europe Doug Mohney

    15. Yes, European data centers ARE moving north by Peter Judge

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      Yes, European data centers ARE moving north by Peter Judge

      A couple of weeks ago, I said that increasing energy costs in Europe would drive data centers northwards. I can’t claim any great predictive skill, because it’s an obvious conclusion - but I have figures this week which back it up. In the Northern countries, the climate is better for data centers, because you don’t need to spend energy cooling your servers down. It’s also got a lot of energy which is cheap - and also renewable. A lot of it comes from hydroelectric sources.

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      Mentions: Iceland Europe Google

    16. Progress towards 64-bit ARM continues by Doug Mohney

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      Progress towards 64-bit ARM continues by Doug Mohney

      ARM and TSMC announced the first tape-out of an ARM Cortex-A57 processor on TSMC's 16nm FinFET process technology, hitting the first milestone to roll out a 64-bit ARMv8 processor on TSMC's technologies. A 64-bit ARM is expected to give Intel a run for its money in the power-efficient server race. The Cortex-A57 is ARM's highest performing processor while FinFET technology is a process to cram more transistors onto a chip by using 3D structures. FinFET will cost 2 percent to 5 percent more to produce than existing "flat" silicon production, but could yield up to 37 percent faster performance while using less than half the dynamic power - Hello! Less power AND more performance per watt -- according to a Synopsys.com primer. Designers can choose between either running transistors faster at the same amount of power or run them at the same performance using less power.

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      Mentions: Intel Doug Mohney Dell

    17. Summit In The Sky Solves The Wrong Problems by Peter Judge

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      Summit In The Sky Solves The Wrong Problems by Peter Judge

      On June 12, a plane will take off from San Francisco, carrying 100 Silicon Valley types - with a mission. The so-called “Summit in the Sky”, or Ungrounded, brings together CEOs, venture capitalists and thinkers from California, and seals them up together for an 11 hour flight to London. On the way they have a job. They have to think together in a “hackathon” and come up with solutions to a global problem. On landing, they hot-foot it to a conference, where an audience is waiting for their answers.

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      Mentions: Peter Judge

    19. What's Gas Got To Do With Data Centers? by Peter Judge

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      What's Gas Got To Do With Data Centers? by Peter Judge

      This week - it’s all about gas! In Britain, newspaper headlines predicted imminent rationing of gas. To explain to US readers, we are talking about natural gas here, not gasolene, and the word “rationing” is a powerful keyword for tabloid headlines. We Brits have long memories, and it conjures up images of World War II shortages.

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      Mentions: Iceland Europe Verne Global

    20. Keeping up to date on quick energy policy remorse by Doug Mohney

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      Keeping up to date on quick energy policy remorse by Doug Mohney

      Countries around the globe are thinking and rethinking their energy policies. No nukes have become maybe nukes in Japan, the glut of U.S. natural gas may turn into a leaking problem, and Germany isn't getting green fast enough while it plans to shut down its nuclear power plants. Do you have some quick energy policy angst at your organization?

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      Mentions: Doug Mohney Forbes

    21. IT Management Tips for Running an Efficient Datacenter by Jared Jacobs

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      IT Management Tips for Running an Efficient Datacenter by Jared Jacobs

      The modern datacenter is continually challenged to run more efficiently and somehow do so while cutting back on cost. Many IT managers can share war stories about having to provide the same level of reliable work on a much smaller budget. Add to that the changing requirement to reduce carbon footprint and energy consumption, and suddenly the challenge is ramped up to the next level.

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      Mentions: Dell Jared Jacobs

    22. Cloud Brokers distribute resources further by Peter Judge

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      Cloud Brokers distribute resources further by Peter Judge

      I am starting to see interest in the idea of cloud brokers. They could get cloud services used more efficiently - potentially helping both users and service providers. The cloud broker comes in various forms. A user that has moved some resources to the cloud might delegate the decision of where they actually are. Instead of checking price lists, why not turn the decision over to an automatic service, which finds virtual servers and storage which meet all the user’s requirements, and buys them at the best price.

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      Mentions: Amazon.com Netherlands Peter Judge

    23. eBay provides new green data center metrics by Doug Mohney

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      eBay provides new green data center metrics by Doug Mohney

      Last week, eBay rolled out its Digital Service Efficiency (DSE) metrics and dashboard. It looks good, provides power and CO2 metrics tied to transactions, and allows the company the ability to measure and fine tune improvements to its data centers.  Can't wait to see the open source clone!

      DSE, shown for the first time at The Green Grid Forum, provides eBay a way to see the cost, performance and environmental impact of customer buy and sell transactions.  The new cliché for DSE is a "miles per gallon" metric for technical infrastructure, allowing eBay to observer the cost, performance, environmental impact, and revenue on customer transactions.  For the online auction company, transactions are straightforward: bid, buy, sell.

      Now that eBay has DSE, it can make what the company calls more informed decisions on how to optimize everything in its technical infrastructure, including the sourcing of electrical power, data center infrastructure ...

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      Mentions: Google The Green Grid Doug Mohney

    24. Weightless - Will White Space Fly? by Peter Judge

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      Weightless - Will White Space Fly? by Peter Judge

      February saw the arrival of silicon for “white space “ technology - which might just enable the Internet of Things we have been hearing so much about. White space radio is intended as a short-range low-power connection for devices that need to hook up to the Internet for machine-to-machine communications. There’s a proposed standard for it - called Weightless. And now there are actual chips. White space radio recycles unused parts of the radio spectrum. In any given location, TV and broadcasters are never using all the spectrum they have been allocated - because they don’t want signals to interfere from different masts).

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      Mentions: Vodafone Peter Judge
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