Cloud computing could lead to billions in energy savingsReutersThere's a reason AT&T and Microsoft are looking into the energy efficiency of cloud computing: they sell cloud computing services. Other studies have also found that cloud computing isn't always the most energy efficient computing option, ...and more »

We are currently conducting an online survey of purchase intentions of large companies for carbon and energy management software and services. One notable finding that has already surfaced is the lack priority some chief financial officers (CFO) assign to energy management, which mirrors our consulting in the field. Simply stated, energy management is not a priority for many CFOs.

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The analysts at Pike Research came out with a report this week that claims that the adoption of cloud computing will lead to a 38 percent reduction in worldwide data center energy use by 2020, compared to what the growth of data center energy consumption would be without cloud computing. While the folks at Pike are smart guys, I’d like to respectfully disagree with such a simplistic finding.

Protecting the world’s forests will be a crucial way to fight climate change, given deforestation contributes to more carbon emissions than all vehicles combined. Now Google has emerged as a key warrior in the deforestation battle. On Thursday morning in Cancun, Mexico at the COP 16 U.N. climate negotiations, the search engine giant unveiled Google Earth Engine, a product which combines an open API, a computing platform and 25 years of satellite imagery available to researchers, scientists, organizations and government agencies. While the software and satellite imagery in Google Earth are already being used to look at world climate change data, Google Earth Engine offers tools and parallel processing computing power to groups to be able to use satellite imagery to analyze environmental conditions in order to make sustainability decisions.

Throughout this highly charged election season, government spending and the federal deficit have been a linchpin of political arguments. At the same time, a gridlocked Congress means that very little has been accomplished despite all the debate. But a report published earlier this month highlights seven ways that, using existing technologies, the federal government could save $100 billion dollars a year for the next 10 years, not-insignificant portion of the current federal deficit.

Over the next month I am back on the road (again), speaking at several green IT events in the U.S. and Europe. The audience at these events is primarily CIOs and IT leaders, with some representation from facilities, finance, marketing, and other functional areas. And while the bulk of the agendas are devoted to tactics and best practices for improving the energy efficiency and reducing the carbon footprint of IT infrastructure and processes, the organizers have invited me to do something different.

Gonzales, senior network administrator for Denver-based Credit Union of Colorado, says smaller is better when it comes to data center size -- now more than ever given the tight economy. "It's time to do more with less," he says. Other IT managers are repeating that mantra, helping their companies cope with hard times by shrinking their data center's physical footprint to become smaller and more compact. IT managers have gotten to these more productive footprints by using virtualization, increasingly dense and multifunction hardware, alternative energy sources and modular design techniques. For their part, the savings accrue from lower energy bills, reduced property costs and less costly site and technology maintenance.

ittingly enough, considering my post yesterday about green IT hitting the mainstream ("Green IT Hits the Mainstream in Data Centers"), a new report from Forrester Research just crossed my desk that aims to address all those companies who haven't gotten up to speed on green IT. The report, "The Value Of A Green IT Maturity Assessment," by Doug Washburn and Christopher Mines offers a resource to companies who either haven't yet figured out where to begin with green IT projects or haven't gone the whole Green IT 2.0 route of expanding to non-data center related IT projects like virtual meetings and facility energy controls.

Over on the GreenBiz.com side of my job, we talk quite a lot about the nature of "green consumer" surveys -- how even over the course of 20 years, there's been very little change in the number of people who say they'd pay more for green products (always the vast majority says they will), while the actual market for green products is only growing ever so slightly. That, however, doesn't seem to be the case for green IT: a study conducted by AFCOM at its recent Data Center World conference finds that the an ever-increasing number of data center and facility managers (71.3 percent, to be precise -- what we could easily call "the vast majority") have already adopted at least some green IT projects. This comes despite -- or more likely because of -- the economic downturn: the biggest benefits report in the survey were a decrease in ...

\Vette Corp, a leading global provider of data center thermal management solutions, has been selected by Syracuse University and IBM (NYSE: IBM) to deliver cooling infrastructure in one of the world`s most energy-efficient data centers. The new data center project represents a partnership among Vette, Syracuse University, IBM, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). The data center is expected to use 50 percent less energy than a typical data center, making it one of the "greenest" computer centers in operation. The $12.4 million, 6,000-square-foot data center will use smarter technologies focusing on the actual infrastructure of the data center itself, not just the computer hardware and software.

GE Consumer & Industrial's electrical business recently signed a "strategic alliance agreement" with Validus DC Systems, LLC, a leading provider of fully integrated Direct Current (DC) power infrastructure for datacenters and telecommunications facilities, to promote the new Validus DC Data Center System using advanced GE electrical components. In addition to providing improved end-to-end reliability, the new system can lower facility costs for equipment, real estate and energy, effectively reducing the total cost of ownership by 30 to 50 percent.

(NYSE: DLR), the world's largest wholesale datacenter provider, announced today that it has acquired a sixty percent joint venture interest in a redevelopment project located in Richardson, Texas. Formerly known as Collins Technology Park, the new Digital Realty Trust Datacenter Park - Dallas consists of seven buildings totaling approximately 797,000 square feet, ranging in size from 15,000 square feet to 250,000 square feet. The 69-acre property also contains several developable land sites and a private substation with 40 MW of immediate availability, which is expandable to up to 125 MW.

Today’s data center is going through a constant state of flux in an attempt to keep up with current demands. The data landscape grows exponentially, and with that growth comes the need to expand current storage and data center infrastructures. This expansion is a fact businesses in every vertical have come to accept, but it comes with a price. The Data Landscape Four billion dollars is spent every year on data center energy consumption and this number will only continue to climb. The type of data growth is also a contributing cost factor; mission critical data is growing in the enterprise environment. This means companies are buying more expensive energy hungry equipment to provide needed fast access and redundancy at both the server and storage level.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah (AAA NCNU) has selected IBM to design and build a new energy efficient data center - in order to meet the company's technology requirements of its expanding business. The new data center design is expected to enable AAA NCNU to meet its present computing needs, with the ability to scale to meet its future business needs. As the leader in providing a full range of automotive, travel, insurance and financial services to over 4 million clients throughout Northern California, Nevada and Utah, AAA NCNU selected IBM based on its high-quality service, industry expertise and cost effectiveness. IBM will deploy the data center consolidation with the explicit goals of reducing energy consumption as well as reducing cost, space and IT maintenance, while enhancing the efficiency and capacity of its data center facilities.

By now, most IT pros are familiar with Green IT technologies such as virtualization, and more efficiently cooling data centers. But consultants say that a new wave of Green IT technologies are on the way --- call it Green IT 2.0. In Green IT 2.0, greening and energy savings related to technology will expand well beyond the data center, and beyond individual PCs. It goes even beyond networks. Green IT 2.0 goes to the very core of the way an enterprise operates --- it examines business processes and operations at every level of a company, and suggests ways to re-tool for energy saving and reducing carbon emissions.

Most data center managers keep their facilities much too cold -- as much as 15 percent too cold, according to a server expert at Intel. In an article by Rik Myslewski published yesterday in The Register, Dylan Larson, Intel's director of server platform technology initiatives, explained last week that keeping data centers in the low 70s and high 60s leads to a significant amount of excess cooling, and wasted energy. The ideal temperature, per Larson as well as the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), is a balmy 80 degrees.

Green jobs have been a cornerstone of the stimulus program, although what we hear most of with regards to those funds are building efficiency retrofits or renewable energy installation training programs rather than more IT-specific programs. Earlier this summer, our own Sarah Terry-Cobo wrote about one of those programs: On June 29, [California] Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced $20 million in grants to 11 regional pilot projects as a part of the state-wide Green Job Corps program, which was launched in March. "We are working around the clock to bring Recovery Act funding into California as quickly, effectively and responsibly as possible to stimulate our economy," said Governor Schwarzenegger in a prepared statement.

Dell expects to rake in an estimated $5.8 million in annual savings as a result of energy efficiency measures that range from PC power-downs and simplifying IT to retrofitting facilities and setting green building standards for all new company-owned sites. By the end of 2009, Dell will have cut energy use globally by 48 million kilowatt hours per year, the company said today. That's enough to power more than 4,000 U.S. homes for a year, according to the firm.

British Columbia is still committed to promoting clean energy projects despite taking a blow on Tuesday from its own power utility regulator, the Canadian province's energy minister said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday. Blair Lekstrom, British Columbia's minister of energy, mines and petroleum resources, said his government has not decided yet how it will respond to the regulator's rejection of parts of a business plan presented by government-owned power generator B.C. Hydro, including proposals to buy clean electricity from small, independent producers.

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.

Andrew Winston's new book, Green Recovery, comes in a small, green package, but it packs a big, relevant punch. It is a must read for CEOs who still think going green will cost too much, and for mid-level and senior managers responsible for identifying strategic sustainability initiatives to focus on.Like his public speaking style, Winston's writing voice is personable, authentic and engaging. Building on his previous book Green to Gold and his sustainability consulting experience, he presents a clear, green recovery framework that outlines four key paths to a leaner, greener world:

Data centers are energy hogs, but the country’s most prominent green building standard, LEED, doesn’t adequately address their special design considerations. That looks set to change, however, as the U.S. Green Building Council, which develops LEED, is considering tailoring existing LEED rating systems to evaluate green data centers. Brendan Owens, the Green Building Council’s vice president of technical development for LEED, tells us that as part of that effort the nonprofit organization is also evaluating which tools would be best for assessing green data centers. Owens said that he is actively working with The Green Grid and other groups that have been doing detailed technical work on establishing benchmarks for green data centers. Any provisions added to LEED regarding data centers would draw from this technical work. But he would not give a timeline, stressing that a final decision has not yet been made. “It will ...