Articles from greenm3.com

REI's Summer 2012 Environmental Defense Fund Fellowship, includes Energy Efficient Data Centers

Explore greenm3.com (Jan 23 2012) Construction

REI has a job posting for a Summer Intern. REI has a opening for our summer 2012 EDF (Environmental Defense Fund) Climate Corps Fellowship. This temporary assignment is expected to commence in mid May and conclude in late August, 2012. Hours: Monday – Friday, 30-40 hours (flexible).Don’t miss this unique opportunity to support REI’s Corporate Social Responsibility Program (CSR) and REI’s cross-divisional Energy Team as a participant in EDF’s Climate Corps program.Recruiting Processes:In order to work for REI through EDF Climate Corps, you must apply individually to REI. If you are concurrently applying through EDF to be considered for other company placements, please inform both parties in writing via email to ekocherovsky@edf.org and ccannon@rei.com I was totally surprised that data centers get mentioned. As an EDF Climate Corps Fellow, you will be matched with a leading company to serve as ... (Read Full Article)

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Fujitsu launches big data services in the cloud

Explore greenm3.com (Jan 18 2012) Construction , Cloud Computing

Next week I am moderating a panel discussion on "Opportunities in Big Data" at a small Fujitsu conference in SJ.  And Fujitsu just announced data services in the cloud. Fujitsu Launches Cloud Services as a Platform for Big Data Tokyo, January 16, 2012 — Fujitsu today announced the launch of Data Utilization Platform Services, which use cloud services as a platform leveraging big data(1). This is a cloud service for gathering, compiling, and integrating massive quantities of sensing data; combining it with knowledge; processing it using realtime processing or batch processing; and using it for such purposes as making future projections. It covers four specific services offerings: Data Management & Integration Services, Communications Control Services, Data Collection and Detection Services, and Data Analysis Services. Fujitsu is promoting Convergence Services that leverage big data to help resolve business and global issues, generate new sources of value, and bring about a more prosperous ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Fujitsu

CIO and Supply Chain Expertise = Dell's New CIO

Explore greenm3.com (Jan 13 2012)

Being a CIO is typically equated with managing information systems which typically has people who have technology backgrounds.  Another way to look at IT as a flow of information which can optimized like a supply chain logistics.  One guy who is supply chain expert is Frank Frankovsky at Facebook who is ex-Dell. Speaking of Dell, Dell's new CIO has a supply chain expertise from GM. Adriana Karaboutis, recruited in March 2010, is the new global CIO and reports directly to Brian Gladden, Dell's CFO. She was previously vice president of global operations and technology IT, which means she was responsible for Dell's supply chain, procurement, and product development systems. Dell CIO Adriana Karaboutis Prior to coming to Dell, Karaboutis was global manufacturing and labor information officer at General Motors, which means she was responsible for all of the systems that are used for car assembly and parts ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Facebook   Dell

Will Zynga's stock performance affect its data center build out? Stock gets close to 8, 20% below IPO

Explore greenm3.com (Jan 9 2012) Construction

Zynga is close to a stock price of 8 today. Zynga has increased its data center capacity with a recent 9 MW in Vantage. Zynga signed the largest deal of the year for Grubb & Ellis, leasing nine megawatts of capacity, or six PODs, at a data center in Santa Clara, Calif. Zynga has about 5 MW on east and west coast locations before this addition. Part of the IPO was to fund data center expansion. But to cut costs and diversify its risks, Zynga is now investing more money in building its own data centers, according to the company’s initial public offering filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Zynga considers the investment in its own infrastructure to be important enough to warrant an investment of $100 – $150 million in the second half of 2011, according to the filing. But with the stock opening at 10 and now at ... (Read Full Article)

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27 of 35 IBM's European Data Centers receive Energy Efficiency European Commission Award

Explore greenm3.com (Jan 5 2012) Construction , Power and Cooling , Cloud Computing

IBM has a press release on 27 of its 35 European data centers receiving energy efficiency status. European Commission Awards IBM for Energy Efficient Data Centers 27 IBM Data Centers in Europe Receive Data Center Energy Efficiency Status Tab navigation News release Related XML feeds Contact(s) information ARMONK, N.Y. - 05 Jan 2012: IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the European Commission (EC), the executive body of the European Union, has awarded 27 IBM Data Centers for energy efficiency, based on the European Union (EU) Code of Conduct for Data Centers. The honor represents the largest portfolio of data centers from a single company to receive the recognition. The EU Code of Conduct was created in response to increasing energy consumption in data centers. The EU aims to inform and encourage data center operators and owners to reduce energy consumption in a cost-effective manner without decreasing mission critical data center ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Europe   Uptime Institute   IBM

One year later, words to remember our Dear Friend Olivier Sanche

Explore greenm3.com (Dec 21 2011)

In conversations with Olivier Sanche's wife, she had mentioned a simple request she had made to Apple to plant a tree in memory of Olivier. Her request was not answered, so I offered to contact eBay's VP of Technical Operations, Mazen Rawashdeh. Mazen supported the request and made the executive decision to plant a tree at the data center Olivier designed and built in Salt Lake City. In addition to the tree eBay planted they created a plaque. "The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky. - Antoine De Saint-Exupery, The Wisdom of the Sands" "This tree is dedicated to the memory of Olivier Sanche who passed away on November 26, 2010. Olivier was a colleague, peer, mentor, and friend to many in the eBay family. At his memorial he was remembered as someone who lit up a room whenever he entered in through his ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Google   Skype   eBay

Thinking about Data Center business in China, consider the lessons of Soccer

Explore greenm3.com (Dec 20 2011)

There are a bunch of friends I have discussed the challenges of conducting data center business in China.  The Economist has a great article on Why China fails at Football (Soccer). Why China fails at football Little red card The telling reasons why, at least in football, China is unlikely to rule the world in the near future Dec 17th 2011 | from the print edition     The Buddha tells the people he can fulfil only one of their wishes. Someone asks: “Could you lower the price of property in China so that people can afford it?” Seeing the Buddha frown in silence, the person makes another wish: “Could you make the Chinese football team qualify for a World Cup?” After a long sigh, the Buddha says: “Let’s talk about property prices.” What is the challenge of doing business in China?  Understanding how money influences the system. Qingdao’s owner Du ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   The Economist

Zynga's IPO not so hot, we'll see how Zynga's data center build out goes in 2012

Explore greenm3.com (Dec 20 2011)

With all this bad news on the stock, it will be interesting if there is an affect on Zynga's aggressive data center capacity expansion. I was going to write this post on Saturday, but waiting one more work day, Zynga is down another 5%. Zynga stock falls again, down nearly 10 percent from IPO price Zynga went IPO yesterday, and closed down 5% from its opening.  WSJ reports on the Zynga offering. Zynga IPO Fizzles as Stock Falls 5% By SHAYNDI RAICE And RANDALL SMITH Zynga Inc. bombed on its first day of trading Friday, closing down 5% in a signal that the appetite for new issues of fast-growing technology companies may be waning. The San Francisco social-game maker's shares finished trading at $9.50, a day after the company priced its initial public offering at $10 a share. Zynga opened at about $11 a share on the ... (Read Full Article)

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29 days, 11K servers of Google Cluster Server data shared with Researchers

Explore greenm3.com (Dec 7 2011)

Google had a crazy idea a year ago, let's share some of our cluster data to the research community.  In Jan 2010, Google shared 7 hrs of data. Google Cluster Data Posted by Joseph L. Hellerstein, Manager of Google Performance AnalyticsGoogle faces a large number of technical challenges in the evolution of its applications and infrastructure. In particular, as we increase the size of our compute clusters and scale the work that they process, many issues arise in how to schedule the diversity of work that runs on Google systems.We have distilled these challenges into the following research topics that we feel are interesting to the academic community and important to Google: Workload characterizations: How can we characterize Google workloads in a way that readily generates synthetic work that is representative of production workloads so that we can run stand alone benchmarks? Predictive models of workload characteristics: What ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Google

Google's Three steps for a Zero Carbon Green Data Center

Explore greenm3.com (Dec 6 2011)

Google's Joe Kava presented a keynote on Dec 1, 2011 at DatacenterDynamics London. The three steps are as follows Here are the summary of the three steps. It's pretty cool that Google published its Renewable Energy use now and for the next year. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Google   DatacenterDynamics London

Big Data Webinar, Dec 7, 2011, GigaOm and Splunk

Explore greenm3.com (Dec 6 2011)

GigaOm Pro has a webinar on Dec 7, 2011 10 - 11a PT on Big Data. The Big Machine How the Internet of Things Is Shaping Big Data   Even relatively conservative forecasts predict there will be 50 billion connected devices online by the end of the decade. Over time, the majority won’t be laptops or phones, but rather machine-to-machine connections from network infrastructure, sensors in cars, appliances, healthcare monitors and the like. They’ll produce data that needs to be combined and analyzed alongside structured data, application logs, customer info and social media streams. Already today, companies across multiple industries and government agencies are struggling to harness the sheer volume, complexity and variety of the data generated. In this webinar, we’ll look at the various kinds of machine-driven big data, how to develop an analytics and usage framework for them, and how companies can use these data to run ... (Read Full Article)

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A Peak into IT in FedEx Green Data Center

Explore greenm3.com (Nov 29 2011) Cloud Computing

FedEx announced its Green Data Center in Colorado in Feb 2011. FedEx Unveils “Green” Data Center in Colorado Springs   February 16, 2011 FedEx Corp. (NYSE: FDX) today celebrated the grand opening of its first environmentally sustainable (“green”) data center, located adjacent to the FedEx Rocky Mountain Tech Center in Colorado Springs, CO. Based on the application of a number of green design standards, the Enterprise Data Center–West (EDC-W) can be counted among the most energy efficient data centers in the U.S. ... The EDC-W PUE is 1.28, with a ratio of “1.0” indicating perfect efficiency. ... The Technology Over the next three years, FedEx technology teams will move core systems and applications from the Customer Technology Center (CTC) in Memphis to Colorado Springs. The massive migration of data, already in progress, will require thousands of hours of work to ensure the successful implementation of the simplified and consolidated ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Amazon.com   Facebook   Marc Benioff

Facebook posts Prineville Data Center Energy Efficiency Tour Video

Explore greenm3.com (Nov 17 2011) Emissions , Cloud Computing , Servers

Facebook has posted the following Data Center Energy Efficiency Tour. To learn more about the environmental and energy efficiencies at the Prineville Data Center, we invite you to take this video tour. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Facebook

How many Data Center Experts are confident, but wrong?

Explore greenm3.com (Nov 3 2011)

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ISO 50001 and Data Centers

Explore greenm3.com (Nov 3 2011) Emissions

ZDNET Asia has a post on Singapore, Data Centers, and Green IT. Pro-biz, green incentives give S'pore datacenter edge By Kevin Kwang , ZDNet Asia on November 3, 2011 (8 hours ago) ... The Infocomm Authority Development of Singapore (IDA) also regard green datacenter standards as one of its priorities for attracting potential datacenter customers into the island. An agency spokesperson said the IDA had partnered other local government agencies to come up with theSingapore Standard SS564:2010 Green Data Centres (energy and environmental management systems), which was published in January this year. The Singapore Green Data Centre Standard is here with part of the standard built on ISO 50001. The Green DC Standard helps organisations establish systems and processes necessary to improve the energy efficiency of their DCs. It provides them with a recognised framework as well as a logical and consistent methodology to achieve continuous improvement in their DC ... (Read Full Article)

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Google vs. Facebook European data center locations

Explore greenm3.com (Oct 31 2011)

One way to look at Google vs. Facebook European data center locations is to plot on a map the sites. A - Google Dublin B- Google Hamina, Finland C - Google Belgium D - Facebook Lulea, Sweden Google has three major data center sites.  In Asia, Google has three future sites - Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.  Recognize a pattern?  Three is a good number, says GreenM3 :-) Keep in mind given Google has built its three data centers it most likely looked at sites all over Europe before it picked its three locations.  Think about being in three sites as an option to building one mega site.  I watched an established company follow the advice of the so called data center experts justifying a single site as their first data center.  For less than 10 MW, it can make a lot of sense to have three 3 1/3 MW sites to enable geo ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Europe   Google   Facebook

Intersection of Mobile and Data Centers

Explore greenm3.com (Oct 27 2011)

I went to GigaOm's Mobilize conference to get an introduction to the Moblie ecosystem.  One of the people I was able to meet was GigaOm's Stacey Higginbotham. Stacey Higginbotham BIO:Stacey Higginbotham is happy when immersed in SEC filings, tech specs or poking through a data center. She has spent the last ten years covering technology and finance for publications such as The Deal, the Austin Business Journal, The Bond Buyer and Business Week, and works remotely from Austin, Texas.         And, Stacey just posted a post on the top 20 Mobile Operators WW.  If you want to think about the intersection of Mobile and Data Centers check out this post to see who are the biggest and will be expanding their data center capacities. Meet the top 20 mobile operators By Stacey Higginbotham Oct. 27, 2011, 8:22am PT No Comments in Share21 There are more than 5 ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Business Week

Why Zynga moved from AWS to its own private cloud - zCloud

Explore greenm3.com (Oct 22 2011) Cloud Computing , Servers

Zynga has an engineering post where they introduce their private cloud.  This post is a bit old, but it provides good details on why Zynga chose to move out of AWS for its own private cloud. Now, Zynga still does use AWS, but they are thinking from a business/financial perspective.  Zynga has a hybrid cloud infrastructure, both public and private. While our private cloud infrastructure has been growing quickly, Zynga also uses the AWS public cloud to fuel our rapid growth. Our use of AWS, while very important to our business, comes with an operating expense. Essentially, we have been trading monthly operating expenses against longer-term amortized capital expense. Yet, sometimes the pace of our growth forces us to make that tradeoff. For example, when CityVille rapidly grew to millions of users in just six weeks, we had to grow our server infrastructure at a pace that kept up ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Amazon.com

Gartner says Private Clouds are a last resort, how about learn from public clouds then build your own

Explore greenm3.com (Oct 21 2011) Cloud Computing

One of the guys I always enjoy a chat with is Jones Lang LaSalle's Michael Siteman.  I just got off the the phone to discuss public vs. private cloud ideas.  Then I read this post on Gartner's recommendation that Private Clouds are a last resort. Gartner: Private clouds are a last resort Thorough analysis required to identify cloud computing benefits By Neal Weinberg, Network World October 19, 2011 10:00 AM ET 1 Comment Print ORLANDO, Fla. -- Enterprises should consider public cloud services first and turn to private clouds only if the public cloud fails to meet their needs. That was the advice delivered by analyst Daryl Plummer during Gartner's IT Symposium Tuesday. Plummer says that there are many potential benefits to deploying cloud services, including agility, reduced cost, reduced complexity, increased focus, increased innovation and being able to leverage the knowledge and skills of people outside ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Gartner   Network World

If Silver Lake brokers Yahoo deal, don't you think there will be a data center deal for Silver Lake?

Explore greenm3.com (Oct 20 2011) Hydro

WSJ writes on Silver Lake brokering a purchase of Yahoo. Private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners is working with one of its investors, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Microsoft Corp. to put together a proposal to buy Yahoo Inc., people familiar with the matter said.Under the proposal being discussed, Microsoft would put up several billion dollars of funding, with additional financing being arranged by banks, the people said. Silver Lake and the CPP Investment Board would kick in the rest of the amount, which would be less than what Microsoft contributes, the people said. Now, if Silver Lake is smart which they are. Don't you think there is a good chance that there is a data center deal in there somewhere? Another deal scenario being discussed by interested parties is a complex, multipart bid for Yahoo led by Alibaba, where the Chinese company gets back Yahoo's ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Yahoo   Microsoft Corp   Silver Lake Partners

Microsoft comes a long way with Water use in Quincy, Transfers water treatment plant to City of Quincy

Explore greenm3.com (Oct 13 2011) Hydro , Cloud Computing

When Microsoft's Quincy data center opened, I was able to get a tour of the data center.  One of the questions I asked is how much water does the data center use.  I asked the data center operations staff, they didn't know.  I asked the data center design team, they didn't know either.  And, a response was why do you want to know?  Because I think you use lots of water, and it is an issue in a green data center. When I went back out to the data center a few months later, the data center operation team said they are storing blow-down water in tanks, and they have 6 months before the tanks fill up.  This problem was not unique to Microsoft as other data center operators had blow-down water that cannot be put into the waste stream. A water treatment plant was built to ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Microsoft Corp

Shifting mindset to an Information Factory from a Data Center, the industrialization of the data

Explore greenm3.com (Oct 13 2011) Cloud Computing

There is a different way to think about data centers where the goal of a company is to bring raw unprocessed bits and turn them into higher value bits just like a factory brings in raw materials and transforms the materials into higher value finished goods. The factory uses huge amounts of power in special buildings with lots of equipment and custom processes to support the transformation.   This is the industrialization of the data center. Barton George writes a post on Big Data any how in general 5% of data is only used. Big Data is the new Cloud Rate This   Big Data represents the next not-completely-understood got-to-have strategy.  This first dawned on me about a year ago and has continued to become clearer as the phenomenon has gained momentum.  Contributing to Big Data-mania is Hadoop, today’s weapon of choice in the taming and harnessing of  mountains of unstructured ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Amazon.com   Forrester Research   Google

Zynga moves from AWS to its own Data Centers

Explore greenm3.com (Oct 11 2011) Cloud Computing

Zynga is one of AWS largest tenants, supporting Zynga's rapid growth.  I discovered most of this information a year ago interviewing some people, and now that there is a public document, I can blog the following information. VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi reports on the disclosure in the SEC statement. Zynga planning to diversify beyond Amazon, build its own data centers July 4, 2011 | Dean Takahashi 4 Comments in Share One of the little-known facts about social game giant Zynga is that it’s one of the biggest operators of cloud computing infrastructure, built to support its current customer base of more than 281 million monthly active users. For much of its four-year history, Zynga has relied on a third-party hosting company, Amazon Web Services, for the hardware infrastructure for its server-based games such as FarmVille on Facebook. But to cut costs and diversify its risks, Zynga is now investing ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Amazon.com   DuPont Fabros Technology   Facebook

Michael Dell, end-to-end, PC to the Data Center

Explore greenm3.com (Oct 5 2011) Grid Computing , Servers

Michael Dell gave a keynote at Oracle OpenWorld, and there is blog post summarizing his presentation. Michael emphasizes they go embrace the PC. 2. We Still Love Hardware: Without mentioning Hewlett-Packard by name, Dell took a few shots at HP’s potential PC division spin-out. Dell said his company has rapidly evolved from PCs to servers to cloud solutions. “There are many reasons to stay committed to the PC, he said. “There will be two billion PCs in a few years.” Dell estimated that 95 percent of disk drives are in PCs, and five percent are in servers. A company without PCs can’t gain volume pricing advantages for server components, Dell asserted. “The client offers enormous scale,” said Dell. “Give up that scale and you need to raise your prices.” Data Center is not specifically mentioned, but implied in this statement. 3. Total Picture: “Dell is not a PC ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Oracle   Cisco   Hewlett Packard