Articles from greenercomputing.com

How UPS Brings Green IT to the World

Explore greenercomputing.com (Mar 24 2010)

If you thought UPS was just trucks and planes and boxes, you'd be way off base (although the company does manage the world's ninth-largest airline). At an event convened by the company in New York yesterday, UPS highlighted just how deeply IT is incorporated into its daily operations, and how UPS uses that information to move itself and its customers toward greener pastures. Unsurprisingly, UPS works on a massive scale, and Dave Barnes, UPS's Senior Vice President and CIO, told attendees at its event yesterday that it spends $1 billion a year on technology. Green tech figures into UPS's practices in a number of ways, primarily in waste reduction and improved efficiency. (Read Full Article)

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Allstate Lands LEED Gold for New Data Center

Explore greenercomputing.com (Mar 23 2010) Construction , Cloud Computing , Servers

Allstate Insurance Company this week announced that its new data center facility has secured LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The 50,000-square-foot facility, which was completed in the summer of 2009, was part of a strategy by the company to consolidate its computing facilities to two while at the same time saving on costs and reducing environmental impacts. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   LEED

Cisco's EnergyWise Additions Make Green a No-Brainer

Explore greenercomputing.com (Mar 17 2010) Cloud Computing , Networking , Servers

Green business practices often make sense from a cost savings perspective, from a social responsibility perspective, and from a stakeholder engagement perspective. But there often remains the obstacle of actually implementing a new solution, and that obstacle can be insurmountable without the proper incentives. Cisco today is announcing a slew of hardware and software additions to its year-old "Borderless Networks" platform, focused on energy management, network security, and video streaming capabilities across a company. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Cisco   CA

Greenpeace Loses Round Two in Tiff with Facebook

Explore greenercomputing.com (Mar 9 2010) Wind , Servers

Glass houses, stones, etc. That's the sort of lesson coming out from the latest round in the Greenpeace vs. Facebook skirmish currently afoot on the internet. To recap, briefly: In January, Facebook told the world it was opening a green data center, one that set a target of a highly energy efficient 1.15 power usage effectiveness ratio. In mid-February, advocacy groups including Change.org as well as Greenpeace called Facebook out for not using renewable energy to power its planned data center. As I wrote back then: (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Greenpeace

Can Facebook's Data Center be Green if it Runs on Coal?

Explore greenercomputing.com (Feb 18 2010) Fossil Fuel , Cloud Computing , Servers

I may have to de-friend Facebook's green data center. The Prineville, Ore., facility the company announced at the end of last month, received kudos and accolades for its innovative and dedicatedly green features, including a low-energy evaporative cooling system, an airside economizer for using outside air to cool the facility, a system to re-use of server heat, and a target of hitting a PUE of 1.15. But at least some of the power going in to the data center will be from a notoriously non-green energy source: Coal. Not even "clean coal," just coal. (Read Full Article)

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How to Keep the Server Room Cool

Explore greenercomputing.com (Feb 18 2010) Cloud Computing , Servers

Centralization, and in some cases outsourcing to off-site hosted facilities, is a current trend that continues to unfold in response to the 2008/2009 recession. This centralization has placed a tremendous focus on the construction of new, more reliable, and more redundant infrastructure than ever before. Did you catch the operative words there? "New" and "More" ... Yes, as this centralization brings a greater amount of technology closer together physically, so too does it centralize the consumption of power ... and naturally the generation of heat. (Read Full Article)

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Asian Data Centers to Continue Energy-Guzzling Ways?

Explore greenercomputing.com (Feb 17 2010) Cloud Computing , Servers

Government investment in broadband internet, consumer demand for internet content, and businesses rising to take advantage of that supply and demand have all led to a significant boom in data center services in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a new report from Frost & Sullivan. That growth, which the company predicts will continue at 14.6 per year between 2009 and 2011, will make the market for data centers worth as much as US$10.7 billion by the end of next year. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Frost

Green Business and Cleantech Find Common Purpose: The State of Green Business 2010

Explore greenercomputing.com (Feb 16 2010) Servers

For most of the past decade, the worlds of clean technology and green business seemed like a Venn diagram that was yet to be -- that is, two circles trying to overlap. The world of cleantech was seen as early-stage, comprised of VC- backed startups or garage-lab science projects that weren't ready for prime time, at least not at affordable prices. Green business activity was seen as too process-oriented, more about changing management practices and engaging suppliers, customers and employees than about embedding smart new technologies into business operations. At last, the circles are overlapping, big time. Clean technology in its many forms is entering the marketplace -- occasionally in the form of goods and services that are visible to consumers (think electric cars and solar panels), but more often embedded in materials, manufacturing systems, public infrastructure, information technology and industrial processes. (Read Full Article)

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IT Aims to Save the World: The State of Green Business 2010

Explore greenercomputing.com (Feb 10 2010) Carbon Footprint

Information technology's seemingly unquenchable thirst for energy has been well established. But when you add up all of information and communication technology's energy footprint -- the increasing need for computational power, data storage and communications -- it amounts to about 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, growing to 3 percent by 2020, according to McKinsey & Co. That's non-trivial, of course, but there's a countervailing force to consider: the potential for information technology to make the world far more energy-efficient, and to address some of the world's other pressing environmental and social problems. At least, that's the story some of the largest IT companies are telling. And they're backing it up with a seemingly impressive array of capabilities to make the world not just more efficient, but to make it better. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Cisco

New IBM Servers Aim to Manage Vast Amount of Data in the 'Smarter Planet'

Explore greenercomputing.com (Feb 10 2010) Cloud Computing , Servers

With the growth of smart grid systems around the world, as well as the increasing ability to measure and manage data from every element of business, comes a vast increase in demand for computing power. IBM this week released its next-generation systems that are explicitly designed to capture the astronomical jump in data that smart grid applications bring to the table. The company estimated that an energy company that currently reads its meters about one million times per day today could see that number jump to 85 million daily data inputs with widespread adoption of smart meters and gadgets. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   IBM

Energy Efficiency Gains Horsepower: The State of Green Business 2010

Explore greenercomputing.com (Feb 9 2010) Carbon Footprint , Emissions , Servers

As managing greenhouse gas emissions continues to rise in priority inside companies, the need to find large, cost-effective energy savings is becoming increasingly important. Some of the biggest opportunities come from basic upgrades — of lighting, air conditioning, equipment, vehicles and other energy-using things. Coca-Cola Enterprises, for example, said it would slash its electricity consumption by 5.6 million kilowatt-hours a year as a result of an energy-efficiency overhaul of just its lighting systems at 24 facilities in the state. But that barely illuminates the opportunity. There are equally large savings to be found from a wide range of energy-management practices. Managing energy use has become increasingly easier, thanks to a new generation of technology. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Yahoo !

Energy Star: Coming in June to a Data Center Near You?

Explore greenercomputing.com (Feb 8 2010) Construction , Cloud Computing , Servers

By this summer, your data centers may be able to earn an Energy Star certification, if the final stages of work underway at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conclude as planned. At The Green Grid's data center conference in San Jose last week, Energy Star manager Alexandra Sullivan told attendees that the certification could be ready as early as June. Once the certification is launched, companies will be able to take an online test to rank how efficient their facilities are. Companies that score in the top 25 percent will then be eligible for an audit by the EPA in order to earn the Energy Star label. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   The Green Grid   Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory   CA

Will Carbon Reduction Commitments Hurt U.K. Green Data Centers?

Explore greenercomputing.com (Feb 3 2010) Emissions , Cloud Computing , Servers

IT industry experts are calling on the UK government to amend the imminent Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) energy efficiency scheme, warning that it will force participants to outsource energy-intensive IT infrastructure to offshore operators, which could drive up overall emissions from the sector. The legislation comes into effect in April and will apply to about 5,000 large UK public and private sector organizations that consume more than 6,000MWh of electricity per year. As a result, many of the UK's larger data centers will be covered by the scheme and will be required to report on their energy use and attempt to improve their efficiency or face financial penalties. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   United Kingdom   Carbon Reduction Commitment

Virtualization Adoption is a Mile Wide, Inch Deep

Explore greenercomputing.com (Jan 26 2010) Cloud Computing , Servers

Virtualization may have been one of the hottest technological innovations of the last decade, but a combination of concerns are keeping it from planting deep roots in the corporate world. A report released this month by CDW surveyed the virtualization landscape, finding that, although 90 percent of businesses say they've adopted virtualization, but only in small numbers of servers: Even companies that reported they'd "fully deployed" their virtualization plans had done so on 37 percent of their server infrastructure. (Read Full Article)

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Facebook Status Update: We're Opening a Green Data Center

Explore greenercomputing.com (Jan 26 2010) Construction , Cloud Computing , Servers

If "Facebook's Green Data Center" were a group, I'd become a fan of it.* The social networking giant and cause of huge losses of productivity around the globe announced last week that it had made plans to open its first company-owned data center, and would take steps to make it among the greenest in the industry. In a post on Facebook (where else?), Jonathan Heiliger, the company's director of technical operations, laid out the 147,000-square-foot facility's claims to green, saying in part, "Along with making sure Facebook operates quickly for you, we wanted to minimize the environmental impact of our new facility and its energy costs. To best achieve those goals, we will use several energy-efficiency technologies, including: (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   LEED

The Global Green IT Attitude and Action Survey

Explore greenercomputing.com (Jan 20 2010)

Info-Tech conducted the Global Green IT Attitude & Action survey for insight from around the globe on sentiment towards climate change, Green IT, and how IT is reacting. In terms of attitudes, all respondents are concerned about climate change. In terms of action, however, Asia and Europe lead the pack. The Attitude & Action survey also found that: • Up to 55% of North American respondents claim their companies do not have PC power savings policies. • Opinions are mixed on whether IT is working towards higher energy efficiency, with the most negative opinions coming from outside Asia and Europe. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Europe

Mid-Size Data Centers More Likely to Use Virtualization, Other New Technologies

Explore greenercomputing.com (Jan 19 2010) Cloud Computing , Servers

Mid-sized enterprises are more likely than smaller and larger enterprises to adopt data center technologies like virtualization and cloud computing, but other issues are taking precedence in companies as they deal with tight budgets and staffs, according to Symantec Corp. The company has released its 2010 State of the Data Center Report, finding that mid-sized data centers (those with 2,000-9,999 employees) are adopting cloud computing, deduplication, replication, storage virtualization and continuous data protection at 11-17 percent higher rates that other data centers. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Symantec Corp.   CA

New Smart2020 Project Tracks IT Industry's Progress on Climate Goals

Explore greenercomputing.com (Dec 15 2009) Monitoring

Following on the release earlier this year of a report outlining how information technology can enable a low-carbon future, the Climate Group this week launched a project to keep the IT industry on course. The new "Pathways to Scale" project offers case studies of how companies are applying high-tech solutions to building energy efficiency, transportation, the smart grid, and other areas. The original Smart2020 report found that the IT industry can play a role in achieving global emissions reductions of as much as 15 percent by 2020, and save companies over $725 billion by improving efficiency. Among the findings of successes and shortcomings from the follow-on report include: Companies joining in partnerships with other enterprises or NGOs achieve greater successes than companies working alone; (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Google   United Kingdom   Microsoft Corp

Harnessing the Power of IT to Drive Sustainability

Explore greenercomputing.com (Dec 8 2009) Monitoring , Emissions , Fossil Fuel

For the next 10 days, world leaders are meeting in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 (also known as COP15). There is wide hope that by the end of the conference, world leaders can significantly advance a joint global commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and minimize changes to our climate. Today, a growing number of governments and scientists have endorsed a goal of limiting global average temperature rise to less than two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. According to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released in 2007, meeting this goal will require a 50 to 85 percent global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. To achieve these goals, we must act now. While we have the technologies to address the challenges today, the world needs the right set of policies in place to stimulate public and private markets ... (Read Full Article)

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U.S. Puts Green Tech Patent Applications on the Fast Track

Explore greenercomputing.com (Dec 8 2009) Fossil Fuel

The federal government wants to help companies bring green technologies to market quickly with a new pilot program designed to put green technology patent applications on a fast track. The U.S. Commerce Department's Patent and Trademark Office announced Monday the pilot program could shave a year from the time it takes to get a patent for certain green technologies, such as those related to environmental quality, energy conservation, renewable energy development and greenhouse gas emissions reduction. (Read Full Article)

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Giant Data Center to Heat London Homes

Explore greenercomputing.com (Dec 8 2009) Construction , Cloud Computing , Servers

An £80m (US $130.3 million) green data center under construction in east London will use 9 megawatts (MW) of surplus heat created by racks of servers to power residential and business properties in the surrounding area. The nine-story facility is being built by data center specialist Telehouse West and is due to open in March next year. As well as capturing waste heat for re-use, the site will also feature a solar array designed to provide the facility with 6,000 kWh of power a year. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   United Kingdom

AT&T Creates New Post to Marshal Efficiency Efforts Companywide

Explore greenercomputing.com (Dec 2 2009) Emissions , Solar

AT&T has established a corporate post for a director of energy to take the reins of the firm's energy management drive -- and named its first appointee to the job. The company announced Tuesday that John Schinter, a former president of Global Energy and Sustainability for commercial real estate services giant Jones Lang & LaSalle, has become the AT&T inaugural energy chief. Schinter joins the AT&T Corporate Real Estate Property Management team with responsibilities that include overseeing efficiency and conservation efforts across all energy-consuming business units and directing the company's energy purchasing strategies. He also is expected to spur the firm's management of fixed-energy consumption throughout the company, particularly involving its data centers, central office equipment and facilities. (Read Full Article)

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IBM Shines Spotlight on Its Container Data Center Ecosystem

Explore greenercomputing.com (Dec 2 2009) Construction , Container , Cloud Computing

At the Gartner Data Center Conference today, IBM highlighted the technologies that go into the company's Portable Modular Data Center (PMDC), and showed how the energy-efficient computing center can be applied to a range of companies and locations. The laundry list of tech firms that have incorporated their innovations into the PMDC -- including APC by Schneider Electric, Emerson Network Power, Eaton and Panduit -- is intended to show how IBM's "data center in a box" is an open architecture that can be adapted to work with any type of IT hardware, and that it offers nearly plug-and-play functionality for expanding or upgrading data center systems. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   IBM

Pressure Mounts for IT's Inclusion in Copenhagen Agreement

Explore greenercomputing.com (Nov 30 2009)

The IT industry will be mentioned in the draft climate treaty that will form the basis for negotiations at next month's UN summit in Copenhagen, following a successful lobbying campaign from the international body that regulates the IT and telecommunications industry. The International Telecommunications Union said that the main aim of its push to have IT included in the treaty is to see energy-efficient IT projects included in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) offsetting scheme, or any successor to it. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   United Kingdom