Doug Mohney

Make mistakes on silicon, save energy? by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (May 23 2012)

Rice University is touting its "inexact" computer chip.  The design improves power and resource efficiency by allowing for occasional errors.  Prototypes show off at the ACM International Conference on Computing Frontiers are at least 15 times more efficient than today's technology -- this is the sort of thing that makes data center buyers sit up and take notice, assuming they don't need high levels of precision. Researchers started looking ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Doug Mohney

In praise (yes praise) of the data center big boys by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (May 16 2012)

Having been tarred and feathered on numerous occasions in Greenpeace drive-by PR papers, Facebook, Google and Microsoft are actually making forward progress in the battle to cut carbon emission.  But quiet progress doesn't grab big headlines with the mainstream media, so let's give some credit where credit is due. Facebook's Open Compute project has shaken up the hardware industry.  Servers needed a serious refresh.  Facebook has stimulated ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Greenpeace   Google   Facebook

Where does your data center trash go? by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (May 9 2012)

Where does your data center trash go? Everything from paper printouts to servers is ultimately thrown out or recycled, but the more complicated the product, the more headaches are involved.  However, even something as simple as paper has issues when it comes to the proper disposal before recycling. Back in the days of my youth, I worked for a card-carrying member of the professionally paranoid.  He didn't work for ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Doug Mohney   eBay

Green Practices vs. Green Practicality by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (May 2 2012)

Greenpeace's preaching against major data center players illustrates the most stark "green" streak roaming around today, an absolutist take-no-prisoners mentality demanding change yesterday -- if not sooner.  The problem with absolutists is that the world is very rarely so simplistic -- a fact they don't like to admit to themselves. So far, Greenpeace hasn't been effectively called out on its double-standards for the computer and data center industries.  Every ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Apple   Greenpeace   Europe

Ye Old Stinky Data Center by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (Apr 25 2012)

GigaOm had a piece earlier this week about biogas powering data centers. It's giving me flashbacks to HP's hype piece about data centers down on the farm.  First, let's get this out of the way:  Methane, the key component of biogas fuel, comes from rotting, stinking things, typically waste products.  You get methane out of waste dumps, landfills, sewer treatment plants, and from the droppings of animals ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Doug Mohney

Happy Earth Day? No, Let's Get Angry! by Peter Judge

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (Apr 22 2012)

...le to co-operate and share responsibility for anything is obviously subversive.  Now, my co-blogger Doug Mohney has pointed us to Greenpeace’s “hypocrisy” for not having a sustainable strategy itself, or transpa... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Apple   Greenpeace   Uptime Institute

Greenpeace's latest drive-by data center shooting by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (Apr 18 2012)

GreenPreach, er Greenpeace USA, has started its latest "Do as I say, not as I do" data center jihad by attacking Apple, Amazon and Microsoft for using  "asthma-inducing, climate destroying coal pollution" to keep The Internet humming.   Meanwhile, the preachy non-profit can't (or won't bother) meet the standards it has set out for the big boys. What standards are those?   If you go to Greenpeace's web site ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Apple   Greenpeace   Amazon.com

Got Plants? by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (Apr 11 2012)

Everyone is all about cleaner air for the servers, but what about people? If you're going to run a green data center, shouldn't you show some green love for the employees? I know it's counterintuitive to mix growing, leafy things and dirt with the pristine cleanliness  (OK, maybe not in your data center) of a server room, but there can be a lot of outgassing with synthetic ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Iceland   Doug Mohney

Google’s “thermal storage” an old trick by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (Apr 4 2012)

Everyone’s all rah-rah this week about Google using “thermal storage” for the first time in its new Taiwan data center, as first reported by Focus Taiwan. C’mon! People should be asking why Google hasn’t done this sooner.  It’s not like making ice at night to balance cooling hasn’t been done before.  We’re talking way, way old school here! How old is this technique? Go ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Greenpeace   Google   Doug Mohney

Flexibly growing data centers and the cloud by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (Mar 28 2012)

One of the more interesting tidbits I heard at the Verne Global data center tour was Colt's idea that you could take its modular data center platform and relocate it to somewhere else if customer demand within a region/area had shrunk or consolidated. It's an intriguing idea, but I'm not really sure if it's going to happen any time soon. Expanding a modular data center ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Verne Global   Doug Mohney

Bloom Energy tacks to mission critical practices, fear -- and a second factory by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (Mar 21 2012)

If you need further evidence that a straight-line carbon-reduction pitch -- damn the bucks, full green ahead -- just doesn't work, fuel-cell manufacturer Bloom Energy has opened up a Mission Critical Practice to drive the sale of its products to the professionally paranoid.  So much for the green story. Bloom's announcement was made last week and it seems to have been interpreted as a tighter focus by the company on ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Doug Mohney   Bloom Energy   Bloom Boxes

Are satellites green? No and yes. by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (Mar 14 2012)

I'm spending two days this week down at Satellite 2012. As my head starts to throb from vendor hype and marketing lies, I wonder: Are satellites green? I know this sounds like a side track from green IT nirvana, but some data centers do business in some way, shape or form with satellite companies, be it for backup connectivity (rarely) or storing the latest gigabyte broadcast surges of 3-D ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Google   Doug Mohney

Green Energy as Political Hot Potato by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (Mar 7 2012)

In the United States and the UK, renewable energy has become a political hot potato. Will the fallout affect green data centers?  I don't think so, but the separate debates bear watching. In the United States, energy and energy pricing keeps popping up as a topic in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries. Relatively low-key and uncontroversial efforts by the Obama Administration to consolidate and eliminate data centers are overshadowed ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Energy Department   Doug Mohney

Is a data center green if it is the middle of the desert? by Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (Feb 28 2012)

The Green Grid has released a case study touting eBay's new green data center in Phoenix, Arizona. "Project Mercury" used a combination of PUE and total cost of ownership (TC) metrics to assess and optimize operations.  Average site eBay-reported PUE is 1.35 with a best-case PUE as low as 1.26 for measurements taken in January with a site load of 30 to 35 percent.   But is it ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Greenpeace   The Green Grid   Doug Mohney

North American/Iceland/European data center mindsets - Doug Mohney

Explore Views and Opinions on Green IT (Feb 22 2012)

Power is cheap and cooling is "free."  What's not to like about moving data center business to Iceland?  For American-based companies, there are some unique issues. The best way to think about it: Iceland is like Europe, only better. From the East Coast of the United States, Iceland provides a faster (lower latency) and MUCH cheaper (power) version of a data center in London -- but with lots of available ... (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Iceland   Europe   Verne Global