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  • tjcanning 6:17 pm on February 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    What is Sustainability? 

    I keep hearing about sustainability – so I just had to pony up $200 bucks and hit the San Jose Value-Based Sustainability event the other week. It was put on by the folks at Executive Council. Mind you – I am not a fan of any event that starts at 8:00 in San Jose – 101 or 280 at that time is not what I would classify as a “value-add ride” – but I did manage to get there in time to catch some key presentations. Who was there?  It was the heavy hitters of the fortune world – companies such as PG&E, Autodesk, SAP, Microsoft, IBM, Coca-Cola, UPS, 1E, Verdiem, EnerNOC, and Stirling Energy.

    What is Sustainability? If you are a Googler like me – the first place you go today is to Wikipedia for education. The Wikipedia folks will tells you that:

    Sustainable business, or green business, is enterprise that has no negative impact on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy—a business that strives to meet the triple bottom line. Often, sustainable businesses have progressive environmental and human rights policies. In general, business is described as green if it matches the following four criteria:

    1. It incorporates principles of sustainability into each of its business decisions.[1]

    2. It supplies environmentally friendly products or services that replaces demand for nongreen products and/or services.[1]

    3. It is greener than traditional competition.[1]

    4. It has made an enduring commitment to environmental principles in its business operations.[1]

    Ok cool. I am down with that. This was the theme that was echoed at this event. I did find some posting quotes from the event on a cool site called Conference Bites. Let me share a few:

    “Metrics are still the holy grail in this (sustainability) space.”
    ~ Libby Reder, Head of Environmental Initiatives, eBay

    “We…need to get value by extracting it out of information, rather than out of the ground.”
    ~ Kathrin Winkler, VP of Sustainability, EMC

    I had a chance to briefly chat with Libby and Kathrin – it’s always refreshing to meet folks who are leaders in their respective spaces and who are also real and fun to chat with.

    There was a strong take away that I had from this event – and it was embedded in both Libby’s and Kathrin’s quotes. What was it? It was the word “Metrics”. If you want to do anything in the enterprise these days – you absolutely need to associate a metric with it. A metric tell you if you are wining, failing or somewhere in between when it comes to delivering on an initiative. It separates reality from vision. It separates execution from planning. I am going to start to hone in on metrics in the next couple of blog posts.

    A metric is only a number… so why is everyone is scared of them?

     

  • tjcanning 6:29 pm on January 7, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Carol Baroudi, , , Green IT For Dummies, ,   

    Green IT for Dummies 

    Happy 2010!

    If you are the kind of person who makes New Year’s resolutions – maybe you are thinking about being a better “green” person within your organization? The thing is – for most folks – just what does this really mean?

    I’ve become a big fan of simplicity and transparency. Both in sales process, sales execution and sales training. If you are trying to train yourself in something new – start with the simple stuff first!Case in point – this book which I was fortunate enough to receive a copy of from Carol Baroudi who you may recognize from the Aberdeen Group. Carol is a Green and Sustainability consultant – so she lives and breathes this stuff!

    I’m not that big a reader to be honest. I’m more of a scanner – so this book is good if you want to quickly get a grasp of what Green IT is also about and maybe some thoughts on how to drive these initiates within your organization.

    Part 3 of the book is titled “Greening the Data Center” – so I would draw your attention to this section and chapters:

    • Chapter 7: Laying the Foundation for Green Data Management
    • Chapter 8: Maximizing Data Center Efficiency
    • Chapter 9: Racking up Green Servers
    • Chapter 10: Cooling your Data Center
    • Chapter 11 Building a Green Storage System
    • Chapter 12: Grooming the Network for Green
    • Chapter 13: Using Virtualization

    Wow – you can quickly get the big picture as you read through these chapters of all the different aspects of the data center that “green” can influence.

    Cooling is the biggest cost in the data center – so chapter 10 has a section in “Benchmarking your Cooling System’s Efficiency” where we start to get into The Green Grid and PUE calculations.  It’s easy reading – and the sections are not designed to tire you out which is good!

    For anyone who is new to the notion of  “Greening the Enterprise Data Center” – this is a great book to help you get started. If you want to pick up a copy – just google it and the usual sources show up.  Thanks Carol for getting the word out!

     

  • tjcanning 3:44 pm on November 12, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Data Center Hype Cycle. Where are you? 

    HypeCycleSCALED

    OK. I have been sitting on this graph in my WordPress account for awhile now. Time to unleash it to the world! I’m not sure if it helps frame the current state of enterprise adoption or if it ties to the new 2012 movie which follows the end of the world! I’m used to Gartner Group hype cycles. I used to follow them for the software infrastructure space, integration, web 2.0 and basically a lot of things. Are they accurate? Well it depends on your definition of accuracy and what established reference point you might want to use. They certainly make for some great discussion points with a customer.

    If we dig down on the graph – we see their are 5 phases as best described by my favorite site Wikipedia.

    A hype cycle in Gartner’s interpretation comprises five phases:

    1. “Technology Trigger” — The first phase of a hype cycle is the “technology trigger” or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest.
    2. “Peak of Inflated Expectations” — In the next phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications of a technology, but there are typically more failures.
    3. “Trough of Disillusionment” — Technologies enter the “trough of disillusionment” because they fail to meet expectations and quickly become unfashionable. Consequently, the press usually abandons the topic and the technology.
    4. “Slope of Enlightenment” — Although the press may have stopped covering the technology, some businesses continue through the “slope of enlightenment” and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the technology.
    5. “Plateau of Productivity” — A technology reaches the “plateau of productivity” as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The technology becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or benefits only a niche market.

    Now that we all have a general understanding of the hype cycle phases – let look at how Gartner applies the hype cycle to the data center space. Here we go…

    As you can see, this graph is titled ” Data Center Power and Cooling Technologies” and has a heavy concentration of data points on the first slope of the “technology trigger” phase. We also see that “cooling management” and “power monitoring and management software” occur somewhere at the “peak of inflation” or a little further down the curve. As blue dots – the adoption period to mainstream is 5-10 years for cooling management (Wow! -now that too me seems way to long) and the white dots for monitoring are in the <less than 2 years. This I like.

    Why? Gartner is always ahead of the customer. I know this. I have lived this. If, according to this hype cycle, “power monitoring” is <2 years, then enterprises need to be investigating product, building business cases, deploying POC projects and basically starting to embrace this new technology  (I guess I should have used the word solution here… but you know what I mean). Some are. Some aren’t. It takes time and resources to bring something new in, get it deployed and showing value to the various stakeholder groups. In some enterprises this can be a real pain. Again, I know this, I have lived this. But, for those that do, you are tracking very well with the above hype cycle timing. Also – to me it’s like the Fram oil filter commercial – “You can pay me now or pay me later!” Any product that can help save you money – what would you want to wait to start investigating it value for your organization?

    The cycle is here. The data center map has been defined. Where are you in adoption and willingness to embrace and accelerate? Not all environments are the same, but the goals of driving energy efficiency should be the same and we all need to get started in some form or fashion.

    Is the data center hype cycle like the 2012 Myon calendar?  The death of your data center? Or could it be the creation of a new, green, energy efficient data center that is monitored and saves you real $$$. Don’t wait till December 21st to find out – get started now!

     

  • tjcanning 12:59 am on October 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    SVLG Data Center Energy Summit – I was there! 

    svlgEverybody like a party right? Well I had the chance to attend the past SVLG event in Silicon Valley (where else?) hosted at the rocking NetApp campus. Nice digs! Super presenters and crowd.

    It was the Data Center Energy Summit and every seat in the room was taken and folks were even standing just to hear the “secret energy efficiency sauce” being shared!

    So how do you make sure everyone gets your message and knows who you are at an event like this? Esy – You go to BestBuy and purchase a massive 42″ LCD and have 12 Powerpoint slides that rotate very 5 seconds with simple messaging!

    You then make sure you are front stage of the event and just below a jumbo presentation screen. Wow – if you check my little picture with the red circle highlighted- I guess that is exactly what happened to me! Kinda like “The Perfect Storm” except everyone survives and comes home a hero!

    SVLG and NetApp did a bang up job for the event. Class act. Thanks everyone!

     

  • tjcanning 12:42 am on October 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Arch Rock, , , wireless sensors   

    Data Center Monitoring: A 2 minute Lesson 

    areo

    Let’s go quick, I’ve only got you for 2 minutes! From the hallways of the AFCOM Data Center World to the SVLG gymnasium of Netapp – the buzz is all about wireless sensors in the data center! It’s really about time that this technology got out and into the capable hands of every facilities or data center manager – I mean we measure everything else in the enterprise today – how can it possibly be that the data center’s excessive  energy consumption has gone on for so long without scrutiny. I scratch my head in wonder…

    Wireless sensors work really well to help folks quickly figure out their data center environments and bring sense to simple power and cooling challenges. The sensors are inexpensive, deployment is a snap ( hey Ma, look no wires!)  and the application is rich and intelligent. Rather than I try and explain this – let me cut/paste somethig an analyst wrote – very detailed but arther simplistic. I like it.

     

    How Energy Optimizer Works in the Data Center

    AREO-DC works by deploying wireless sensors to measure electrical, thermal, flow and pressure conditions on power circuits, server racks, computer-room air conditioners (CRACs) or air handlers (CRAHs), chillers and underneath the raised computer-room floor. The sensed data is then transmitted via wireless sensor networks to a graphical, multi-window dashboard that shows the electricity load (and associated utility rate-adjusted spend rate) of various equipment, electricity usage by physical or functional area over user-selected time intervals; temperature and humidity data from CRACs, CRAHs, server racks and chillers over time; chiller water-flow rates; “heat maps” superimposed on a floor plan; and key performance indicators such as the Green Grid organization’s Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) Level 3 standard.

    From the AREO-DC dashboard, users can drill down to specific data centers and specific racks within a data center, and bring up side-by-side views of various factors, such as energy usage vis-à-vis indoor and/or outdoor temperature. Alerts can be generated when heat- and energy-use thresholds or user-defined financial thresholds are exceeded.

     

    Now this my friends sounds like a winner. There is nothing wrong with saving money. Ask Jim Cramer if you don’t believe me.

     

  • tjcanning 2:57 pm on October 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Hydroelectricty: Dam it! 

    dam

    Just saw a posting that Aditi Justin wrote on VMware’s new data center. I know this is a second posting on Vmware, and even though it crashes on my mac at times, I am going to give them a second kudo’s and highlight this cool announcement. I grew up near a hydroelectric dam – so maybe it was the pic that really caught my eye.

    VMware, the global leader in virtualization solutions, announced the opening of a new green IT datacenter yesterday. Located in East Wenatchee, Washington, the new center will be developed using cutting-edge technology with special attention on maximizing the use of VMware virtualization software. The company is looking forward to attain an ambitions PUE figure and has entered the facility for a LEED Platinum certification by the US Green Building Council.

    The new data center is solely powered by hydroelectric energy and maximizes use of airside economization or free cooling. A hot- and cold-aisle containment is included in the design so that the air-handling equipment at the facility can be further optimized. It is estimated that expects airside economizers will bring down the air-conditioning usage by 50-75 percent. The company’s projects, which reduce the power consumption due to shorter air-compressor runtimes, will save $500,000 annually.

    Very cool. Very hip.

     

  • tjcanning 5:43 pm on September 25, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    The 4 Minute Data Center. VMworld 2009 

    These video’s are always cool! I had a pass to attend but unfortunately was so busy I could not make it down there. I am sure I missed meeting some interesting folks and of course old friends. Next year.

    And oh ya, it will only be a 3 minute video next year due to Moore’s law.

     

  • tjcanning 9:16 am on September 18, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    Dear Data Center, The MAN is Coming! 

    This blog is going heavy metal today! Warning: Stop reading now if you are not a metal fan! I have to post this as I thought it just fit so well. Let me explain…

    I had just finished reading a Mike Manos post on the fact the ‘MAN’ is coming…

    “Data center managers might not understand that once the legislation passes, in whichever form, they’ll be a significant contributor to carbon emissions and will fall under reporting requirements,” says Mike Manos, senior vice president of technical services at Digital Realty Trust, “I don’t think many data center managers see that coming or are aware of that.”

    Excellent post Mike! I see this an accelerator for data center optimization and the need for Facilities and IT to take action. Right? So just after reading this – I ended up going for a quick run to burn off some steam. I load my ipod shuffle from about 50gb of euro rock metal house music to help me run.. Low and behold – a 1996 Motorhead tune called “Broken” comes on and as I listen to the lyrics – it’s like a perfect match to the thoughts I have on Mike’s post! Check this out:

    You don’t know the trouble you’re in
    Linvin’ in paradise, livin’ in sin
    You better watch out baby one of these days
    Another man coming gonna change your ways

    Broken, broken truth must be spoken
    Can we be responsible, is someone keeping score
    Broken, broken when all guns are smoking
    Do you want to die then, according to the law
    Sunshine, moonshine, fire & flood
    Death come hungry to your neighbourhood
    You better watch out baby, one of these nights
    Somebody coming to shoot out your lights

    You can google the rest of the words but they really ring true to how most data centers are running today. Broken! Everyone is living in paradise without a care in the world for efficiency because no one is watching the hen house! Well this living in sin might come to an end if the Waxman-Markey energy cap-and-trade bill passes! Why?

    “But when these initiatives pass, you’ll find yourself in a situation where you’re not structured for reporting or efficiency because facilities doesn’t get what you can do from a technology point to optimize the data center, and the data center managers don’t see power bills to understand where they’ll have to go to meet their energy use targets,” he adds.

    Wow! This sounds like a SOX compliance/governance wave all over again!  I love regulations. It makes customers take action and it allow vendors to solve problems and make customer happy. Its a win-win!

    Now that is music to my ears!

     

  • tjcanning 5:07 pm on September 1, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    It’s Costs Money to Be Cool! 

    NVIDIAdatacenterenergycosts

    Just came across the graphic which I thought was a great visual to show the cost break down in the dc. Cooling costs are approximately 40% for this customer – Nvidia. This is real. 40% is a big number – Maybe time to check out ASHRAE and start saving money?

     

  • tjcanning 1:28 am on August 28, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Data Center Efficiency: Facilities Wins! 

    poll

    The results are in and Facilities won! Congratulations!

    So here is the deal – if you are going into the Green IT space, specifically data center, it appears that Facilities and following the almighty dollar (Hello Mr. CFO in 2nd place) is the place to focus. My little twtpoll experiment – using the notion of crowd-sourcing and seeking the wisdom of the audience – would lead us to believe that Facilities at 41% and the CFO at 27% are the folks that really care about energy efficiency in the data center. Do you agree? Do I agree?

    Well, I have  to say that over the past few weeks I’ve been reaching out to folks, at different levels and across different types of organizations. Hey – maybe you’re reading this and you gotten a vm from me! Ha – gotta love pure 100% cold calling! Ask me if I like pain? Well – it’s not that tough when you remember that:

    Hey – this is my planet too! So if you guys want to waste energy – then I got an issue and you need to hear me out!

    Back to the poll… Greening the data center is definitely new for some folks. And for some – new things represent a big challenge. I had an interesting conversation the other day with a energy expert at a big organization (sorry – I don’t drop names) and he was quick to validate the diferent “rate of change” that IT and Facilities live in. If you’re in IT – it’s all about server refresh, get faster stuff, make stuff smaller, add more blinking lights to stuff and basically everyone lives and embraces “change”. It’s like a hit of acid. Compare that to Facilities and it’s like “what really changes there?” Not so much right? It’s not like I want to rip and replace CRAH’s every 6 months, I can’t virtualize jack so I’m missing that fun, my chiller just makes alot of noise and weighs 8 tons – so I ain’t touching that! So, it’s a change and a challenge to all of a sudden drop this whole “Green Data Center” on the lap of Facilities and expect that everyone is willing to embrace the notion and action it immediately in their environment. The folks that can and do – Hats off! The folks that haven’t quite engaged – maybe experiment with small steps?  Based on the poll – we know you care!

    Question – what happened to IT in this poll? 1 lousy vote?  Comments please!

     

  • tjcanning 3:44 pm on August 19, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags:   

    Inside the Goggle Data Center 

    Now this is a cool. Need I say more?

     

  • tjcanning 9:32 am on August 9, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: American Data Center, , , ,   

    The American Data Center Contest! 

    contestIf you think you’ve got the right stuff – then I am extending an open invitation to participate in this season’s “American Data Center” contest! I’m sure everyone is familiar with American Idol, so in a similar fashion, I am looking for the most wannabe energy conscious enterprise data center to step forward and take stage!

    Call me crazy, but let me describe the contest. I don’t think anything like this has ever done before, but then again, if you told me 5 years ago I would be tweeting 140 characters – I would of called you crazy!

    Contest Details:

    • Goal: Find the best candidate enterprise data center and team for a real world energy usage pilot
    • The Rules: You need to be serious about saving energy and have a enterprise data center that could use some efficiency gains
    • The Challenge: Be willing to instrument your data center and collect power and cooling data with non-invasive sensors
    • My Commitment: I’ll invest the time, instrumentation, and energy savings expertise to make you a corporate rock star!
    • Your Commitment: Your time, data center and current energy challenges. Maybe ASHRAE has you thinking?
    • The Fear: You are going to measure real power, cooling and gain visibility into your data center environment. Measurement creates fear in some people. It’s like stage fright. You’ll need to overcome this initial fear and be adventuresome. You also need to like math – since we’re going to be doing some calculations!
    • The Reward: Visibility and real data that you can action and use to increase your power efficiency. That means “YOU WILL SAVE MONEY!!!”
    • Sign Up: Contact me on Linkedin or send an email to discuss further. (both are listed in the top RHS of my blog too)

    Super Stars Only!

    If you are real serious and have the interest, then I’d like to explore adding a twist of social media to this contest. I do understand enterprise constraints concerning PID’s, NDA’s etc – but if you could share some basic findings or general best practices – this would be helpful to others. Enterprises need good examples and stories to sell upper management. As an example, imagine a YouTube channel that hosts a weekly 1-2 minute video on what we are doing, experiencing and learning. Nothing complicated, raw format that just shares our adventure. Remember – this is about something good – saving energy and letting others know that there are things they can do in their data center. Good PR and good corporate thought leadership is what I am talking about!

    Btw…the interaction and relationship between customer/vendor is changing. If you follow Social Media, Enterprise 2.0 or Sales 2.0 – collaboration and transparency are the new trends to adopt. This contest represents a step in that direction and I hope you appreciate my approach in looking for a great data center candidate to work with.

    Reach me directly to discuss further!

     

  • tjcanning 5:21 pm on August 6, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    dilbert

    The Lighter Side of Data Center Cooling…

    This is classic. If Dilbert is writing about data center cooling and the melting down of data centers – then I hope a lot of folks start to understand the seriousness of saving energy in their data centers! Data Center efficiency should be fun. Get started making a change!

     

  • tjcanning 8:38 am on August 3, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: CFO, CIO, , ,   

    Who Cares About Data Center Efficiency? 

    pollThis the question I ask and it shall be the community that helps answer this question! I thought it might be interesting to see what views the folks in twitter universe have on this topic. Seems like there is a lot of talk these days around data center energy savings – but talk is cheap. Who really cares and who can take action? Let’s go to the people and find out!

    I’m using Twtpoll for this exercise. It’s a cool little on-line twitter poll application that shows up branded (just like my twitter profile). You can cast your vote and also view results at http://twtpoll.com/jr3ddd

    It’s going to run for a week and then we’ll see what new insights we have on this topic. Feel free to re-tweet …enjoy!

     

  • tjcanning 1:03 pm on July 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    ASHRAE_Extended_Environmental_Envelope_Final_Aug_1_2008-1-1

    ASHRAE. Enjoy Summer.

    If you thought your data center was just as cold as San Francisco in the summer, that might just be about to change. ASHRAE, which stands for “The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers” has some new recommendations for all you cost conscious data center folks!

    “It’s ok to run a little warmer! I say, it’s ok to run a little warmer!!”

    Every data center I have ever been in has been cold, noisy, and pretty much a place to get software installed, hardware plugged in, and then get the heck out of there and have the rest of the meeting where it is warm and quiet. ASHRAE is a game changer and causing lots of interesting articles to pop up all over the place.

    So what do you need to know about ASHRAE?

    The inlet air temp range has been updated to reflect modern times. From ASHRAE’s 2008 Extended Environment Envelope document Page 1. Here’s the deal:

    These recommended conditions as well as the allowable conditions refer to the inlet air entering the datacom equipment. Specifically it lists for data centers in the ASHRAE classes 1 and 2, a recommended environment range of 20 to 25 degrees C and a relative humidity (RH) range of 40-55%

    Basically – you don’t need to freeze the data center like an ice cube anymore and you can start to evaluate a higher operating environment. It does not mean you go change all the set points over night and start cooking everything like a Weatherford fired BBQ. Naw.. you need ot be able to understand what effect these neds ranges will have and be able to plan accordingly if you plan to adopt these new recommendations. Things to consider:

    • What is my current baseline?
    • How can I measure it if I don’t?
    • How can I visualize the effects of increased temperature?
    • How do I ensure I don’t create hot spots
    • How can I adjust/refine set points to optimize?
    • Can I associate changes to OpEx expenses and show an ROI?

    It’s like a new opportunity is present with ASHRAE to determine and define a new operating environment that your data center can safely operate in, and but reducing the draws on cooling – be able to save money in the process. Makes sense to me. Of course, raising inlet temp, and based on delta T, the idea is not to be cooking the hot aisle beyond control or containment. You still need to be able to have humans survive a trip or perform work  in the data center. ASHRAE does not apply to humans.

    Are you a fan of ASHRAE’s new recommendations? Have you taken any action to realize an ROI based on these new ranges?

    Tom
    Fan of ASHRAE

     

    • vburke 8:26 pm on August 16, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Spot on on the human factor of the hot aisle, especially if you’ve got great hot aisle containment.

      Vern

  • tjcanning 7:50 am on July 27, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , Green Grid,   

    pueGot PUE?

    You would think this is easy to figure out right?

    But, how come I only see major enterprises promoting their PUE? I mean we always see PUE (and it’s inverse cousin DCiE) being compared to MPG in green presentations – and every car manufacturer and individual seems to have an appreciation and understanding of MPG – so where are all the enterprise when it comes to understanding their PUE?

    Check Grid Grid for the definition and we’ve got the cool chart on the left and it looks pretty simple. Just get your numbers and do the math!!! I mean the math is simple right?

    Oh… Now I see where the problem lies… getting the numbers?

    From the Metrics and Measurements page you can get a quick definition or rather purpose of PUE:

    The Green Grid proposed the use of Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and its reciprocal, Data Center Efficiency (DCE) metrics, which enable data center operators to quickly estimate the energy efficiency of their data centers, compare the results against other data centers, and determine if any energy efficiency improvements need to be made.

    If I dust off my old Electrical Engineering books:

    Power = Voltage x Current

    Wow – this simple right? Nope. For a lot of data centers – there still remains a lot of mystery surrounding power visibility and consumption. How do you measure and how do you aggregate across all the different data center assets (and across different vendors, console, meters etc) so you can get a picture of what the heck is going on. Don’t get me wrong – if you have a state of the art, one vendor solution – you might some luxuries that most enterprise data centers don’t – but for the average data center environment – it’s probably a big challenge. What’s happening at the rack or circuit level still remains a buried treasure. If you’re reading this and you agree – drop me a comment. Validation is a good thing!

    Confession. I use Twitter. How shocking in this day of social media! My user name is PUE_DCiE. You can check me out at http://twitter.com/PUE_DCiE. I though it would be good to share just what that user name was geared towards. Thanks Green Grid for creating this definition! Now I have a cool user name.

     

  • tjcanning 5:23 am on July 26, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , ,   

    090618-forrester-big

    Green IT 1.0 – Adopt Today!

    So, I did not invent the chart of the left – I have to thank the smart folks at Forrester Research who obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this. When I first saw it posted on Greener Computing, I thought I was looking at a traditional Gartner Group Hype Cycle and was in shock -

    “OMG! Has hype already hit Green IT?”

    Thankfully – this chart is an “Ecosystem Phase” chart (although is it really that much different than a hype cycle I ask?).

    It shows the evolution of IT technologies (which I will refer to as “Services”) from the phases of “creation > survival > growth > equilibrium > decline”. According to the post, Green 1.0 Technologies refers to IT infrastructure – so the list pretty much makes sense and should ring a bell with all of us.

    Green IT 1.0 Services

    • 10 GbE (10 gigabit per second Ethernet)
    • Clean energy to power data centers
    • Client virtualization
    • Cloud computing services
    • Data center outsourcing and colocation services
    • IT asset disposal and recycling services
    • IT energy measurement
    • Localized cooling
    • Managed printing services
    • PC power management software
    • Server power management software
    • Server virtualization
    • Solid-state disk (SSD)
    • Storage capacity optimization
    • Thin clients

    Wow! So, if you’re a top notch, on-the-ball IT person – you’ve now got a lot of things to be thinking and worried about! Life is not so simple any more – if you decide to actually engage in helping understand and optimize these services within your IT infrastructure. The question I ask is,

    “Where the heck do you start?”

    Any time I have seen a new technology or evolution (or sometimes revolution!) occur within an organization, it is by some smart and ambitious early adopter who decides to champion a cause that they believe will help the organization. Most times – he/she does this on their own time and by pure passion. With so many Green IT 1.0 Services – does this theory still hold water? Or does senior management need to stand behind IT and be supportive of the time it takes to investigate these proposed services?

    With so much focus on Corporate Sustainability, Green IT,  Green *.*, PUE and other flag waving initiatives – I really hope that IT folks are given the  extra cycles and rewards to spend the time it takes to explore and evaluate Green 1.0 Services.

    After all, Green IT 2.0 is just around the corner…

    The full report, “TechRadar For I&O Professionals: Green IT 1.0 Technologies, Q2 2009″ is available for purchase from Forrester Research.

    Add Comment
     

  • tjcanning 11:29 am on July 15, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    37454602Green IT. It Starts With Research.

    Time to go back to school and get up to speed on the current state of Green IT. I’m very curious about the current state of mind of  “Green Data Center Professionals”. After Goggling around a bit, I came across John Lamb’s book titled “The Greening of IT” and though this would be a good topic for my second blog post. Just so you know – this blog is NOT going to be a book review site – but this book does serves well as a soft introduction to helping both myself and IT folks get started.

    Why do I like this book? I haven’t even read it yet – but I liked the quick on-line description. If you read “Greening Your IT, for newbies and Experts” it provides a nice intro to the book and it was this walk through that got me thinking. Thanks to Matthew Wheeland for that post. I have picked up the book and it is currently queued for my reading.

    Getting started on anything is always easier if you have a plan or map right? Greening the data center shouldn’t be any different. But it’s new, maybe not everyone is on board and the first few steps might take someone who we refer to as ‘an early adopter” to get things rolling. Reminds me of the early software infrastructure days. I lived through those times  as IT moved to J2EE app servers, service oriented architects promoted the value of re-usable web services and those early adopters became the early transformers (sorry, nothing to do with the movie!) of the organizations. They took small departmental steps to help realize the value of their efforts which would scale and have an overall corporate impact. Sounds like the same could apply to realizing data center efficiencies as we test out a single cold aisle containment, or a fine grained measurement of a single rack for power and thermal usage. Those single tests and benefits could scale out and have a tremendous corporate impact on the bottom line. Ask anyone looking to sign off on any project today – and it has to impact the bottom line!

    Simple steps are key today in any complex process. SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) proved that real quickly. Maybe we can learn from that process as we investigate Green IT.

    As mentioned by John Lamb in the above post – the process of “Greening IT” should be broken up into some simple and measurable steps:

    • Get educated – Goggle “Green IT”
    • Communicate internally – Get executive sponsorship
    • Baseline – Know where you are today
    • Plan – Map out server consolidation/chiller analysis/temp increase tasks

    I get this plan. It is simple. You can measure it and gain support for it internally. But how many folks are actively doing this today?

    This is the magic question I hope to answer over time!

     

  • tjcanning 12:52 am on June 18, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    community-globeCSR. Getting started…

    Welcome to my first blog post. CSR is a key topic topic these days. According to wikipedia – CSR is defined as

    Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), also known as corporate responsibility, corporate citizenship, responsible business, sustainable responsible business (SRB), or corporate social performance,[1] is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. Ideally, CSR policy would function as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business would monitor and ensure their adherence to law, ethical standards, and international norms. Business would embrace responsibility for the impact of their activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere. Furthermore, business would proactively promote the public interest by encouraging community growth and development, and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of legality. Essentially, CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision-making, and the honoring of a triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profit.

    CSR applies to the data center as helping green the data center definitely affects the bottom line. Power and HVAC requirements for any enterprise data center need to be visualized and analyzed as part of the overall corp sustainability initiatives. More to follow shortly…

     

    • euandus3 9:43 pm on October 25, 2009 Permalink | Reply

      Interesting post. I wonder whether companies don’t use CSR as window-dressing…when it is convenient for them. Hence I think the movement should not be a substitute for government regulation. I write about this at: thhttp://euandus3.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/corporate-social-responsibility/

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