April 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Blossoming Green Grid to hold first technical summit
With its first technical summit just over a week away, The Green Grid now boasts a rather well-rounded lineup of IT players, having added new storage vendors, networking companies, and heavy tech-using companies.
A consortium of companies and individuals seeking to lower overall power consumption in data centers, The Green Grid announced today that its ranks have swelled to 39 members since the group was formally announced in February. The 28 new members, which include heavy-hitters such as Cisco, Brocade, Juniper, and Novell, as well as large technology consumers, such as BT (British Telecom), should contribute valuable mindshare when members convene in Denver on April 18 and 19 for the group's first technical summit.
According to The Green Grid, the summit is intended to give the group's technical committee an opportunity to further define technical objectives addressing three key areas: definition and measurement of data-center efficiency; guidance for data-center owners and managers making decisions pertaining to datacenter architecture and planning; and guidance for data-center owners and managers looking to improve energy efficiency during day-to-day operations.
"This inaugural technical summit signals the swift pace with which The Green Grid is moving to further define our technical objectives for 2007 and beyond," said Bruce Shaw, director of The Green Grid and director of worldwide commercial and enterprise marketing at AMD. "Participation from the industry's leading data center efficiency experts will ensure our continued progress in helping the industry achieve greater data center energy efficiency."
"This is where the meat of the Green Grid's work will take place," noted Green Grid director Mark Monroe, director of sustainable computing at Sun.
Having representation from networking, storage, and end-user companies is essential for the group to meets its goals. From the get-go, the group has wanted to tackle the question of measuring energy-consumption in the data center holistically -- from power supplies to processors to servers to cooling to storage to networking gear to applications -- rather than in a piece-meal fashion. "You can optimize any one piece of puzzle and still have only a suboptimal solution," said Green Grid Director Larry Lamers, senior engineering manager at VMware.
Among storage vendors now on The Green Grid roster is Copan Systems. Roger Archibald, the company's vice president of business development, noted that while much of the focus of data-center energy consumption is directed at server usage, storage devices play a major role, sucking up as much as 38% of the power. And storage will continue to take its toll as companies face a data explosion, thanks to regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley.
The addition of end-user companies like BT also plays a critical role, according to Sun's Monroe. "Having end-user organizations as part of the Green Grid helps us to keep the IT companies in line in terms of the defining useful measurements [for users]," he said. "We can come up with great ideas of what we want the measure to be, but they'll tell us which will be the most valuable, so we know we're not barking up the wrong tree."
Following is a list of all 28 new members of The Green Grid: 1E, 365 Main, Active Power, Affiniti, Aperture, Azul Systems, BT, Brocade Communications, Chatsworth, Cherokee International, Cisco, Coldwatt, Copan Systems, Digital Realty Trust, Eaton, Force10 Networks, Juniper Networks, Netezza, Novell, Pillar Data Systems, Panduit, QLogic, Rackspace, SGI, SatCon Stationary Power Systems, Texas Instruments, The 451 Group, and Vossel Solution.
Founding companies of the group include AMD, APC, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Rackable Systems, SprayCool, Sun, and VMware.
The Green Grid's technical committee summit takes place on April 18 and 19 in Denver, and it's open to all contributing members of the consortium-- even those who have yet to join. Contributing membership costs $25,000. More information is available at The Green Grid Web site at thegreengrid.org.
Posted by Ted Samson on April 10, 2007 01:17 PM
April 09, 2007 | Comments: (0)
I try to focus on one color in this blog, and that's green. Shades of green, actually, both of the monetary and environmental persuasion. But I'm not out to let my political hues -- red nor blue -- shine through -- at least not too much.
But I think the beauty of the topic of sustainable IT -- developing a more energy-efficient business model through cleaner technologies and practices -- is it can appeal to both sides of the political fence: Going green, to me, is about strengthening your business through short- and long-term investment in and planning for cleaner, waste-reducing, money-saving technology. That's good for the U.S. economy, and it helps out Mother Nature along the way.
I raise this issue because California Senator Barbara Boxer (a Democrat) criticized President George W. Bush (a Republican) today for his not wanting the government to regulate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which have been linked with global warming.
The president has argued that applying regulations to GHGs emissions would put U.S. businesses as a disadvantage as they compete with growing economic superpowers such as India and China. He told reporters last week that "[reducing GHGs is] going to require new technologies, which tend to be expensive, and it's easier to afford expensive technologies if you're prosperous."
According to the LA Times, he also said that "China and India must join the global warming fight. Unless there is an accord with China. … China will produce greenhouse gases that will offset anything we do in a brief period of time."
Boxer had this to say today at an AMD event: "Since when does any [U.S.] president look to China for environmental leadership? We can't wait for China. We have to be the moral leaders on this."
Of course, these are both merely sound-bytes, but my assessment is, they, and other politicians on both sides of the aisle, are missing the bigger picture here, likely in the name of partisan politics.
To the president and those that agree with his stance, I say this: If regulating GHGs is an overall positive move, yet the prices of energy-saving, cleaner technology are too high, help level the playing field (as investors and business have suggested) with incentives and funding for research and development. Think of it as investment in the future of economy as well as the environment, both of which we're dependent on.
As to the argument that cleaning up our act, so to speak, with GHG regulations wouldn't make a difference because China and India aren't curbing their pollution: Well, the obvious reply is, "Two wrongs don't make a right." And I'm not talking about a moral "wrong" here, either, Senator Boxer. While I agree that being intentionally wasteful and destructive is morally wrong, I think most businesses, as well as the nation as a whole, is less-than-green by circumstance, not because we hate trees and clean air and lizards.
The problem is, we've built up an economy that's mostly dependent on fossil fuels, and the reality is, it's a tough and potentially costly habit to break, no matter how much the most well-meaning yet cash-strapped CEO might want to. (That's not to say that some business leaders out there don't intentionally disregard environmental law for the sake of a buck; certainly they do.)
The reality, though, is that we do need to break free of this carbon-dependent economy of ours, because the current model isn't working. And sticking to a bad plan just because a competitor is doing it (e.g. India and China) strikes me as short-sighted. Wouldn't it make more sense to sow the seeds for a cleaner-technology-based economy and address today's power concerns before they blossom into tomorrow's power crises? And a power crisis would surely put us at a severe disadvantage against the likes of China and India, whereas being world leaders of clean technology innovation could push us ahead of the pack.
Taking the more unfamiliar greener path isn't easy, especially if you have one person shoving you from behind and telling you to hurry up -- even though the path is hazy and you lack the rations to move so fast; meanwhile someone else is telling you that if you take another step, you're bound to fall off a cliff -- even if the cliff is really 20 feet away and easy enough to avoid, with some planning.
But I know there has to be a way for the U.S. government to help us kick, or severely cut down on, the fossil-fuel habit, with some cooperation and intelligent planning. So if the shovers would stop rushing us and the naysayers would stop scaring us, perhaps they might develop a map that safely, yet relatively swiftly, guides us to the destination we surely all want to reach: becoming a stronger, world-leading, sustainable economy that doesn't have worry about where the next kilowatt, or breath of fresh air, will come from.
And you know, ever if the government can't get its act together to help invest in and plan what I truly believe is a common and necessary goal, it's at least good to see that businesses and as well as individuals are working on their own to get us someplace greener.
Posted by Ted Samson on April 9, 2007 04:19 PM
April 05, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Supes' ruling on car emissions could impact IT
If the promise of lower energy bills isn't incentive enough for you to explore ways to consolidate your datacenter and cut energy consumption, perhaps the threat of federal regulations on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions will be.
As you've likely heard, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that under the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does have the power to regulate GHGs such as carbon dioxide, associated with climate change. In other words, GHGs are pollutants that should be dealt with. (Notably, the Supreme Court didn't say the EPA has to do anything about them -- yet.)
Although the case focused on the auto industry, a significant producer of GHGs (vehicles alone accounted for 33 percent of the U.S.'s 2005 CO2 emissions according to the EPA), the ruling likely will affect the EPA's approach to the regulation of other significant sources. "[T]he Supreme Court's Mass v EPA ruling makes it abundantly clear that we are in a carbon constrained world. Companies that fail to prepare will be severely disadvantaged," said Josh Margolis, managing director at CantorCO2e, a global environmental brokerage firm.
Those companies could include IT organizations. There's growing awareness that enormous, energy-hungry datacenters not only gobble up a lot of power but emit GHGs as well.
The EPA is already in the process of scrutinizing energy consumption of server hardware, per the direction of Congress. Measuring energy efficiency of servers, however, remains a challenge, which is why groups such as The Green Grid are tackling the conundrum as well.
Although countries such as the United Kingdom have already laid out plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, lawyers have opined that we won't see changes made overnight here in the U.S. -- but it's going to happen. "The consequence of this will be to create pressure to get federal legislation that is coherent and comprehensive, and most importantly targeted to the emission of greenhouse gasses and the problems related to climate change," environmental lawyer Kevin Healy told the AFP.
The federal government isn't just feeling pressure from the Supreme Court, environmental groups, and ally countries to address greenhouse gas emissions. A consortium of major companies and influential investors recently issued a "Climate Call to Action" to the Feds, urging lawmakers to enact strong federal legislation to curb the pollution causing global climate change.
My advice: Get on board the Green Express now and start exploring ways to reduce your energy consumption, while there are not only clear long-term cost savings and incentives to be had, but also precious time to develop a sustainable IT strategy. Better that than rushing in recklessly after federal regulations inevitably kick in.
Posted by Ted Samson on April 5, 2007 03:34 PM
