October 20, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Microsoft to trim Windows bloat for 2010
I continue to be interested in how app and OS code plays in to the energy-efficiency equation. What it seems to boil down to is, the smaller the application footprint, and thus the less memory and CPU power it needs, the lower the power requirements of the hardware.
With features such as the Aero UI, Microsoft Vista has been deemed a pretty hardware-intensive OS, especially if users want to reap every shiny bell and whistle it has to offer. I was thus interested by an IDGNS article from the other day about Microsoft's plan to slim down the Windows kernel.
Microsoft's Distinguished Engineer Eric Traut had this to say about Windows: "A lot of people think of Windows as this large, bloated operating system, and that's maybe a fair characterization, I have to admit," Traut said. "But at its core, the kernel, and the components that make up the very core of the operating system, is actually pretty streamlined."
The company has created a beta version of the OS, called MinWin, which will be a part of Windows 7, and which lacks a GUI. According to the IDGNS report, MinWin "takes up just 25MB when stored on disk, compared to the massive 4GB the full Windows Vista OS needs."
Given the focus companies have on energy efficiency these days, it makes perfect sense for MS to put the kernel -- as well as its other OS offerings -- on diets.
Posted by Ted Samson on October 20, 2007 04:16 PM
May 31, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Dell vague on Vista-friendliness of its Energy Star 4.0 PCs
Dell offers OptiPlex variants that meet the new standard and run Vista -- but which ones and how well?
Ever since HP announced its Energy Star 4.0 PCs earlier this year, I've wondered if any hardware vendor out there would be able to produce a business-worthy ES 4.0-compliant system not just simply capable of running Windows Vista -- but running it well.
Currently, HP's ES 4.0-configured systems just ship with XP -- even though the company "recommends Vista" all over the PC-sales areas of its Web site. When I spoke to the company about that last March, they basically told me that they hadn't devised a way to design a system that good meet Vista's system requirements and user needs while still meeting the wattage limits to bear the Energy Star 4.0 distinction. (Higher-end components such as processors and cards boost a system's energy consumption, even when it's in sleep mode.)
Now Dell announced this week a set of PCs that are Energy Star 4.0-compliant, the OptiPlex 740 and 745. The company touts the systems' included 80-percent-efficient power supplies, as well as their pre-installed Dell Energy Smart Power Management Settings. "Configured with flat panel monitors, these systems can help customers save up to 77 percent in power consumption compared to previous generation systems when combined with Energy Smart power settings," the company says.
Moreover, Dell notes that the system's chassis is "designed specifically for thermal effectiveness, maximizing the OptiPlex's internal fan's performance."
OK, that's great, right? (Right.) But suppose you head over to the OptiPlex page of Dell's Web site in the hopes of ordering one of these lean, green machines. You'll see that, lo, you have the option of ordering a system installed with either XP or Vista. But right below that bit of information, it says that "Select configurations meet Energy Star 4.0 requirements."
Well, good luck in figuring out which configurations that includes. Suppose you have your heart set on Vista. Once you click the "Customize with Windows Vista" button, you're taken to a screen where you can pick and choose your OS (one of three flavors of Vista: Home, Business, and Ultimate); processor; memory; optical device; video card; and so forth.
But after tinkering with a couple of configurations, choosing both the lowest-end option that would meet the bare-bones Vista requirements (more on that in a moment) as well as a higher-end configuration that would certainly run Vista and Aero, it wasn't clear whether or not I'd ended up with a system compliant with ES 4.0.
Now surely that low-end configuration could technically run Vista, but would it run well enough to be of any use? According to Microsoft, all you need for reaping "good" Vista performance is 512MB of RAM, an "integrated or discrete graphics memory," and at least 15GB of free hard drive space. But with that, you can't run Aero, and the company says that OS configuration is "great for booting the operating system -- without running applications or games." I’d wager most companies would prefer an OS that does more than just boot up.
The next level is of Vista performance is "better," which in Vista parlance means you can run basic applications, and Aero is enabled by default. The minimum requirements there: at least a 1GHZ processor, a 128MB graphics card, 1GB of RAM, and a 40GB hard drive -- but with that setup, Microsoft says that Aero performance will suffer if you open too many apps or run your system in dual-monitor mode.
Now, as I said, HP hasn't found a way to meet these Vista requirements in an ES 4.0 configuration -- at least one that it wants to offer business and consumers. And I sure would love to know whether Dell has managed the feat. I suspect people and companies that want or actually are required to purchase Energy Star 4.0-compliant systems would like to know what their options truly are.
But alas, I've been asking the company since yesterday morning for a chance to talk to someone and to get more information, yet no one at Dell seems available to speak with me, for some reason. Maybe I've been blacklisted because I wasn't sufficiently impressed with the company's "Plant a Tree for Me" program?
Posted by Ted Samson on May 31, 2007 04:04 PM
May 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Less power hungry than their PC peers, thin clients are garnering greater attention for their green advantages
Verizon CIO John Hinshaw confirmed a juicy green nugget of data in a recent interview: He said the wireless giant has reduced energy consumption by 30% since replacing PCs with Sun Ray thin clients in the company's call centers.
That will translate to a savings of $1 million per year for Verizon, once the company rolls out thin clients (or some "desktop-less" variants) in its remaining data centers.
"Power consumption is more of a hot topic in the U.S. than it has ever been," says Klaus Besier, president and CEO of thin-client vendor Neoware. "What we see with many more customers today is when they look at thin clients, they're taking more into account power consumption and [related] savings."
With their relatively lower energy requirements compared to PCs -- not to mention other eco-advantages like longer lifespan and smaller form factor with fewer parts -- thin clients are worthy of some serious consideration from companies.
Or perhaps I should say "reconsideration." Thin clients, after all, certainly aren't new, and advantages such as easier administration (fewer admin visits to users' desks) and improved security (data's stored remotely) are pretty well recognized. But thin clients continue to mature, as do the essential technologies that make them all the more viable. That includes virtualization (as InfoWorld Chief Technologist Tom Yager has noted), Wi-Fi, embedded OSes, and software as a service.
Thin, trim, and healthy
Combine all those technologies with the very real concerns over power shortages, high energy bills, and global climate change, and it's no surprise that IDC foresees steady 20%-plus year-over-year growth in the thin-client space, with shipments expected to reach 7.3 million in 2011.
"We're expecting positive growth for thin clients based on all the factors you've laid out [i.e. advances of virtualization and 10G, and growing concern about power consumption], as well as ongoing concerns about security and PC management costs," says Bob O'Donnell, program vice president for clients and displays at IDC.
Neoware asserts that companies can save as much as 90% on desktop-computing energy costs by swapping out PCs for thin clients -- depending on what models of hardware you're extracting or implementing, of course. But as an example, a desktop PC consumes as much as 280 watts of power in the amount of time that the high-end Neoware e140 burns up 48. So a company with 1,000 desktops would be spending about $62,000 yearly on power (based on the national KWH rate of $0.0849.), compared to around $10,500 for the clients, according to NeoWare. Savings: Around 50 grand a year per one thousand systems.
For the visually-oriented, here's a chart provided by thin-client vendor Wyse, comparing energy consumption of some of its thin-clients to various PC configurations:
Of course, when you install thin clients, you need servers in the server room to act as their brains. But those power savings are still significant, as noted in a recent report titled "Environmental comparison of PC and thin client equipment" by the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. "Consumption is at least twice as low, sometimes three or four times lower than the consumption of corresponding PC systems. This applies even with the proportionate offsetting of the energy required by the server and the cooling power required for this," the report says.
Lower energy consumption is one of the clear eco- and monetary benefits. Another green-oriented cost advantage: the life-expectancy of a thin client, compared to a PC. "Thin clients don't need to be upgraded frequently. With thin clients, an OS release does not cause an upgrade to the client, only to the server -- resulting in far less e-waste, since the client can continue to be used longer," says Subodh Bapat, vice president and distinguished engineer for Sun's System Level Energy Strategy, which offers a range of Sun Ray thin clients. "Upgrade cycles of eight to 10 years are common in the thin-client world, as opposed to three to fours years for PCs, with corresponding benefits to the environment in terms of less e-waste."
Speaking of e-waste, Neoware's Besier adds that "Without moving parts, such as a fan or disk drive ... thin clients help companies meet their sustainability targets by eliminating much of the overhead associated with computing."
According to the Fraunhofer study, thin clients also hold a form-factor advntage over PCs, making them less expensive to ship: "They are only 35-40% of the weight of a PC and only take up 19-30% of the volume."
Not just about the green
Green issues aren't the only drivers for thin-client adoption. Jeff McNaught, chief marketing office at Wyse, opines that the new and improved Terminal Services features forthcoming in Windows Server 2008 (i.e. the platform formerly known as Longorn) will be a boon a Windows shops running thin clients.
In a simiar vein, Travid Brown, product manager for thin client solutions at HP, credits Windows XP Embedded for more acceptance of thin clients. "Microsoft has come a long way in developing XP Embedded It's the same binary as XP Pro ... and the thin-client experience now looks very much like the desktop experience. It's a lot better than it was a couple of years ago."
Another boon for thin clients: the shift toward 64-bit computing, by companies like Microsoft and Citrix, will spur adoption by sweetening the TCO pot. "Instead 125 users, you can have 250, 300 users on that server, just by changing the software. That has changed the cost equation," says McNaught
Moreover, McNaught says that company's in 2006 had been waiting to gauge VMware's success on the desktop virtualization front, given it success in the realm of server consolidation, and the results look promising. "You take the existing PC, suck all the data off a hard drive and onto the back-end, pop that PC off the desktop, drop a thin client, and the user continues working."
(Test Center Analyst Randall C. Kennedy was fairly impressed by the beta version of VMware Workstation 6.0 -- especially compared to the competition.)
There's also the advancements thin clients have undergone since the late 1990s when they were overhyped, notes Wyse's McNaught. "In those days, thin clients didn't do multimedia. Screen-draw capability was good, but not amazing," he says. "Companies like Wyse have been working on technology that will dramatically improve the user experience with multimedia, with voice over IP, with USB peripherals. Users can work in a multiscreen environment."
But green fever and technological evolution alone won't necessarily reduce some company's resistance to thin clients. Thin client vendors acknowledge that there wares won't dethrone the PC anytime soon.
For one thing, the machines are well-suited for plenty of basic applications, such as call centers or other roles where users are continually using the same few apps (e.g. productivity and e-mail). But high-end apps are better left on the desktop. "You would not have a CAD/CAM application running through a thin client," says Besier. "It doesn't even make sense to try to solve that problem. The market is not large enough."
Another reason thin clients haven't seem greater adoption, many vendors say, is that companies are set in their ways insofar as purchasing that which is familiar -- in this case, PCs, despite the fact that most desktops generally run at around 3% utilization. "Today's barriers are more of a cultural nature rather than a technical nature," says Sun's Bapat.
But Bapat predicts that "with the lower energy use, lower administration costs, better security, and less frequent capital expenditure outlays for upgrades, we will see more and more organizations making the move to thin-client computing."
Posted by Ted Samson on May 24, 2007 03:00 AM
March 19, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Update: HP's new Energy Star PCs come with XP, not Vista
Updated March 19 to clarify some of the Energy Star info.
If you go to the business desktop PCs section of HP's Web site, you'll see this phrase prominently displayed at the top: "HP recommends Windows Vista Business."
The company might need to put a temporary parenthetical caveat beside the glowing recommendation: "unless you want a more energy-efficient system."
That's the conclusion I've reached, anyway, after reading about HP's new set of Energy Star 4.0-compliant business desktop computers. The systems -- the Compaq dc5700, dc5750 and dc7700 -- will come loaded with Windows XP Pro, not Vista.
Why not Vista? When I first spoke to a couple of HP reps yesterday, I didn't come away with a clear answer; just a feeling that I'd touched on a hot-button issue. Or perhaps a hot CPU issue?
But in a follow-up e-mail, Todd Kruse, the global desktop product manager at HP, said this:
"We will introduce Windows Vista configurations that are Energy Star 4.0-ready in the near future. Because we were able to begin testing all the components including the 80% efficient power supply with Windows XP earlier, we are much farther ahead in confirming compliance with XP combinations.""Also, there will be demand for Energy Star on both operating systems as some customers may want to wait for the first Microsoft service pack before they deploy Vista."
When I did speak with Kruse on Thursday, he explained that there are plenty of hardware considerations when developing a PC that meets the more stringent Energy Star 4.0 guidelines, which take effect in July. These guidelines "apply mainly to a PC's efficiency in idle mode, not how well it runs under a maximum workload."
HP told me that the EPA doesn't expect more than 25 percent of PCs to meet that standard, whereas currently 98 percent of the systems on the market meet the current one. It's all about raising that energy-efficiency bar.
There are actually three categories of Energy Star 4.0 PCs. These HP systems are "category B" systems, meaning they "must have multi-core processor(s) or greater than one discrete processor; and a minimum of 1GB of system memory" to meet the new ES 4.0 requirements, plus they can't use more than 65 watts while in idle mode (meaning when the PC is up and running, waiting for input from the user).
According to Kruse, it took some effort to come up with configurations that would meet that standard. "In some configurations, you may not be able to add graphics cards and a network card. You really need to measure [the energy consumption] of every configuration and determine if it's Energy Star compliant."
HP provided some very basic specs of what comes with its new Energy Star 4.0 configurations (again, which come with Windows XP Pro): The highest-end model includes a Core2 Duo E6300 CPU (which has a clock speed of 1.8GHz), an 80GB hard drive, and 1GB of RAM).
Now consider Vista's recommended system requirements for Windows Vista Business: a 1 GHz CPU, 1GB of system memory, and a 40GB hard drive with at least 15GB of available space. (Windows XP Pro, on the other hand, requires at just a 233MHz CPU, plus 128MB of system memory and 1.5GB of hard drive space.)
So based on the aforementioned Vista systems requirements and the basic specs of HP's systems, there shouldn't be a problem, right? Perhaps the problem lies in Vista Business's graphics card requirements, necessary to keep the oh-so pretty Aero GUI so cool and refreshing (pun intended, though perhaps not noticed).
HP's higher-end, Energy Star 4.0-ready dc7700, for example, comes equipped with an Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3000, which is a stripped-down version of the GMA 950 (which was created with running Vista in mind.) On the 3000, hardware video acceleration such as IDCT MPEG-2, ProcAmp (video stream independent color correction), and VC-1 decoding are missing.
I'm certainly not trying to knock HP here. I think it's notable that the company is ahead of the game in terms of cranking out systems that meet the new ES 4.0 regs and cut per-PC power consumption by as much as 52 percent. I also like that HP is making 80 percent-efficiency power supplies available (for $20 more) as an option on nearly all of its dc5 and dc7 configurations, whether they meet the other Energy Star criteria or not.
But I do think that companies like HP have their work cut out for them in terms of delivering the higher-efficiency ES 4.0 PCs that can take full advantage of Vista. And it seems the burden is on the shoulders of the hardware makers to carry the processing-hungry load of the new Windows system. Perhaps it's time we see greater coding efficiency, not only out of Microsoft but other app vendors so as to reduce the strain on CPUs.
And I also wonder if the push for more energy-efficient systems will result in a rise in Linux adoption. But that's a topic for another day.
Posted by Ted Samson on March 19, 2007 03:06 PM
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