New tech to cuts data center energy consumption by 75%
Mar 8, 2009 Green Technologies
Better data centers
increasing power bills from datacenters has compelled companies, like Google and Microsoft, try to find innovative solutions to reduce their energy needs, from using virtualisation to optimising cooling needs. Now researchers at the University of Michigan have devised a new technique, called Powernap that promises to save up to 75% of the current power usage of data centers.
Researchers Thomas Wenisch and students David Meisner and Brian Gold are presenting a paper outlining the new techniques at the International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems in Washington D.C. The best thing about their technique is that they use existing technologies with some redesigns.
PowerNap is a plan to put servers into sleep mode, similar to that of notebooks when a user closes the lid, and requires a more efficient power supply technique. Further, servers are powered by multiple smaller 500 W power supplies, rather than a single 2250 W. The new power supply technique is called RAILS and stands for Redundant Array for Inexpensive Load Sharing. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: datacenter, Diomede, Google, Microsoft
WSJ punches holes into Dell’s green claims; raises a bigger question
Jan 2, 2009 Green Technologies
Dell
Few weeks after Dell heaped scorn over Apple’s green cred claims, a recent Wall Street Journal article reveals that Dell itself, which claims to be the “greenest tech company on the planet” has some seriously suspect environmental claims.
Dell has claimed that it has been carbon neutral since the summer of 2008. Not so, says The Wall Street Journal. It points out that the company’s carbon footprint is a self determined metric, with Dell arbitrarily picking its carbon footprint to encompass its boilers and company-owned cars, its buildings’ electricity use, and its employees’ business air travel. But the carbon emissions generated from the sources cited are just a drop in the bucket compared to Dell-related emissions from the oil used by Dell’s suppliers to make its computer parts, the diesel and jet fuel used to ship those computers around the world, or the coal-fired electricity used to run them. Read the rest of this entry »
Microsoft Vista available as (Product) Red
Dec 8, 2008 Philanthropy and Corporate Initiatives, Stars, Policy and Finance
Product red
Windows Vista is now listed on the official (PRODUCT) RED website and up for pre-order now at Amazon. The special edition of Windows Vista Ultimate is slated to ship on December 15th. If you are looking to upgrade your operating system and at the same time, support the push to end AIDS in Africa, you can buy the Vista Ultimate SP1 now for $219.95 ($64.95 for students).
(RED) is a business model created to raise awareness and money for the Global Fund by teaming up with the world’s most iconic brands to produce (PRODUCT) RED branded products. A portion of profits from each (PRODUCT) RED product sold goes directly to the Global Fund to invest in African AIDS programs, with a focus on women and children.
Windows Vista with (RED) branding has been shipped by Dell for about a year now. But now others who may just want to install the OS on a DIY rig will have no chance to complaint as well. Product Red branded products are available from other countries as well, like Apple with its Ipod.
Tags: AIDS, Microsoft, Product Red, Vista
Energy metrics for data centers from Green Grid
Nov 19, 2008 Stars, Policy and Finance
The Green Grid
The Green Grid, a global consortium of IT firms committed to enhancing the energy efficiency and greener computing, is hoping to have a new package of standardized metrics in place from 2009 to will allow firms to compare the energy efficiency of different servers, storage systems and networking equipment, in much the same way we compare graphics hardware performance or have benchmarks for motorists to compare the fuel efficiency of different cars.
Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, Green Grid director Jim Pappas said that having successfully launched a measure for assessing the efficiency of datacentre cooling and power supply units in the form of its Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric the consortium is now working on standards for measuring the efficiency of the IT equipment itself.
“The PUE tells how much of the energy going into the facility is used by the IT equipment, but the next step is to try to understand how efficient the IT equipment is itself,” he explained, adding that standards for assessing the utilisation of different systems had already been drafted and that the consortium was aiming to deliver draft versions of the completed efficiency metrics some point next year.
Previous attempts to develop standards for measuring the energy efficiency of servers, storage systems and networking equipment have previously faltered with rival IT manufacturers arguing over how to compare products’ energy use when handling differing workloads.
However Green Grid will have better odds - it recently signed up its 200th member and counts several of the world’s largest IT companies among its ranks, including Google and Microsoft - means that it will be able to deliver a metric the industry supports.
Read more here.
Tags: Google, Green Grid, Microsoft, PUC
Tech Awards for power, education and other solutions for the poor
Nov 18, 2008 Ratings and awards, Stars, Policy and Finance
DESI Power --Accenture Award Winner
The recent Tech Award 2008 awards almost went unnoticed! The Tech Awards is an international awards program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity. It awards $50,000 cash prizes, not big by corporate standards, but still big enough to make a difference in developing countries.
This year’s top winner of the 2008 Intel Environment Award was the Cheetah Conservation Fund’s “Biomass Energy Project”. The Biomass Energy Project consists of 15 local Namibians working at a biomass plant. The workers process harvest invasive plants and convert them to fuel blocks, suitable to replace wood or coal in stoves across the country. The project is helping to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to restore 25 million acres of land in Namibia. The project also generates key revenue, which is used to protect the cheetah, hence the name. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Accenture, Intel, Microsoft, Tech Awards
Microsoft vs. Google — spot the greener company
Oct 30, 2008 Information of the Day
Future data centers?
It looks like the rivalry between Google and Microsoft is becoming even more intense as the two tech giants take their battle to a new front beyond the internet, mobile phone and office suite: data center efficiency! Both recently came up with impressive claims for their efficiency in managing their data center’s power requirements.
Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) — a measure determined by dividing the amount of input power by the power required to run the computer infrastructure within a data center is the commonly used metric for efficiency. A PUE of 1 is ideal, but considered non-attainable. This standard was originally put in place by The Green Grid, an IT consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. Both Microsoft and Google have made significant strides on that score. According to Datacenter Knowledge, Google has recently released its previously undisclosed report on extreme efficiency, while Microsoft touted similar gains with its own ultra efficient container-clad servers.
Microsoft says it is installing new servers contained within 40-foot shipping containers at its Chicago data center. It says its new containers are ultra-efficient, sporting a PUE of 1.22, according to Microsoft’s Mike Manos. This comes close to Google’s average PUE of 1.21 at its six company-built data centers, which it was recently bragging about, while industry average is about 2.5.
Why is this important? According to a survey by AMD in 2007, the IT related electrical bills for U.S. companies totaled $2.7 billion. The cost of electricity for the entire world topped $7 billion. Within the United States, the total cost of powering data center servers represented about 0.6 percent of total electrical use within the country. When the additional costs of cooling and other usage is factored in, that number jumps to 1.2 percent. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: data centers, Google, Green Computing, Microsoft