Green IT: More Than Power Efficiency

By David Hamilton, theWHIR.com

November 4, 2008 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — With energy efficiency being just the beginning of how data centers can become more environmentally responsible, Gartner (www.gartner.com) suggests data center managers look to nature for direction.
 
“The Concept of the Data center as a Living Organism” is one of the topics the IT research and consulting firm’s researchers discussed at last month’s Data Center Summit 2008 in Amsterdam. “Power and cooling will drive the evolution of data centers into becoming conceptual models of intelligent ‘living organisms’ as organisations need to improve energy efficiency and become ‘greener,’” according to a Gartner research note.

The company notes that if the industry is not made fully aware of the problem, data centers run the risk of doubling their energy costs between 2005 and 2011. Decade-old legacy data centers are obviously environmentally obsolete; however, new, high-density, data centers warrants more advanced power and cooling capabilities for their power-hungry equipment. (more…)

Tags: data center, energy efficiency, Gartner

HP Intros Dynamic Power Capping

By David Hamilton, theWHIR.com

November 3, 2008 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Hewlett-Packard’s (www.hp.com) Green Business Technology initiative is upholding its environmentally friendly reputation with additions to its Thermal Logic portfolio, which include power-capping server technologies and energy-efficiency services designed to reduce operating costs and extend the life of data centers.

According to the company’s announcement Monday, HP’s Dynamic Power Capping helps data center customers reallocate power and cooling resources by dynamically setting or “capping” the power drawn by the servers, eliminating inefficientover-provisioning traditionally needed to create a redundant power infrastructure for maximum uptime. As a result, by precisely identifying how much power is actually required to run each server and setting a limit based on that usage, companies reclaim theirover-provisioned energy to improve the capacity of their data center.

“With these new solutions from HP, customers are able to drive down data center costs by reducing energy consumption and, at the same time, minimize environmental impact,” said Peter Gross, chief executive officer of HP subsidiary EYP Mission Critical Facilities. “HP’s Green Business Technology initiative is built on decades of innovation and experience in data center design and deployment, resulting in solutions that empower CIOs to turn energy efficiency into business benefits that impact the bottom line.” (more…)

Tags: data center, energy efficiency, Gartner, hardware, HP, power capping

Gartner Urges Facilities to Go ‘Green’

By Justin Lee, theWHIR.com

November 3, 2008 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Independent IT research firm Gartner Research (www.gartner.com) says there is an increasing need for data center managers to update their facilities or they run the risk of doubling their energy costs between 2005 and 2011, according to reports by PC World.
 
The research firm warns companies that any data centers constructed within the past 10 years are more or less environmentally unsustainable.

To combat these rising costs, Gartner vice president Rakesh Kumar says that data center managers should upgrade to new, high-density equipment, which offers more advanced power and cooling capabilities. (more…)

Tags: cooling, energy efficiency, Gartner Research

Softchoice Adds Green Product Search

By David Hamilton, theWHIR.com

November 3, 2008 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Online software and hardware retailer Softchoice (www.softchoice.com) has added ENERGY STAR search functionality to its online store, making it the first of its kind to compare IT hardware based on energy efficiency.

According to the Toronto-based company’s Monday announcement, Softchoice visitors can now search more than 2,000 ENERGY STAR products and compare their results based on price and dozens of performance criteria including memory, hard drive size and processor speed. Supported by government agencies across North America, the ENERGY STAR program certifies IT products including desktop computers, laptops, printers and scanners, helping establish specific environmental standards.

“There have been huge strides in making IT products more energy efficient, but when it comes to making informed, environmentally responsible purchasing decisions, we’re seeing a lot of confusion in the market,” Softchoice President and chief executive officer David MacDonald said in a statement. “Today’s announcement is about making it easier for IT buyers to find and evaluate ENERGY STAR certified products in a straightforward, practical way.” (more…)

Tags: energy efficiency, Energy Star, Softchoice

Fujitsu Siemens Holds Workshop

By David Hamilton, theWHIR.com

October 30, 2008 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Taking its “Customer Challenge” programs to the next level, Fujitsu Siemens Computers (www.fujitsu-siemens.com) has announced its new, data center “Efficiency Challenge,” inviting European companies to participate in a free “Discovery Workshop” in which Fujitsu Siemens will work with companies to reduce the time it takes managing their IT infrastructure by 20 percent.

According to Fujitsu Siemens’ Thursday announcement, if it cannot identify company’s greatest IT infrastructure pain points, reducing its IT management time by at least 20 percent, they will receive 10,000? worth of products or services. The Efficiency Challenge is a significant addition to Fujitsu Siemens Computers’ programs because it is the first to incorporate services management to its generally infrastructure-based challenges.

“Over the past few years our portfolio has developed from a pure product offering to a unique combination that fully integrates products, solutions and services,” said Richard Schlauri, Fujtisu Siemens Computers executive vice-president of infrastructure Services. “This has enabled us to reach a wider market and increased benefits for our customers - as reflected in our Efficiency Challenge. By incorporating services management to our analysis of customer data centers, we can extend the cost savings realised from our previous Dynamic Data Center Challenge to include time savings. And of course, time savings translate into significant cost savings.” (more…)

Tags: data center, energy efficiency, Fujitsu Siemens

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