Cisco embraces Green Technologies and Ideas.
Check out this 13 minute videa where Cisco shows ..." video-conferencing system, energy-efficient data centers, and a new office environment that encourages employees to work from unassigned spaces."
Via: Techrepublic Link
Western Digital, a maker of disk drives for computers, has designed new products that are more environmental friendly.
Read on for more >>>
" ... offer products that consume less electricity. ... WD has designed eco-friendly hard drives with GreenPower™ Technology...Green drives from WD yield average drive power savings of 4-5 watts over competitors' drives ..."
" ... savings equates to reducing CO2 emission by up to 60 kilograms per drive per year - the equivalent of taking your car off the road for 14 days each year. ..."
Via: Western Digital Link
... "The new data center features numerous leading-edge technologies and services, including high density computing systems utilizing virtualization technology, along with energy efficient power and cooling technologies. These, in conjunction with the center's energy efficient design and construction, will allow IBM to reduce its overall carbon footprint compared to standard data centers. " ...Via IBM: Greenest Data Center in North America Opened
Wyoming's first wind powered data center uses 100% renewable energy and was built built with efficiency in mind a
Green Datas House' data center " ... is 60% more energy efficient than the average."
"100% Renewable Energy ... powered by wind ... will own several wind turbines to the north of its facility and purchase the excess energy needs from the local power company's wind farm or through grid tied green-e tags"
" ... the largest wind powered public data center in the nation with over 10,000 square feet of high-density computing facilities. "
"Energy Efficiency Built In ...Water-Side Economizers: Free cooling from Cheyenne's average annual temperatures of 45.6 degrees. ...Ground Source Heat Pumps - provide up to 25% more energy efficient cooling than traditional HVAC cooling equipment.(Phase 2)."
Via: Green House Data Link
... "IBM is combining the new energy management software with partner solutions to provide customers with a comprehensive view of energy consumption across the enterprise -- not just in data centers but also in non-IT assets such as air conditioning equipment, power distribution units, lighting, and security systems. " ...Via IBM: New Data Center Energy Management Software
... "As an additional benefit to the community, the highly reliable IBM BladeCenter Servers offer a proven open, easy and green technology that demands less energy and is easier and less costly to cool than other alternatives. " ...Via IBM: Solutions Help Community Hospitals Reduce Operating Costs
One of the initatives of IBM's Project Big Green is to look for ways to resuce its' own energy needs and those of its clients.
"GIB-Services today announced a new energy efficient "green" data center ... will offer a first-of-its-kind energy model where a direct heat exchange will take place between the data center and a public swimming pool in the town."
"Located in Uitikon, Switzerland, ... is expected to create 2,800 MWh of wasted heat per year ... at full capacity -- the same amount of energy needed to supply up to 80 houses with heating and warm water for one year...."
"... Through reclaiming the heat, approximately 130 tons of carbon emissions can be saved. This corresponds to the carbon dioxide discharge of mid-size cars driving 500,000 miles."
Via: IBM Link
... "As kika/Leiner expands throughout central Europe and the Middle East, their need for information technology (IT) services has increased considerably. To meet this demand, the market-leading furniture retailer in Austria turned to IBM to design an energy efficient data center using new green technologies that are part of IBM's Project Big Green. The new data center is planned to begin operation in May. As kika/Leiner expands throughout central Europe and the Middle East, their need for information technology (IT) services has increased considerably. To meet this demand, the market-leading furniture retailer in Austria turned to IBM to design an energy efficient data center using new 'green' technologies that are part of IBM's Project Big Green. The new data center is planned to begin operation in May. " ...Via IBM: Austria's First Green Data Center at kika/Leiner
... "Cue a major storage consolidation and virtualization effort that started back in 2006. " ...Via Byte and Switch: Virtual Roadmap
Green House Data is " ... one of the only 100% Wind powered GREEN data centers in the nation. ... our green data center design is 60% more energy efficient than the average data center in the U.S."
"... perfect combination -- an environmentally responsible data center, lower than average prices, and above average professional service ... first facility will be located in Cheyenne, Wyoming .. Wyoming's first enterprise class computing center."
Via: Green Housde Data Center Link
... "Computerworld editors developed a checklist-style survey and weighting scheme. Computerworld then reached out to the IT community through a variety of channels, and 86 complete surveys were received. Computerworld then contacted representatives at the participating companies to verify that the information provided on their company's survey was truthful and accurate. Only those companies that filed verification letters were considered. Based on the weighting scheme developed, the top 12 Green-IT Users and top 12 Green-IT Vendors lists were chosen. " ...Via IBM: Top Green IT Company
... "A leading pharmaceutical and health company in Indonesia, Kalbe is teaming with IBM to deploy data center consolidation with an explicit goal of reducing energy consumption as well as reducing information technology (IT) maintenance and space in its own data center facilities across Jakarta. IBM will help Kalbe to consolidate five data centers from its current 13 existing data centers during the initial phase. In addition, IBM will install a green data center on a site of 5,048 square feet. " ...Via IBM: Green Data Center
... "They should aim to develop machines that consume energy in proportion to the amount of work performed. Such energy-proportional machines would ideally consume no power when idle (easy with inactive power modes), nearly no power when very little work is performed (harder), and gradually more power as the activity level increases (also harder). " ...Via IEEE Computer: Energy-Proportional Computing
... "The company detailed its vision to help businesses that operate some of the world's largest, most powerful data centers -- with massive banks of computers that fuel special effects, animation and new, rich media entertainment -- significantly reduce the environmental impact of their IT operations and dramatically improve their bottom line by the end of the decade. " ...Via IBM: Green Hollywood
... "The certificates earned -- based on energy use reduction verified by a third-party -- for the first time provide a way for businesses to attain a certified measurement of their energy use reduction, a key, emerging business metric. The certificates can be traded for cash on the growing energy efficiency certificate market or otherwise retained to demonstrate reductions in energy use and associated CO2 emissions. The Efficiency Certificates initiative engages Neuwing Energy Ventures, a leading verifier of energy efficiency projects and marketer of energy efficiency certificates, to document and verify the energy savings a client achieves through implementing energy efficiency projects. " ...
Continue reading "DataCenter Energy Efficiency Certification Program" »
... "Here's how the metering system works: the new IBM solution monitors a mainframe's actual energy and cooling statistics (collected by internal sensors); and presents them in real time on the System Activity Display. With this system, a user can now correlate the energy consumed with work actually performed. When the machine reports its maintenance health on a weekly basis, the power statistics may be used. These statistics can be observed real time or also summarized for project or trend analysis. Energy consumption statistics are used for demonstrating cost savings toward electric rebates and programs to reduce data center energy consumption. A Power Estimator Tool is also available for future planning. It calculates how changes in system configurations and workloads can affect the entire energy envelope - including the power needed to both run and cool the machines. " ...
Continue reading "Green Data Center Considers Energy Envelope for IBM Mainframe" »
Green companies want to be "green" throughout their supply
chain ... including their ISP.
>>> Read on to lean more and see the profile of one Green ISP ....
"AISO.Net is a ... green web hosting company. We have made a strong commitment to help fight pollution and preserving our natural resources. Solar panels run our data center and office, not energy credits."
"Solar tubes bring in natural light ... during the day. AMD Opteron powered servers use sixty percent less energy and generate fifty percent less heat. These are just some of the ways AISO.Net is becoming the world's most responsible green web hosting company."
"... data center is environmentally friendly in design. It is completely steel framed with no wood at all except for the door frames on the interior of the building. Our walls are over 12 inches thick and filled with insulation that has recycled content. We built our data center, network and servers from the start to use the lowest amount of energy possible using the latest green design techniques, no other hosting company can do what we do without starting from scratch. We use solar tubes to bring in natural sunlight which eliminates the use for conventional lighting during the day. Our cooling systems are water cooled which reduces the amount of electricity because of the unique setup."
" We are in the process of designing a green roof for our data center. The green roof is a layer of dirt 3 to 4 inches thick with drought resistant plants. The new green roof will reduce our cooling and heating requirements by over 50%."
Via: AISO.com Link
... "Consolidated 738 storage devices to 225, yet increased storage capacity by 244 percent; Consolidated 2,177 servers to 1,240, yet increased compute power by 456 percent; Decommissioned more than 5,000 servers, storage, and networking devices, and as a result, cut energy costs by over 60 percent and saved over $860,000 in the first nine months; Improved server utilization by as much as 85 percent; Received nearly $1 million in rebates and awards from Silicon Valley Power. " ...
Via Sun Microsystems: Sun Eco Innovation
... "The hydrogen fuel cell installed on the Fujitsu Sunnyvale campus is the UTC Power PureCell Model 200 system, featuring ultra-low emissions. It meets the most stringent air emissions standards as set by the California Air Resources Board (CARB 07). Although it utilizes natural gas, it produces 35 percent less CO2 per megawatt-hour than the average fossil fuel-based power plant, and approximately 4,000 lbs per year less NOx, the equivalent of taking more than 100 average passenger cars off the road. The system has a low sound profile at 60 decibels at 30 feet, and emits no ozone-depleting fluorocarbons. Fujitsu America will also be contributing to water conservation. When compared to conventional power plants, a UTC Power PureCell Model 200 system will save at least 800,000 gallons of water per year. Over the 15-year life of the fuel cell system, Fujitsu will leave 12 million gallons of water untouched. " ...
Via FUJITSU United States: Hydrogen Fuel Cell Power
... "Our plan to neutralize Google's carbon footprint includes three basic strategies: reduce energy consumption by maximizing efficiency; invest in and use renewable energy sources; and purchase carbon offsets for the emissions that we can't reduce directly. " ...
Via Official Google Blog: Google Plans Carbon Neutrality by end of 2007
... "The savings are substantial -- for an average 25,000 square foot data center, clients should be able to achieve 42 percent energy savings. Based on the energy mix in the US, this savings equates to 7,439 tons of carbon emissions saved per year. Called Project Big Green, IBM’s initiative targets corporate data centers where energy constraints and costs can limit their ability to grow. The initiative includes a new global green team of more than 850 energy efficiency architects from across IBM. " ...
Via IBM: Green Data Center
Green "web hosting" is growing ...
From ThinkHost: "changing the world by providing high quality earth-friendly web hosting services & supporting social change activism".
Their Mission Statement: " ... I founded the company based on 3 simple principles - Honesty, Integrity and Trust. I'm proud to say that while we have grown substantially over the years, we have not outgrown the original ThinkHost objectives - and never will."
Some of the ways they contribute to a low impact on the earth: "... All our hosting plans are 100% wind/solar powered. ... most of our team members "telecommute" - saving thousands of gallons of fuel annually ... use very little in terms of paper and encourage the use of notebook computers by our team to conserve electricity. We recently also implemented a tree planting initiative - we plant a tree for every new client!"
Via: Thinkhost.com Link
... "End users and technology suppliers are encouraged to become members of The Green Grid to help drive the creation of platform-neutral specifications and metrics.The Green Grid's membership structure includes Contributing and General Member levels. General members will have access to all technical documentation produced by The Green Grid, access to intellectual property licensing, and opportunities to attend events. Contributing members will have all the above benefits and be eligible to join technology working groups, review technology documentation at each phase of development and directly contribute to shaping future consortium direction. " ...
... "The study found that in 2005, total data center electricity consumption in the U.S., including servers, cooling and auxiliary equipment, was approximately 45 billionkWh, resulting in total utility bills amounting to $2.7 billion, with total data center power and electricity consumption for the world estimated to cost $7.2 billion annually. The report also examines the growth in electricity demands since the year 2000, concluding that over the last five years server energy use has doubled. " ...
AISO.Net is a solar powered Web Hosting facility. Some of the benefits of being green are identified on their web site include:
"According to BP Solar...
Our 120 solar panel system will eliminate the production of
- 19,890 lbs of Carbon Dioxide (CO2/GHG) per year
- 5.9 lbs of Nitrous Oxide (NOX/smog) per year
- 0.45 lbs of Sulfur Dioxide (SO4/acid rain) per year
This is the equivalent of planting 3.5 acres of trees per year "
"AISO's data center and main office is powered by 120 solar panels which generate our electricity. AISO receives calls from customers asking if AISO really runs entirely on solar power. We have proof, a real-time Web camera trained on our solar panels that flank our 2,000-square-foot data center. "Anybody can buy ecocredits," says Phil Nail, Director of Technology for AISO, referring to companies that buy alternative energy credits in exchange for the amount of electricity they consume. "We're out to make a difference."
Via: AISO.Net Link
... "Architecting the Green Data Center Webcast, by Cisco Systems, Inc., When: 16 Jan 2007, 12:00 EST " ...
Via BitPipe: Architecting the Green Data Center
There's good news .... its getting easier to be green when buying a PC.
HP's new dx2250 with "Advanced Micro Device's Athlon chip and Cool 'n' Quiet technology" saves energy.
One beta tester of HPs product - Snohomish County Public Utility District in Everett, Washington - found that these PCs were quieter and generated less heat. They determined that they "could save about 20 Kilowatts per PC" by using the type of power-savings supply in the dx2250. They are considering replacing 900 PCs so this equates to significant energy and dollar savings.
The current focus on energy savings within the IT space has mostly focused on the data center where hardware density has been increasing resulting in increased demand for electricity and cooling capacity (additional electricity). PCs are now becoming a target for energy savings.
Look for manufacturers to highlight their energy savings features in new PCs. Shop wisely and you may be able to save both money and energy!