'Green Grid' Tech Co-op Powers Up
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A group of technology companies collaborates to improve energy efficiency in data centers.
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Data center operators are looking for alternative ways of powering their facilities and green technologies that are cleaner are gaining new attention, according to attendees at this week's Afcom data center conference.
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Companies like Microsoft and Google have committed to improving the power efficiency of equipment they make and use.
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It's green, and from a factory. Watch it develop.
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Big Blue is going green with an initiative that focuses on environmental technologies and services.
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IT can help the U.S. go green, technology CEOs said at a conference in Washington.
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Sun has a laudable vision of the future of utility computing, where organisations with extra processing power can sell it back to a computing grid in the same manner that homes with solar panels can sell power back to the electrical power grid.
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Cisco Systems wants to turn the enterprise data network into an electricity meter.Using open standards, the company wants to get server and storage vendors to collect and share information about their equipment and send it to Cisco routers and switches. The data could include power consumption, operating temperature and more. It&#39;s becoming a critical job, and because the network touches all IT resources across the enterprise, data collection should happen there, according to Paul Marcoux, vice president of green engineering.Marcoux joined Cisco from American Power Conversion only about six weeks ago after Cisco created the position to overlook energy issues across all parts of the company. Networking gear itself makes up a much smaller portion of IT power consumption than do servers or storage, but Cisco plans to go beyond just making its own products more efficient.Power is a growing issue in datacenters as the cost of energy rises and concerns about global climate change increase. Being able to collect and analyze information about power usage is a big part of the battle and becoming more crucial in the age of virtualization, according to Marcoux. Distributing storage and processing cycles without regard for power issues is not just inefficient, it&#39;s dangerous, he said.If virtualization software looks at a process that requires more computing power or storage space, then enlists servers or storage devices that are near to overheating or running out of power, it could send a rack of servers over the edge and shut it down, Marcoux said. For that reason, the virtualization system needs to know the power status of all the resources it may call upon, he said.By the same token, consolidated datacenters typically serve many departments of an enterprise and consume a lot of power, but those groups generally don&#39;t have to pay for their part of the power. In fact, the electricity bill often bypasses even the IT department, going to building management instead, Marcoux said. Collecting data about the power consumed by each device, and eventually by individual transactions, would allow enterprises to bill each department for the power it uses, he said.Software on routers and switches would collect the information and then take actions or forward it on to separate building management, energy management or virtualization control systems, Marcoux said. Given the large amount of energy data to be processed, Cisco may introduce daughtercards for its platforms to provide extra computing power, he said. He hopes the technology will be in place and collecting information in enterprises within three years.Because datacenters contain gear from so many vendors, open standards are the only way to make such a system work, according to Cisco. Fortunately, there already are several available standards, Marcoux said. Having standards already in place will help speed up adoption, Marcoux said.&quot;We&#39;re not trying to reinvent the wheel, we&#39;re just trying now to utilize the wheel,&quot; Marcoux said.Cisco&#39;s proposal would represent a whole new role for networks beyond communications, said Burton Group analyst Dave Passmore. Server vendors might go along with the plan, but Cisco can&#39;t count on smooth sailing, he said. Centralized power regulation would play a role in overall management of the datacenter, an area where Cisco is attempting to make inroads with other initiatives as well.&quot;Who controls virtualization in the data center is going to be the new battleground,&quot; Passmore said.
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While most electronics companies are still trying to establish green credentials, 2008 could mark a turning point for previously obscure "home automation" technologies that now are being advertised as a way to save electricity Â not just personal energy.
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By DYKES, Mervyn  Palmerston North's new co- generating plant, which turns landfill methane into electricity, was praised as "ingenious'' by Minister of Energy David Parker yesterday.
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An organic climate change lobby group has issued green ratings for hardware and software-based IT suppliers as well as other businesses. IBM leads the IT pack while Apple, Amazon and eBay are bottom with zero green credentials.
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Company's sharing of its power supply design innovations is part of a larger movement to cut down on electricity costs.
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Computer users are being asked to donate their unused processor power to help solve social and environmental research problems. The IBM-backed project, called World Community Grid, aims to put the untapped
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Oracle, Dell, EMC and Intel have joined with other tech companies to create an industry standard for enterprise grid systems. &quot;Project MegaGrid&quot; will help maximize the use of computing resources, according to the group.
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Blog: Energy efficiency technology to manage peak demand attracts more clean tech investment.
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Wireless broadband gets a boost with optimized EV-DO installations in several regions.
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Claiming grid technology continues to expand outside its traditional scientific and research markets, IBM on Friday is announced several grid-based commercial projects built on IBM platforms have been launched, including one at the US Environmental