Should the IT department be accountable for energy use?
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Managing Watt? Reg Tech Panel As the green debate rages on, one of the findings that came from our recent survey of Reg Readers revealed that despite all the talk about energy savings and IT, the majority of IT departments are not accountable for spending on electricity to run systems.â¦
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Concern over power costs (73%) was the most common reason organizations gave for wanting to improve the energy efficiency of their storage. Concern for the environment came second, highlighted by 57%, followed by power capacity worries (35%).
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It's not just your air conditioner -- what many overlook is how much energy their computers use on a daily basis -- the latest federal statistics show computers used more electricity than microwaves, VCRs and dishwashers combined.
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A group of technology companies collaborates to improve energy efficiency in data centers.
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Christopher Mines reports that IT buyers are aware of green IT and interested in more efficient systems, but that hasnt been translated into action yet.
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Weaknesses in the Energy Departmentâs cybersecurity allowed hackers to successfully penetrate its systems 199 times last year in intrusions that affected 3,531 systems, the departmentâs inspector general said.
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[Johannesburg, 13 October 2004] - While a great deal of the data residing within organisations today is not accessed regularly, the ECT Act as well as basic business strategy maintains that this seldom accessed data is business-critical.
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Reducing carbon dioxide emissions from computers is to be the aim of a new government taskforce.
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Are you a tree-hugger or a Brazilian logger? Reader poll Those among you who were concerned that El Reg might have slouched through what remains of 2007 without our Strategy Boutique for one last time throwing the IT barometer into the deep end of the knowledge pool and seeing if it floats, will be delighted to learn that we have something to brighten your pre-Xmas skive: the bumper "IT and the Environment" reader poll.â¦
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Organizations face increasing pressures to optimize IT performance while reducing IT costs.  Until now, few organizations had tools to increase Service Level Compliance, adopt ITIL and convince C-level executives that the IT department aligns with business priorities.  Magnum Technologies' Business Service Management whitepaper explores these issues offering client-proven solutions to current problems facing IT organizations.
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Conservation only starts at home. Now businesses are trying to do something about wasted energy at work too
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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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The U.S Department of Energy (DOE) is stressing incentives over regulations to improve the energy efficiency of datacenters.
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Blog: Energy efficiency technology to manage peak demand attracts more clean tech investment.
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The Department of Energy has entered into a research and development agreement with TECSys to develop software aimed at monitoring and securing systems to help control the nation's electricity infrastructure.
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WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy has missed all 34 deadlines set by Congress for requiring energy efficiency standards on everything from home appliances to power transformers, auditors said yesterday.
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The European Commission is considering introducing a voluntary code of conduct on energy efficiency for datacenter operators.