Archive for the ‘Green IT’ Category
02 - 22 - 10
By Darren Bonawitz
I want to provide some insight on why Kansas City is a good place to establish a data center or collocation presence.
- Second most affordable major market for data centers (Source: The Boyd Company)
- Geographically centered in the United States
- Located away from the coasts and hurricane threats
- Located outside of high risk earthquake zones
- Reliable and cost-effective electric utilities
- Highly educated talent pool
- Active technology community
- Robust telecommunications infrastructure
- Very competitive economic incentive programs
- Entreprenuer magazine named Kansas City the #1 place to start and grow a business in the Midwest
01 - 22 - 10
Welcome to Darren Bonawitz’s weekly podcast.
By: Darren Bonawitz
Hi. This is Darren Bonawitz again, with 1102 GRAND. I’m one of the owners of the facility. For those of you not familiar with 1102 GRAND, we are one of the Midwest’s major Internet hubs and co-location facilities. This series of podcasts talks about different industry trends and topics that I find interesting as I stay up on the news and discussion with people in the industry.
Today I want to talk about what I call “low-power consumption and high heat servers.” These are the servers that are coming out that use less power and cooling in a data center. Generally, the ones I’ve been seeing are based on AMD’s Opteron and Intel’s Atom Processor lines. The reason I want to talk about them today is because I think they are a solid first step, as data centers are looking for ways to cut their carbon-footprint, or become more energy efficient. In the past, the metric that really mattered in the “server world,” was Total Processing Power. No matter what, that’s seemed to matter. Every new series of servers that came out really had to deal with how much processing-power it had, but if you look, especially as things with personalization evolved, one of the things that makes virtualization so interesting is that CPU usage on the server is generally low. So, what I think is interesting with these processors is that they are still powerful processors that use lower power, but at the same time, they’re going at it from a different angle. Really, what they are trying to do is figure out a way to increase performance per watt of power used. So, I think it’s really something that’s really relevant in today’s world, with “green” being such a big topic in datacenters. The thing I wanted to make people know is that while these servers are a great first step, just keep in mind that there is not going to be a single “silver bullet” that’s going to solve the issue of controlling heat in the datacenter. With that said, processor temperatures are definitely one of the big targets, and they are certainly one of the major culprits of the heat-generation. This is a solid first step. There are also new technologies that may be more “liable.” I guess that is what I would call it. That has to do with technologies that I would call “fail-in-place servers.” I’m not going to go into that today, but if you have time, go on and Google it. Check “fail-in-place server platform,” and read-up, and that’s something that I’ll be doing in the meantime as well, and we’ll be talking about how to do this. See when it makes sense and when it doesn’t make sense to use these servers.
The one thing that comes to mind for me today are legacy-datacenters that don’t have the ability to handle high-density heat loads. These servers, because of their cost and their price-point, make it so you can actually divide these servers and span them across the series of cabinets, and spread your heat-load and prevent heat-spots. I think that’s definitely something that folks that are battling cooling issues, but still have some floor space, can use as a possible avenue to combat this. If you have other ideas, or if you’ve been using these servers and could give some feedback, please let us know. As always, we welcome your feedback and future ideas for topics to discuss at podcast@1102Grand.com Thanks a lot, and have a good day.
01 - 18 - 10
Posted By: Darren Bonawitz
Earlier this month, I was featured in an article by pacificra.com about five things to know about data center temperature. I really appreciate the feature. Here is a link to the article.
5 Things To Know About Data Center Temperature
Temperature is a critical factor in the modern data center, and it is only becoming more so. Increased processor speeds, smaller server form factors, and higher server rack densities have all contributed to tremendous challenges for data center administrators in the areas of cooling and air movement.
These physical challenges, and management’s mandate to maintain asset availability at all times, means data center administrators must strive to make environmental factors such as temperature and humidity priority No. 1.
But how can data center administrators start making the right decisions in terms of temperature and humidity? Where should the appropriate limits be set? What technologies are available to tackle these issues?
(read more)
01 - 18 - 10
Posted By: Darren Bonawitz
Here’s an announcement that should prove beneficial to all parties involved by putting together two forward thinking groups that will hopefully serve as an example of how collaboration breeds progress. The Green Grid is working towards increased data center efficiency along with standardized measurements that are adopted by the industry, and Data Center Pulse is the industry’s users. In less than a year and a half, Data Center Pulse has done an amazing job of pulling together data center professionals who influence decisions within data centers and trends in the industry as a whole. They work hard to enforce their “no vendor” rule which helps keep discussions as unbiased as possible so people interact without hidden agendas, and they clearly understand the value of peers helping peers and shaping an industry together. Here is the article written by Justin Lee form Web Host Industry Review.
Data Center Pulse Partners with The Green Grid
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Data Center Pulse (http://datacenterpulse.org) announced on Friday it has entered into an agreement with The Green Grid (www.thegreengrid.org) to further enhance its ability to influence the industry via collaboration on data center challenges.
The Green Grid is an international organization of IT companies that work toward advancing energy efficiency for data centers and business computing systems, with over 175 members.
Data Center Pulse is a global end user community of data center owners and operators focused on impacting the industry through the customer’s perspective, with 1350 members.
(read more)
11 - 27 - 09
By Darren Bonawitz
It’s not always easy to admit when you don’t know something or that you need help, but as this article from the WHIR shows, setting ego aside can pay huge dividends. Data center managers either need to acquire knowledge or seek those who possess it regarding greening their IT operations. The cost of not doing so is simply too high. A reputable and qualified consultant can yield savings that offset the costs of obtaining their expertise. Keep in mind, the return on the investment increases month after month as savings are continually realized. At 1102 GRAND, I’ll admit we don’t utilize a lot of consultants because Todd, our director of operations, enjoys staying on top of trends and testing new products or solutions. He says learning and researching best practices and reading up on new or emerging technologies is half of the fun of his job. If that sounds like you, then maybe a consultant is not necessary. I guess my point is, the key is having a strategy and successfully implementing it consistently.
For example, just a few weeks ago Todd was able to apply a combination of things he learned at a conference, networking with other data center professionals and researching topics online to improve the under floor static pressure in raised floor data centers. It took him a couple of days to dial everything in (and some time to research, of course), but his answer was being able to shut off CRAC units that were no longer necessary with the current heat load in multiple collocation areas at our building. The result: savings of an estimated $20,000 per year, plus a reduction in our current carbon footprint. As I mentioned in a previous post, don’t look for million dollar savings. Find smaller savings that will result in incremental increases in both efficiency and cost savings.
In addition to seeking knowledge (on your own or through trusted advisors), and watching for new technologies that fit your data center environment, don’t forget to look for incentives. This is one I’ll admit nearly passed us by until I was researching something totally unrelated on our electric utility company’s website. I’m still looking into the opportunities and seeing how they’ll fit our current and future plans, but I think there are some definite opportunities. Stay tuned for more on that in a future post. As always, if you have experiences to share about utility company incentives, please let me know.
Bluestone Helps MA Data Center Earn Energy Efficiency Rebate
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Engineering service firm Bluestone Energy Services (www.bluestoneenergy.com) recently helped a biotech firm to receive incentives from the local utility for achieving energy efficiency measures in its Boston area-based data center, according to a report by DatacenterDynamics.
(Read more)
11 - 25 - 09
Welcome to Greg Elliott’s weekly podcast featuring local IT, VOIP and data center opportunities.
By Greg Elliott
Hi, I’m Greg Elliott with 1102 GRAND, Kansas City’s Carrier Hotel and collocation facility. What we want to try to do with these podcasts is just to share with you some real world experiences that we’re seeing here in Kansas City, across the nation and around the world. We have customers from Kansas City, and as far away as the Philippines and Germany. We’re seeing a good cross-section of what’s going on out there in the collocation world. I wanted to share with you specifically a customer that recently came to us…
10 - 21 - 09
Web Hosting Industry Review (WHIR) interviewed me regarding our recent social media marketing press release (link to press release) about greening IT and the challenges we are confronting. I was pleased to chat with Liam Eagle, editor of the key online publication on the data center and IT industry, about our efforts and hope you enjoy the read.
Read article: 1102 Grand Tackles Green Hosting Challenges
http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/090209_1102_Grand_Tackles_Green_Hosting_Challenges
10 - 02 - 09
Article from the Environmental Leader here outlines how the Symantec Corp, an infrastructure software provider, will save $2.1 million dollars by their green IT efforts in a little over 3 years. Its a good read and case study on how green IT efforts can impact a specific company, and adds credibility to our continuing efforts. We brought up the benefits of greening IT up in a previous post – To Green The Data Center, IT Has To Feel Some Pain, and hope this article from a leading daily trade publication keeping corporate executives fully informed about energy, environmental and sustainability news helps prove our point that going green is a must!
Also, another article from the Environmental Leader finds that, according to a recent survey from Symantec, nearly all senior-level IT executives are at least discussing a green information technology (IT) strategy, while 45 percent have already implemented green IT initiatives. This is big news for the future of Green IT! Here’s the full story.
