Green Options » data center

Avocent Helps Data Centers Save Energy and Cash

Ariel Schwartz — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 20:27:15 +0000

Earlier today, we wrote about The Green Grid, a consortium of tech companies aiming to create a “multi-year set of design guides proposed for use by data center operators and designers to build and operate energy efficient data centers.” There are a variety of products that can help operators green their data centers, and some of the best come from a Green Grid member called Avocent.

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Sentilla Debuts Ultra-Powerful Energy Manager for Data Centers

Ariel Schwartz — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:43:05 +0000

Yesterday, Sentilla announced the release of its Energy Manager, a powerful piece of software that works with a microsensor system to detect and manage the energy consumption of data centers. The core of Sentilla’s product is a series of microprocessors embedded in intelligent power strips. Each strip measures power use at the server level.

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Google Goes Wavy with a Water-Powered Data Centre

Kay Sexton — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:39:32 +0000

Internet juggernaut Google is moving into the renewables industry in a BIG way. Not only has the giant business been funding green energy start-ups like Aptera and Actacel, it has now filed a patent on a wave-powered data centre that would use seawater for cooling.

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Sustainable IT: How To Fight The Power (Bills)

Jennifer Kaplan — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:59:22 +0000

This week’s Sustainable IT newsletter by Ted Samson of InfoWorld departs from the regular format because Ted is home sick and his editors are “filling in.” Although Ted’s regular newsletter is a great read, this week’s “collection of links centered around one topic: how to cut energy usage” are terrific in their own right. Here they are:

There’s lots of good advice here. Thanks InfoWorld editors and, Ted, get well soon.

Photo: Dan Shirley

Google’s Floating Water and Wind Energy Retrofitted Data Center

Sam Aola Ooko — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:41:06 +0000

This week, Ecoworldly celebrates the Water Week, and between September 8 - 14, readers of the blog will be reflecting on a lot of water issues here. But isn’t it exciting that this is also the week that word finally leaked out that Google was patenting a retrofitted floating water and wind energy data center.

What does that mean? According to documents filed at the US Patent and Trademark Office August 28, the Google water-powered data center will be - a system that includes a floating platform-mounted computer data center comprising a plurality of computing units, a sea-based electrical generator in electrical connection with the plurality of computing units, and one or more sea-water cooling units for providing cooling to the plurality of computing units.

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Digital Green Turns Gold

Jake Kulju — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 19:12:11 +0000

When the Internet extended its wiry tentacles to the small town that I grew up in, I had no idea what it was. I pictured it being a room full of wires and lights, like a super computer android version of a phone operator.

As I matured, I realized it wasn’t that at all, but a more mystic existence of floating pockets of digital information in constant flux, existing in digital clouds that were suspended just above the atmosphere.

Of course, neither of those images is or was correct. But as it turns out, I was closer to the target with my first guess. Massive server rooms take up space and energy all over the world, storing the information and websites we web junkies feed on for survival. Luckily, they are starting to go green.

Digital Realty Trust, Inc., a technology real estate company, has taken a bold step into the green world by renovating a 90-year-old printing facility in Chicago. They have turned the plant into the world’s first LEED gold-certified data center. Not only is this a paradigm shift for future data centers—it may change the way LEED building companies approach renovations.

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Virtualization: A Boon for Green Computing

Kristin Dispenza — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 16:59:43 +0000

At the end of the 1970s, the world saw a computer revolution, and waves of new business development followed. By the early 1990s, there were signs of a green computing revolution, and now businesses are taking advantage of the industry’s need for environmentally-friendly products. Data centers, in particular, have become a target market, since the past few years have seen a sharp increase in their rate of energy consumption.

One of the more successful technologies to have been developed is virtualization. Broadly speaking, to virtualize is to make a single piece of hardware function as multiple pieces. Different user interfaces isolate portions of the hardware, and make each one operate as a separate entity. As applied to data centers, installing virtual infrastructure allows more operating systems and applications to run on fewer servers, which reduces overall energy use and cooling requirements. Running fewer servers also means that data centers could reduce their building size as well.

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The Greening of Information Technology

jeffatdell — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:45:19 +0000

Infomration technology (IT) should have a minimal environmental impact. But many companies still sell computers, monitors and other IT equipment with lead, fire retardants and other harmful chemicals. There are, however, some companies that go way beyond simplly recycling cans and paper at the office. Let’s have a conversation about those companies like Dell and others that are making environmentalism a standard business practice.

Information Technology should be greener

jeffatdell — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:42:41 +0000