Kyle Ohme — In the life of a dot com

The IT world seems to be moving in the right direction.

IT suppliers launch green initiative aiming to double energy efficiency in three short years.

The initiative aims to improve efficiency with power supplies quoting;

Around half of the electricity used by desktop systems is wasted as heat. Servers are only slightly more efficient, wasting around a third of their electrical power. 

The article continues to state that the second strand of the movement is to encourage people to use power management strategies.

Simply turning on the power management function can cut PC electricity consumption by 60 per cent, says Intel vice president Gordon Graylish.

Its great to see steps in the right direction and backed by leaders that can make a difference.

The article can be found here:
http://www.vnunet.com/computing/news/2191959/suppliers-launch-green

This is an awesome mix of how technology can be used to help solve technology road blocks. IBM does a great job with using Second Life to help demonstrate IT issues within the data center.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrBgF-BS-qo

IBM also announced Project Big Green putting its large foot even further into the green movement and showing its concern for power and carbon issues associated within the data center.
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/presskit/21440.wss

[tags] IBM, Project Big Green, Second Life, Green Power [/tags]

Ok, We got it - we have a cooling and power problem with blades trying to utilize older datacenters - can we please move on?

Although I was very happy to be a part of the first annual BladeSystems Insight conference in Ga, I was pummeled with the talk of power and cooling issues all week. I get it, I understand that cooling and power is a big issue with blades and high density computing. What I dont understand is what will talking about it for three days accomplish? I dont build the actual cooling systems and I dont design the actual hardware for my data rooms. Its my job to understand my options and understand what I can do to combat issues now and in the future. Its also my job to do my research, choose a vendor and work with a solution provider to solve my problem. If we heard it once we heardit ten times a day - for the power coming into the rack you create heat and the more compute power the more power it requires thus more cooling is needed. Got it -

My job is to utilize cutting edge technology with industry best practices to solve business issues anddrive value for the company. I do my research to understand what my options are, solve the problem the best we can and move on.

I was really disappointed last week with the fact very few conversations throughout the conference didnt move past cooling and power as was the same in 2006 with Server Blade Summit. In my opinion cooling and power is an enabler allowing us to take advantage of a better computing platforms. Quite frankly I am not the one designing the inner workings of my cooling system hardware. It is my responsibility to understand my growth and computing requirements and to communicate that to my contractor installing along with my vender selling thesolution to assure a proper fit.

Please dont get me wrong, I understand this is a big topic and its an important one. I also understand that itsthe consumer market driving the research and design of the practical application. Many facilities are not designed for high density applications- mine is and I want to move on!

I personally feel better insight into the future would be more valuable.

Conversations like;

What do we do next when we have 10,000 virtual images sitting around because we just made it too easy to deploy?
What are identified best practices with the deployment of servers and security?
How do we make this platform interact with our business models?
How do we create a policy based computing platform that grows and expands based on business needs?
What issues / advantages do blades and virtualization bring to backups and DR?

I want to hear what others are doing with the newly found compute power, process and limitations.

If anyone would like to strike up a conversation on the practical application of blades and virtualization to help make real headway as an industry track me down. If you want to discuss power I will talk to you later Im moving on.

[tags] blades, vmware, apc, liebert, emerson, bladecenter, ibm, dell, hp, sun, data center [/tags]