Oct 5 2009 12:04PM GMT
Posted by: Margaret Rouse
tape,
Green computing
 |
“Outside of physical destruction, degaussing is a very reliable means for erasing backup tapes. The problem with basic degaussing is that there’s not a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ confirmation that the destruction has indeed taken place. So, ideally, both degaussing combined with physical destruction would be best to ensure nothing’s going to be recovered.”
Kevin Beaver, Secure data destruction options for old backup tapes and disk |
Today’s WhatIs.com Word of the Day is degaussing.
Apr 22 2009 4:46PM GMT
Posted by: Margaret Rouse
Data Center,
Green computing,
PUE
 |
A typical data center facility spends almost half of its energy consumption on the systems powering and cooling the computers inside — and not on the computers themselves.
Google, Efficient Data Center Summit |
Last October, Google disclosed details about its data center energy usage, saying it was averaging a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.21 across its six company-built data centers. To put that into perspective, a PUE of 1 means every watt goes to computing machines. A PUE of 1.5 means that half the power goes to non-computing functions like cooling or lights.
Six months later, Google says it’s got that number down to 1.19. So how is the search giant doing it? For a long time, nobody knew. Google’s infrastructure was top secret. But then in early April, Google held a summit and gave everyone a peek behind closed doors. Surprisingly, what they seem to have done was follow the KISS principle. Relatively speaking, they are keeping things simple. They have their own proprietary servers and the data centers themselves are just about as lean as you could imagine. Google’s made several tours available on YouTube — and this one (below) of a data center built out of shipping containers is just amazing. There are over 45,000 servers housed in 45 containers. Talk about utility computing — this container tour sure looks like a utility plant to me!
At the summit, Google reps shared best practices, saying:
The best practices we’ve presented here are the main reason we’ve been able to achieve our PUE results and can be implemented in most data centers today.
- Measure PUE (Circuit transformers)
- Optimize power distribution (High efficiency transformer and UPS)
- Manage airflow (Close-coupled cooling — Eliminate hot/cold mixing)
- Adjust thermostat (Raise cold aisle temp)
- Use free cooling (Chiller bypass, water-side economizer)
- Use free cooling (Chiller bypass, water-side economizer)
Jan 23 2009 1:29AM GMT
Posted by: Margaret Rouse
Storage,
Green computing,
persistent data,
data management,
MAID
 |
Data center managers are starting to recognize that 70 percent to 90 percent of their data is not transactional in nature, but rather, persistent data that is rarely changed, and infrequently accessed…The key to managing persistent data is to deploy storage systems that are tuned specifically to its needs. One technology that is ideally suited for persistent data is MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) storage.
Will Layton, Getting Ahead of the Data Storage Energy Crisis: The Case for MAID |
Tonight I’ve been reading about MAID and how it can help cut energy costs in the data center by limiting the number of spinning disks. This week’s buzzword (besides Obama) seems to have been “intelligent power management.”
Ironically, according to a CDW Corp. report titled “Energy Efficient Information Technology,” 94 percent of IT executives with purchasing responsibility said they cared about energy efficiency but had no idea how much energy their IT operations used — even though they realized that that knowledge is critical to energy reduction efforts. CDW should have sent them all this list of low-hanging-fruit energy savers from SearchSMBStorage.com
Aug 27 2008 2:55PM GMT
Posted by: Margaret Rouse
PCs,
Green computing,
Martin LaMonica
Verdiem offers a free download of their software that monitors desktop Windows PCs and puts them in low-power mode when they’re idle. It’s called Edison. Microsoft and The Climate Savers Initiative are both supporting the launch of Edison.
May 8 2008 1:47PM GMT
Posted by: Margaret Rouse
Green computing,
Data Center
Lots of buzz about the Uptime Institute’s symposium on IT Energy Efficiency and the study McKinsey released called Revolutionizing Data Center Efficiency . It’s interesting that Michael Manos estimates that only 10% of data center managers measure the efficiency of their facilities. Could it be because it’s almost impossible for the average Joe to get the data they need to plug in the formulas? Or could it be that they’re waiting for a clear winner in the proposed metrics? Try this one out for size: CADE.
CADE is the new metric-of-the-week.
CADE (Corporate Average Data center Efficiency) = (Facility Efficiency) x (Asset Efficiency)
Facility Efficiency is defined as (Facility Energy Efficiency) * (Facility Utilization)
Asset Efficiency is defined as (IT Energy Efficiency) * (IT utilization)