All Posts Tagged With: "Green Ideas"
I recently met with Mark Shirman, CEO and Founder of Glasshouse Technologies and had the opportunity to get another exclusive Hot Aisle interview. Mark is uniquely placed to comment on the recent changes in the Data Center and Storage markets with particular emphasis on Green issues.
For many years Glasshouse has been the leading independent Storage [...]
I picked up an interesting article on the Executive Business Lifestyle website. (You have no idea the lengths that The Hot Aisle goes to in order to deliver interesting content!)
Scouring through rubbish tips for reusable items and materials is nothing new. We see the practice on TV regularly, usually accompanied by a serious commentary on [...]
Our atmosphere (the air around us) is made up of gasses consisting of nitrogen (78%), oxygen (21%), carbon dioxide (0.3%) and water in the form of vapor (humidity). The amount of water in the atmosphere is measured as a Relative Humidity (RH)
Data Center air should contain the proper amount of water vapor to maximize the availability [...]
I wrote about Elean Park Data Center some time ago on The Hot Aisle where we looked at the use of absorption chillers that use the waste heat from a biomass power station and gas generation plant on site to drive them. Howard Phelby of 5 nines kindly sent me the attached diagram that shows [...]
Continue ReadingI read a cool article about some community action to deliver a green outcome:
Cobweb Solutions, has joined together with 58 customers to produce a total energy saving equivalent to a tonne of carbon, in just one night on 14th August. The CO2 saving is equivalent to the emissions generated by ten passengers on a return [...]
My friend, the inventor and green innovator, Peter Hopton from VeryPC has a unique view on how to be environmentally responsible whilst deploying PCs into an office environment and he is presenting his ideas at The Carbon Footprint Energy Efficient IT Summit on the 4th and 5th September.
Peter says that there are three basic approaches:
Give [...]
Continue ReadingToday we are going to look at practical changes that we can all make to our data centres that will improve cooling efficiency, to enable us to install more equipment in the same space or reduce our electricity bills.
There are a few basic rules that will help us become more efficient.
The first is the less [...]
Continue ReadingI was reading an article about the recent Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) Data Center Energy Summit, in San Francisco, engineers and data center pros gathered to study 11 case studies on energy efficiency. The data center studies varied, but one green data center tactic stood out: hot-aisle/cold-aisle containment.
The Hot Aisle readers know that data center best [...]
Dry coolers are used in many air cooled refrigeration systems. In case of low outdoor temperatures, outdoor air can be applied for cooling applications. In dry coolers, large fans create a forced airflow along air-to-water heat exchangers. Subsequently, the water circuit can be used for cooling of data centers, office buildings and industrial processes.
Dry coolers play an important role in [...]
I had two great questions from Hot Aisle readers following the latest article on Cold Aisle containment. Dan asked about the impact on fire suppression and Mark asked about where we got the transparent curtains.
Lets start with the impact on fire systems of having either hot or cold aisle containment. The safety of personel working [...]
The London Financial Times published an interesting article about data center cooling. Written by fellow blgger Dan Ilet of Greenbang.com it focuses on the strain being put on data centers by increased numbers and power demand of servers and the rapid increase in the cost of electricity.
Its often amusing what journalists pick up in a [...]
I picked up an interesting news article about field force automation. Believe me that even a small amount of effort to automate and optimize Field Engineers pays off handsomely. At BT we did some home grown stuff and even that made a great difference to calls per Engineer, and fuel, distance per call metrics. I wish [...]
Continue ReadingA picture paints a thousand words. This graphically depicts the distribution of water on our planet. WoW!
Continue ReadingMilan has a high (and rising) water table and the city authorities encourage the use of groundwater for cooling. They want to keep the water level in check to protect subway lines and utilities. Groundwater is pumped through a heat exchanger for condenser water and then dumped to the sewer. The authorities [...]
Continue ReadingThe Hot Aisle reader, Mark Hatton of Trapdoor dropped me a mail a few days ago about a company based in Las Vegas called Switch Communications and the CEO, Rob Roy was making a lot of claims about how good their proposed new data center was. You can read the original article in The Register. [...]
Continue ReadingOn Monday the 23rd June, Dr. James E. Hansen, a physicist of the Columbia University Earth Institute, testified to Congress about global warming, 20 years after his June 23, 1988 testimony, which alerted the public that global warming was under way. He states that there are striking similarities between then and now, but one big difference. Read [...]
Continue ReadingOne of the things that prompted me to write about CHP and Biomass was an email I received from a colleague, Howard Pheby of 5 nines. Howard, and his partner Paul Foskett, are announcing their plans to build a new data center complex co-located with a Biomass Plant just up the road from my home [...]
Continue ReadingAs we have been discussing CHP and Biomass Power Stations recently, I though that it might be interesting to explore this subject in more detail. I live in East Anglia in England, a largely agricultural area that is leading the way in Biomass electricity production, so this is a matter of local interest for me. [...]
Continue ReadingAt last the trade press is waking up to the fact that IT is an enormous consumer of power and that making CIOs responsible for the electricity bills is the right thing to do.
My colleague Duncan Scott CIO at DTZ Holdings was interviewed for an Article in Computing - IT departments threatened with rising energy bills [...]
Average retailer wastes over £1million per annum on excess energy usage in data centres
On average, top UK retailers are overspending by £1.25 million a year on the power needed to run their data centres which can equate to 50 per cent of total data centre costs and 10 per cent of their total energy bills. [...]
I have just been exchanging emails with my good friend and colleague, Will Forest. Will runs the Data Center Consulting Practice for top drawer strategy consultants, McKinsey & Company. I engaged Will, and we worked together on delivering BT’s Data Center Strategy. Will and his team brought a great deal of experience and clarity of [...]
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