Subscribe to the RSS feed

Whether your company's data center is a couple of servers stashed in a closet or a gleaming, state-of-the-art climate-controlled facility, you're still facing the same set of challenges: how to keep the IT lights on while controlling costs, take advantage of new technologies to stay competitive, and position your company for an economic recovery in the midst of the toughest times for IT that many of us can remember.

On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, help is on the way.

Comment on this blog entry

As one of the head counselors of Energy Camp (Tom Raftery of Greenmonk fame is the other; blog, Twitter), I pay pretty close attention to anything colored green; green organizations, green initiatives, green events, green vendor programs, green news, etc. It was only after the last Energy Camp at Interop in Las Vegas that it dawned on me why the overall green movement gets only pockets of traction, and what we should do about it. Hopefully, someone in Obama's administration is listening.

Comments(4)

When not organizing all the world's information and making it universally accessible, Google can often be found not doing evil, in keeping with its unofficial motto.

Comments(1)

Google wants you to use energy to save energy. In its latest scheme to save the planet, Google is asking anyone with a video camera to make and upload a video that illustrates the benefits of energy-efficient computing.

Comment on this blog entry

Did you know that power issues come in separate flavors, and that you need different kinds of UPS systems to deal with different kinds of power problems?

Comments(1)

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a certification program sponsored by the non-profit U.S. Green Buildings Council (USGBC) that is a nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) yesterday posted a draft "LEED for Datacenters" on its website that the lab developed in partnership with a who’s who of datacenter industry groups, including the ASHRAE, The Green Grid, The Uptime Institute, 24x7, the European Commission, the Critical Facilities Roundtable and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

Comment on this blog entry

Semantic search is like porn: I'm pretty sure I'll know it when I see it. So when semantic search upstart Truevert came by for a visit, I got all googly (I think I might have even screamed "yahoo"). The Truevert system, powered by OrcaTec's discovery toolkit, is narrowly defined around green, but it's definitely an eye-opening, fresh approach to an elusive problem.

Comments(2)

The savings that flow from server virtualization are well known and accepted. The potential savings on the client side, I believe, are even greater. But that premise is much less widely accepted, and even less frequently implemented. Perhaps virtualizing end users one application at a time is the way to go.

Comments(1)

Last year Horizon Fuel Cell blew us away with a generator/charging device that used water to create electricity. My colleague, David Berlind, filed this blog, and this video on YouTube that not only produced more than 1.3 million views, but well over a hundred comments, many of them doubting the viability of the technology. This year, the company has not only created a final product, but showed off smaller, cleverer versions as well.

Comments(3)

bMighty.com's latest virtual event -- a "deep dive on IT infrastructure for growing companies" -- is a wrap, but now you can check out the whole thing any time you want.

Comment on this blog entry

60 Minutes (the CBS news magazine) ran such a disturbing story on e-waste last night that it's practically enough to make you want to disavow yourself of hi-tech altogether. I almost wish I didn't see it because now, I'm having a hard time reconciling all the digital products I have (or want to buy) and what I tell my kids about leading a greener lifestyle. How can we possibly make that next iPod, cell phone, notebook, or flat screen purchase and say we're green at the same time?

Comments(8)

I got an e-mail today with the subject We Buy Used Tape Media, which got me thinking. In today's environment, where lost backup tapes get companies, and their storage administrators, in the newspaper, and possibly the unemployment line, who in their right mind would sell their old backup tapes?

Comments(6)

Despite repeated promises that the paperless office is just around the corner, the completely paperless office remains "just around the corner." Nevertheless, bMighty's brand new Imaging How-To Center can show you how to leverage document imaging to save money, improve your company's workflow, and even go a little green.

Comment on this blog entry

Battery life is the iPhone 3G's Achilles' heel. The original iPhone's battery life was marginal -- able to get through a full day of moderate usage, but only barely. The iPhone 3G's battery is worse, because of the energy-sucking needs of the 3G chipset.

Comments(45)

Sun Microsystems' fifth employee has left the company to join his friends at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and research green technology. It's a bittersweet day.

Comment on this blog entry

It's the eve before Interop here in Las Vegas and we've just wrapped up Energy Camp where, as can be seen from the user-decided agenda, the conversation went deep and wide on a variety of subjects related to the reduction of information technology's carbon footprint. Two key takeaways for me were (1) many so-called "green" remedies have a dark enough side to them that they may not be as green as we think they are, and (2) it may take another 15 or 20 years before we have it all sorted out. It's not as bad as it sounds, but ...

Comment on this blog entry

How much are you paying to run your servers? A study on server electricity consumption says the utility bill for U.S. servers came to nearly $3 billion dollars.

Comments(5)

As another Earth Day passed, I thought it was appropriate to pass along some green tidbits within the content management and IT space. I ran across Jarrod Gingras' post referring to how the green movement is affecting purchasing decisions for SaaS-based Web content solutions.

Comment on this blog entry

Apple plans big changes to its MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks, with new versions that use more powerful, recent Intel processors, eco-friendly materials, and that borrow design elements from the new, thin MacBook Air and aluminum iMacs.

Comments(3)

Are you coming to Energy Camp on April 28 where we'll be having an open conversation about green technology? If not, why not? Why do I ask? I was just checking the logs on our YouTube channel (TechWebTV) and noticed something unusual. Or maybe not.

Comment on this blog entry

If you're an IT professional, solution provider, or someone else with an interest in how to trim back the energy consumption of technology (especially if you're someone with domain expertise to contribute to the broader conversation about "green IT"), then I hope you'll join me and Energy Camp master of ceremonies James Governor (blog) for Energy Camp in Las Vegas on April 28 (just prior to the start of Interop). Registration is free and it gets you a coveted hall pass into Interop, too.

Comment on this blog entry

If your company is looking for ways to squeeze more out of IT these days (and who isn't), server virtualization is one of the moves some organizations are making to find savings. Just ask Kent Kushar, CIO at wine maker E&J Gallo.

Comments(1)

My first post of 2008 was a content management trend watch: number two on the list was the movement toward green IT.

Comment on this blog entry

The monumental imperative to save our planet requires launching ourselves over what seems an insurmountable hurdle involving the orchestration of global agreement and policy combined with individual actions that manifest themselves as a nebulous series of micro decisions. So good luck with all of that and call me when the polar bears and penguins are tanning themselves on Fire Island. Or maybe we should completely re-examine our own lives like Saul Griffith, MIT PhD, chief scientist at Makani Power and the most fascinating presenter (despite some 70 slides) at ETech last week.

Comment on this blog entry

E-mail governance might not be the sexiest thing when it comes to content technologies, but don't tell that to your CIO or general counsel. Besides keeping them out of jail, a solid e-mail governance strategy drives compliance, improves information retrieval, and reduces paper.

Comments(1)