tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859599102142023098.post1892310468480673703..comments2008-06-26T13:42:57.398+01:00Mark Fergusonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16372442840028391593noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859599102142023098.post-6128451549451328842008-06-26T13:42:00.000+01:002008-06-26T13:42:00.000+01:00I think you're right about the impact of data centre's on our environment.<BR/><BR/>Despite the fact that many desktop and laptop machines have the ability to shift to low power mode when not in use, the vast majority of these have this option disabled (approx. 90% according to the US Environmental Protection Agency). Windows XP and it’s predecessors, for example, do not allow system administrators to natively manage power settings of PC’s over a network. Vista, on the other hand, offers this functionality and 3rd party tools now offer solutions to previous operating systems’ power management. 3rd party products, however, have emerged into the marketplace to help resolve this situation; with an obvious financial cost implication (license). According to Gartner Group, PCs and monitors account for 40 percent of global IT device carbon emissions—nearly double that of data and server centres? Each year, enterprises waste nearly $4 billion powering devices that are not in use<BR/><BR/>Virtualisation; some systems may be I/O, CPU or memory intensive. The objective is to understand which virtual workloads can be combined on physical systems without causing resource constraints. The gains, however, can be as much as 70-80% cost savings (according to VMWare) with ROI witnessed as early as 3-6mths. Again, Virtualisation offer reduced energy consumption and wastage through reduced hardware requirement and greater utilisation of what is available.<BR/><BR/>One interesting approach is to understand how waste heat from data centres could be utilised by turning this into reusable electricity through "Thermal Acoustic Piezo Energy Conversion (TAPEC)“; First, the heat is converted into a single tone sound, using "thermoacoustic prime movers" aka heat engines, then 2) using existing technology: "piezoelectric" devices that are squeezed in response to pressure, including sound waves, and change that pressure into electrical current. Whether or not this technology becomes commercially viable is open to debate and time will tell.<BR/><BR/>In summary, you might be barking up the wrong tree with the moon - that simply won't happen ;-)John Brennanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16496801523467337024noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859599102142023098.post-21962616204758227552008-05-21T22:31:00.000+01:002008-05-21T22:31:00.000+01:00By applying the power management tools you already have on your PC or laptop you can save an average of $20 per year on your energy bill and help slow global warming. Learn more about energy-efficient computing and pledge your support for the Climate Savers Computing Initiative at http://www.climatesaverscomputing.org.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7859599102142023098.post-92108596311940049722008-05-13T18:07:00.000+01:002008-05-13T18:07:00.000+01:00I really think the one company that has got great potential green fanfare is Userful with their software that can turn any single existing PC box into 10 workstations. You can check out more info on this on their site: http://www.userful.com.b79http://www.userful.comnoreply@blogger.com