Intel Open Port: IT@Intel Data Center Blog : 2008 : April

2

Before you throw it away....make sure you know where it is going.

Posted by Ilene Apr 28, 2008

I'd like to introduce myself--my name is Ilene Aginsky and I'm the new site community manager for the IT@Intel zone on Open Port, Intel's online IT community site. I started out in IT about two years ago and got very interested in the green aspect of IT.

We have had quite a few discussions out here in the community on green versus efficient Greening Data Centers or Make 'em Efficient? and I'm not as concerned by what it is called but rather what we must do to ensure we don't damage the environment.

The issues are not simple and require a balancing act. It is important to look at the picture holistically, from cradle to grave. For example, Intel IT will be refreshing approximately 20,000 servers this year with new servers that will consume less energy and reduce our carbon footprint. This begs the question: what happens to the old equipment and what are we doing to prevent it from ending up in a landfill?

I asked my colleague Robert who is the Secure Data Control Program Manager for IT and he told me that all end-of-life (EOL) servers at Intel follow the same process. We make sure that we secure all the data by removing and sanitizing the hard drives.

Once the data has been sanitized there are three possible paths:
Resale - we prioritize re-sale
Donations - some organizations need servers, even without disks
Scrap - anything deemed worthless to resale or donations is sent to scrap vendors for material reuse and recycling

What does your organization do with old equipment?

2 Comments Permalink Tags: efficiency, green, servers, server_refresh, refresh, energy, energy_efficiency, power

6

Intel IT Deploys Virtualization - How we did it!

Posted by BillSunderland Apr 24, 2008

As this is my first blog on this forum, I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Bill Sunderland and I have been working at Intel for 12 years primarily working on Server Hardware Engineering and the last three years of which I have focused my efforts on Program Managing the Virtualization Engineering release for Intel IT. I have recently published a WP demonstrating the methodology used as described below.

Intel IT planned, engineered, and has begun deploying a virtualized business-computing production environment at several data centers, a rollout that will continue through 2008. Our initiative has already confirmed anticipated virtualization benefits such as faster, more automated deployment. We are initially consolidating older servers running applications that are not mission-critical; we see opportunities to achieve 16:1 consolidation ratios.

Click here to read the WP: Implementing Virtualization in a Global Business-Computing Environment

I would be interested in hearing your experiences and/or questions regarding virtualizing IT environments!

6 Comments Permalink Tags: consolidation, data_center, data_center_efficiency, data_center_power, datacenter, efficiency, energy, energy_efficiency, it@intel, multicore, performance, power, server, virtualization, xeon

0

Comparing Two- and Four-socket Platforms for Server Virtualization

Posted by Sudip Chahal Apr 22, 2008

The relative positioning of 2 and 4-socket servers for server virtualization has been an open question for a long time - a question that has stumped the most astute of IT professionals time and again. In fact it might not be an exaggeration to say that this open question is almost in the same class as the famous Riemann's hypothesis that has remained unsolved for over a century! (If you accept that premise, then there's some real estate on the moon that I'd like to bring to your attention as well). Although advocates for either class of servers have been emphatic in their respective positions, compelling data-points supporting their positions have been few and far between.

To remedy this sorry state of affairs, an Intel IT team conducted in-depth tests and analysis using current quad-core processor based 2 and 4-socket servers in a virtualized environment. This effort culminated in a comprehensive framework for comparing server platforms for virtualization. This comparative framework encompasses the majority of common deployment scenarios and usage models and answers - once and for all - the long unanswered question "which server is more appropriate for my virtualization project?"

The whitepaper detailing the findings can be found here Comparing Two- and Four-Socket Platforms for Server Virtualization. If time is short, click on the icon below for a short video overview.

0 Comments Permalink Tags: datacenter, server, virtualization, tco, performance, benchmark, vconsolidate, quad-core, xeon

0

The Three R's of the Data Center

Posted by travis.broughton Apr 22, 2008

My daughter recently brought home from school a photocopy of the lyrics of Jack Johnson’s “The 3 R’s” (from the Curious George soundtrack), which encourage us to “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. This struck me as relevant in some of the recent discussions I have been having about Greenwashing in the Data Center.

A fair amount of our data center strategy deals with driving down costs. We’re trying to spend less money to deliver the same or better results. Along the way, we find opportunities to be green. While I would love to have more meetings that start out with the question of “what can we do to help the environment?” rather than “what can we do to cut costs?”, we do talk about both. This is somewhat similar to consumer-oriented eco-efforts, encouraging people to save the world while saving money: unplug electronic devices when they're not being used, replace your appliances with more energy-efficient ones, etc. I don't know of many people or organizations who wouldn't like to spend less money, and when we can help the environment at the same time it's win-win.

Which brings me back to the song lyrics. Our cost-cutting measures tend to be related to at least two of the three “R’s” – reducing what we consume, many times by reusing what we already have. I’ll spend my next few posts exploring this a bit further, giving some specific examples of our cost-savings initiatives that ultimately contribute to a greener data center and IT infrastructure.

Happy Earth Day...

0 Comments Permalink Tags: data_center, data_center_efficiency, green, it@intel

0

Part II: What if you invested a dollar and it returned 10?

Posted by Laurie Buczek Apr 11, 2008

Doug Garday continues his podcast series with part II, which continues the discussion around a heat recovery system to reduce the total cost of ownership. In this podcast, Doug plugs in numbers that show potential energy cost savings.

To listen to Part I go to What if you invested a dollar and it returned 10?. View the full brief at Data Center Heat Recovery Helps Intel Create Green Facility.