IT@Intel Data Center Blog

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

Ilene — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:44:49 GMT

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?

Intel IT Deploys Virtualization - How we did it!

BillSunderland — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:58:16 GMT

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!

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

Laurie Buczek — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:54:36 GMT

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.

http://www.podtech.net/home/5079/roi-of-data-center-heat-recovery

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.