Hi I’m Don Atwood, author of the newly released white paper and video that discusses our proof of concept (PoC) that tested cooling our Data Center with outside air. The topic of humidity control and if this would work in an ultra high humid climate keeps coming up. Most OEM spec’s allow for a wide range of humidity and it’s our belief that this cooling methodology could be used almost everywhere globally. Our only uncertainty comes around trying this near the ocean with high levels of salty corrosive wet air. We know it would negatively affect the servers at some point but the question is how quickly and is it within our refresh timetable. During a trip to ASIA last week I discussed trying a small scale “near the ocean” PoC to test this theory.. Does anyone thing this would add value to your company?

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.

Like most other companies these days, Intel is facing a growing demand for computing resources. As a result, our computing costs are going up along with that demand. All of these issues prompted us to take a hard look at our data center strategy, to see where we could make it more efficient.

Therefore, we’ve launched into a significant undertaking. We’ve started the process to End of Life (EOL) or consolidate our data centers down to just eight strategic locations. This effort is planned to take us eight years, but we’re working to pull this in sooner. This initiative enables us to reduce costs, improve server and storage utilization, create higher density & more energy efficient data centers, and allows us to keep pace with our company’s rapid rate of innovation. The effort could deliver up to $750M in Net Present Value. View my video blog for more information.


I would be interested to hear your comments, questions and have you share with us what your company is doing to drive efficiency within your data centers.