ECMF Blog

RE: Is your compute model choice green? A holistic approach…

Eric Decker — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:42:18 GMT

Today Data Center energy savings are a huge opportunity. Data Centers consume more energy per square foot than any other part of an office building. This is part of an information and services supply chain that begins with raw materials and ends with the disposal of waste. The chain includes people, the space they occupy, and the cars they drive. Along the way, the chain increasingly energy demands and emitting greenhouse gases.

Energy consumption in the data center is predominantly from two sources:

servers (power draw)
cooling (required to keep the servers running)
Increasing server density compounds this problem because this may not have been considered when your data center was built.

http://www.greenracksystems.com/

RE: Is your compute model choice green? A holistic approach…

Leon H. Davidson — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:48:45 GMT

Years ago I was able to convince a few forward looking application developers to use 'virtual' space on a server rather than buying yet another server for another little application (granted, every developer thought that their application was the biggest and best thing that had ever been invented). I had built a large, super fast server and was giving out 'virtual' servers for free; the developer had nothing to lose and everything to gain. After seeing their applications run better and faster than on thier development boxes, the tide quickly turned. Another gain was that a powerful server in with redundancy from top to bottom can have amazing uptime.

The reason for the story is that in the end we were able to consolidate the number of servers, not only saving on upfront and support costs, but even greater savings were seen due to less electrical load and reduced HVAC demand!

One big server running at 50% load against twenty servers running at 2% load results in huge savings and better overall performance.

Jason touched on this, and I have seen real-world results! Going Green should not be associated with a decrease in performance or abilities, rather, by doing things smart we can have an improved experience AND be doing the right thing long-term.

RE: Is your compute model choice green? A holistic approach…

Sophia.Stalliviere — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:17:50 GMT

Great post! A thought that we should do with technology is see if before it goes into mass production, is if that product can be easily broken down and all parts can be recycled, used again or made into somthing else. If we can start from the begining instead of waiting till the product has met it's demise, maybe the landfills won't be so cluttered with old pc's that could potentionally have harmful parts.

RE: "The Intern's" Thoughts: ECMF and You...

scorey62 — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:28:48 GMT

Okay...too late Miss Intern! Your idea has already been thought of and is being worked on as we "blog" as well as a lot of other great technologies. I, too am very excited to be learning about the future of computers. Very excited about virtualization and you are right, probably by 2020 we will be seeing just a screen and keyboard with the "hard drive" at a utility center where applications will be customized to the clients liking and when problems arise...VOILA!
instant fix, well almost but much easier than today.

The house of tomorrow will be completely run by computer, your heat settings when you walk in the door, your favorite tv shows at your beck and call, and even a refrigerator which will check to see if you have ingredients for a recipe you want to make. EXCITING!! That's what I think.

Keep up the great blogs...love reading them!

RE: Demo of SCCM R2 w/App-V from Microsoft World Partner Conference

Sophia.Stalliviere — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:07:21 GMT

We are coming of age with virtualization. One is able to pull up two different versions of programs without disrupting any projects that one is working on. Previously, we would have two different word versions, with that, the documents that was on one version was not able to read on a newer version. Now you can bring up both versions without them going into conflict with each other.

My favorite part of this was how Craig Pierce showed how two different versions of programs could coexist on the same screen but they have no idea that they are there. We have always had the problem of pulling up two different versions of Microsoft; the system would just give error messages. Now they can hang out with each other in the same room and never know it.

I know this is not a new concept, and there were so much information that is published out there, but it is nonetheless exciting and so new to me. What would be a new VDI feature you would like to see? I would want to see multiple streaming without too much buffering. I want things to go faster. I have no patience!

RE: Demo of SCCM R2 w/App-V from Microsoft World Partner Conference

Jason Kennedy — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:45:30 GMT

Very compelling stuff. It's great to see how Intel and Microsoft have teamed on vPro System Center and Application Virtualization up to deliver a unique solution with business value for both end user and IT.

RE: The Future of Client Computing…

Jason A. Davidson — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:18:54 GMT

Great question ntrent, we should always look at the possibility of it not being a success... The other options as I see them include having many unique solutions or more of the status quo of today.

RE: The Future of Client Computing…

Jason A. Davidson — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 23:15:49 GMT

I think some of the technologies are out right now, and gaining momentum for marketplace adoption. But realistically much of it should play out over the next 3 to 5 years. However, the pace of innovation can sometimes surprise us all...

For this to be a viable solution it will take more than Intel to make it a success, it will be a collaboration of many companies and bright minds to solve the non-trivial problems - there is money to be made and saved by many...

I believe that to get the word out on a technology takes many solid steps, each step having a major innovation which will truly benefit the users. Enough of these steps will result in people talking about the technology and it becoming a ubiquitous part of our lives.

Thanks for the comments! -Jason

RE: "The Intern's" Thoughts: ECMF and You...

chriskaneshiro — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:38:30 GMT

I hate to repeat Jason, but I can't say it better myself. Great blog!

It should be very interesting to see how streaming evolves especially with the vPro technology in the next few years. Not only will it make productivity go up, but it will also reduce costs of machines and it will dramatically reduce support costs as well. Of course this is nothing we don't already know.

When it comes down to it, technology just needs to work. I agree completely with what jason said about the hammer working 6 months later.

Another factor that makes this technology particularly powerful is that computers have been expected to have problems, so now that we are starting to quickly eliminate these problems, the consumers will come running to vPro like moths to a flame!

RE: The Future of Client Computing…

ntrent — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 22:33:16 GMT

That's awesome, Jason. =] Sounds like you had a lot of fun!

But one question... what would you do if all fails and the future isn't as bright as we hope it to be with the "dial-tone OS?"