This presentation is one of the best explanations and simple examples of what needs to be done to reduce our carbon footprint in order to stem global warming. Food for thought as we may need to eat less meat

There are two ways to solve a problem, don't cause the problem in the first place, or solve it once you have a problem. Prevention rather than cure, type methodology.

I like to avoid the problem in the first place as it costs more to fix than to avoid, hence my like for low power computing with thin clients , cool servers and low energy storage .

This speaker was excellent, I have not checked his numbers but it made me think

Well I was never clever enough to go to Oxford University, but as one of the worlds leading education establishments for the last 400yrs they must be doing something right. That means that they are thought leaders and we should listen to what they do, well I always preferred the teachers at school who sounded like they had done what they were talking about. Here is an excerpt from a yahoo newsflash " By using Sun Rays across all university sites, Oxford is saving roughly $10,000 USD per year on power, reducing heat generation, cutting administration time and much more.", The whole article is here: Oxford University saves $10,000 of power costs.

So Oxford university has just saved loads of electrical power, improved security, provided more desk space for people to work, made it easier to maintain and swap any equipment.

You can change a SunRay in less time it takes to order a pizza. I call this Pizza service time or PST. It must be pretty good and not just a Sun idea as Wyse and other are copying the SunRay thin client idea.

No data is stored locally but is on a cluster of server computers, thus no need for laptop/PC backups or restores. Also, no data to be stolen locally, thus many of your security problems are solved.

And they do not need to add more cooling and refigration as the thin client SunRays use less power than Laptops or PC's.

Remember thin client SunRays provide access to MS windows applications as well as Unix applications. Now there is a interesting fact that many do not know about. (I was corrected that the application runs on the servers, but we all knew that, this is why I never got into Oxford or Cambridge).

I was always a bit more of a techy and I did live closer to Cambridge than Oxford, so I had more of a preference for Cambridge University. However, I was not smart enough to go their either, but then again I never applied. Now what is Cambridge doing in the area of smart computing.

Those clever Gartner guys spotted the heat and cooling problem a while ago see here:

http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/generic/0,295582,sid5_gci1247090,00.html

Some soundbites;

"Through 2009, energy costs will emerge as the second-highest operating cost in 70% of worldwide data center facilities," declares Michael Bell, research vice president at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc

In her analysis of SATA disk and LTO tape, "the cost to acquire, power and cool a disk system is almost eight times that of a tape library," says Dianne McAdam, director of enterprise information assurance at The Clipper Group Inc., Wellesley, Mass.

I am happy in my ecologically heated house, up hear in Europe's Alaska.

All startups should start with low-power computers and storage. It is your responsibility to society and you have to pay for the sins of your parents and grandparents. I expect to see lots of Sun Coolthreads servers being bought and lots of zero energy tapes to store your old archives/pictures. These technologies are so cool and not only in their low power usage.

My generation which was born in the 60's and grew up with Punk in the 70's, Ultravox, Eurythmics & Police in the 80's, will inherit not only the music but the enviroment that the previous generation gave us. Plus Nylon shirts, hippies etc and computers designs/datacenters that use a lot of power. We now are inheriting the hot high power Ghz chips from generation X that was born after me in the 80's.

We can change the music we listen too, throw out old fashions but we cannot change the planet we inherit. However, even though I detested opera when I was younger, it seems OK now. People change.

Hopefully the new generation can do better than Nylon shirts and plastic furniture.

This is how I see the decisions in the computer industry developing.

Born in 50's (who started spending money and working in 60's/70's)

Furniture = plastic, colors = orange (anything bright), car = mini/VW Beetle or camper van, computers = big iron mainframes

Born in 60's (started working being a consumer 15-20yrs later)

Furniture = Pine, colors = pastels (anything not bright), car = golf GTI, computers = smaller mainframes and Unix workstations

Born in 70's

Furniture = Pine, colors = Still pastels (all clothes are black all walls are white), car = Peugeot GTI, computers = Unix workstations and big Unix servers. Did use Apple Macs, then did not, then did again when OS-X turned into Unix.

Born in 80's

Furniture = Pine, colors = Still pastels (60-70's wallpaper coming back), car = Subaru Impreza, computers = PC's, big PC's and if it does not have a Windows GUI it cannot be a computer.

Born in 90's

Furniture = What's in the parents house, colors = back to pschycadelic bright orange, car = parents, computer (would like to see this as a hybrid, computers = Mobile phone and iPod.

But really too early to tell, with this generation. All I know is that they play online games and shop for Kitty clothes on the internet and I pay for it all. The network (internet) is the computer, who said that? Lets hope the computers are eco-friendly Sun T2000, Niagara type. Otherwise when I am a pensioner I will be wearing shorts all the time. Not good for society or humanity.

Nothing against the hippies, I am an Austin Powers fan.

Have a look at Tom Jones (respect) song burning down the house.

Are we using so much power with hot processors and more and more spinning disk that we will burn down out datacenters, burn all the fuels to create cooling for these and finally burn up the planet.

Check this out: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/27/leeds_server_overheat

Are we mad, one definition of insanity is to repeatedly make the same mistake. We have very power and heat hungry & intensive servers, that can catch fire or melt down if not cooled. Then we burn coal and gas to produce the electricity to power the cooling systems to stop the fire we created in the first place.

Fire goes in to make more heat, then more fire goes in to take heat out into the atmosphere.

Why do we treat computer centers differently from other equipment. I can think of 2 reasons;

1) Computers are general purpose machines, computers were the first device created by man that could be used for many different applications; medical, entertainment, mathematical problems and data processing. In this context, I do not mean databases as being a different type of application. A drill or washing machine is a dedicated device made for one purpose one. (The drill can be used to dry your washing, if you really want to, but is probably not to efficient).

2) Fear. A mystery still surrounds computers, so people do not question the mainstream. People think that there is something magic and complex about computers. So we think that the practicalities of everyday life do not apply to computers. Yes, they do.

Presently with all the high GHz chips produced in the last 4-5yrs, that are prevalent in our datacenters we basically have an overheating problem. Some believe that we should cool this down, rather than prevent or avoid it in the first place.

For those that still think that computers and computer centers are a mystery, here is a secret please do not tell anyone:

Using water to cool hot high speed/GHz) servers is like pouring water into an overheated car engine and just watching it pour out of a hole in the bottom of the car/engine. We stick more disks and servers in the computer center and have to add more and more water cooling and power to move the water around. Companies are now producing water cooling for graphics cards and PC's. This is what we did in the 80's, and that is before we understood global warming. Then we got rid of water cooling.

This is similar to what happened in the nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in the US about 20yrs ago. Pumped more and more water in, but it just leaked out of the other side. This was a plumbing issue not a nuclear fusion issue. Look that up yourselves.

So we would not put water into overheated cars with broken radiators and other devices that we understand but we put more and more water cooling into computer centers. First we need to plug the hole and run things cooler.

Try and use some high speed low power Sun T2000 servers, see here http://www.sun.com/servers/coolthreads/se_t2000 and migrate and/or virtualise your old hot server apps to these. Then move that old data that you do not use, but are scared to delete onto tape, as define here http://www.sun.com/storagetek/tape_storage/tape_libraries/sl500 .

Don't put water into a leaking engine, you will just make a mess. If you are unlucky you will injure yourself or your budget.

Why is everyone worried about this, it will give us an incentive to find alternatives and stop driving un-economical (true economic calculations includes enviromentally unfriendly and non-ecological consumption) cars.

We can reduce the petrol/diesel taxes, that in Europe are at up to 80% of the fuel price.

Simple. If oil goes up to $100/barrel, then we can take n% off a countries fuel tax (or Eurozone, Japan or US economy), thereby offseting the increase cost of fuel by reducing the tax component in the price.

So this is what we can do. If a western country calculates that oil at $100/barrel will take 1% off GDP, reduce fuel tax from, say 80% to 50%. Which puts the end user price back to where it was or not change it all. Final result, oil price increase has no change to western economies. Except for petrol tax receipts.

Oil up, taxes down, zero sum game.

I grew up with a fascination of cars, nowadays for environmental reasons, I cannot justify the cars I always dreamed of (Lotus, Porsche etc). However, when calculating environmental costs, we have to take in more than just the fuel cost. We need to take in the energy and resources used to build the car in the first place and try to re-use it.

I like old, large cars with their beautiful interiors and smooth large engines. However, if I buy a 7yr old Mercedes or even older Rolls Royce with a large engine, I am recycling an old car. If I only drive it 50km a week, which is 2 trips to the office. Then I am not using much fuel and am re-using all the metal, leather and resources used to manufacture it, rather than to dispose of them in a junk yard.

Less is more, re-use what we have.

See we can justify anything if we try. Lets see what the Mrs says when I turn up in a green Rolls Royce. I am sure no-one else in the street will have one. Why else would I buy one.

To be able to manage a companies data is a real sociological problem (not rocket science, which is easy). The various departments do not want to talk to each other, each wants their own storage. No-one wants to delete data. Some want to use more disk less tape. Others want to use more tape and less disk. Some believe in NAS as the solution.

Storage management is a sociological problem. Now direction from a accountable group of management people to solve this always helps. Codeword for get management sponsorship for this project.

You need to be a politician, scientist, engineer, businesman and negotiator to fix the data management problem. Not too different from Identity Management, which is a little bit easier as even people who know nothing about computers realise that ID's and passwords are important. However, how many people come to me and say I have lost my file on my computer, I cannot find it. Then I say, well what is you directory/folder structure. Then they look at me with a blank face. Data is not important until you have lost it. You do not realise the value of something until you do not have it.

Anyway, quick test that people can do is here: http://www.sun.com/storagetek/im3

The IT industry seems to be drunk on high power consumption computing, looks like we are just waking up with the beginning of an almighty hangover.

We have a problem in the datacenters, the equipment creates too much heat. The way to fix this is at source not afterwards. The cooling of a power hungry server or storing long term data on disk based solutions is not the answer. A bigger cooling system that uses more power is not the answer. We need to prevent this not have a cure.

I understand that we stop malaria epedemics in hot/humid countries by making sure that people in towns do not have open containers/ponds etc filled with water, so that mosquitoes cannot lay their eggs and grow. We do not buy everyone fly swats or spray the whole town with DDT to solve the problem.

Similarily, in IT to stop a power consumption epedemic, we need to stop using old or new power hungry systems. Shut them down, kick them out. Replace with more power efficient servers and storage devices.

Medicines are still good, I am not saying that we should stop research into medicines or better cooling, just use some prevention. Then we may not have to solve a problem, as it no longer exists.

As always much more cost effective to avoid the problem at design stage than to fix it in production.

It is 08:25 and is the first Monday in a long time where I see some really good news. I have been ranting on that IT managers and CIO's should start to find ways of using less electricity to power their datacenters and here is one, Mr Devine from Betfair. This is a win-win scenario for everyone, business, IT and the environment.

Wish I still, lived in London, could have a nice warm beer to celebrate.

Anyway, this guy grew capacity by 30% (usage growth by 200%, not sure what this is) and reduced power buy 60%. He also did some clever storage consolidation by the look of things.

Read it yourself here:
http://www.sun.com/customers/servers/betfair_eco.xml/

Betfair is growing at a breathtaking pace. The company’s Web traffic is up 33% in six months, now running at four billion page impressions a week. With that rate of growth, cheap power is not the complete answer: It’s just as important to minimize the use of power within the datacenter. And that’s where Sun is adding value daily at Betfair, starting with servers based on CoolThreads technology.

“Sun’s CoolThreads technology generates more CPU cycles while using less power,” says Devine. “Nothing like it has existed before. We replaced racks and racks of Dell servers with Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers. The result is more computing power in the same physical space and significantly less power—a double win for us.” Thanks largely to the savings of the Sun eco responsible servers, Betfair has achieved 200% usage growth - all within the same datacenter space.

Server virtualization using the Containers feature of Solaris 10 contributes to higher server utilization and thus also reduces power consumption. “Containers allow us to run multiple applications concurrently with little risk of the crossover effects you see with other virtualization technologies,” Devine says.

Some in the IT business argue that eco responsibility involves trading off power savings and performance. “That’s crazy talk,” Devine responds. “Sun’s energy-efficient technology is such a powerful proposition because you get more computing power and less energy usage. It's like they’re offering you a race car that goes faster and uses less gas. Why wouldn’t you buy it?”

Minimizing power and cooling costs also involves an often-overlooked area: storage. “Storage arrays burn a lot of power,” explains Devine. “Through virtualization, we’ve eliminated 40 terabytes of physical capacity, reducing storage power and cooling costs by 60%.” Betfair’s storage infrastructure is based on a Sun StorageTek 9985 system, which features built-in virtualization capabilities.

Building an energy- and space-efficient datacenter isn’t just a matter of plugging in the right gear. It requires careful and thoughtful design of the facility and IT administration processes. Sun Professional Services has the expertise and experience to contribute to that effort, according to Devine: “Betfair has a good relationship with Sun on a lot of levels. We can tap into their experts for design and implementation to take full advantage of Sun technology. Sun Professional Services helps shape our thinking and get the efficiencies we’re looking for.”

Devine assesses the development of eco responsibility in the IT industry: “Sun was the first major company to deliver better business performance that was actually good for the environment as well. These initiatives were and are visionary and innovative. Now other vendors are jumping on the bandwagon, but we can see right through them. Sun led the way. It’s fantastic the way Sun championed eco responsibility and energy-efficient computing.”

There’s a personal side for Devine. “Betfair works hard to minimize its environmental impact, and that’s important to me personally as well. I have a young son and I want to the world to be a great place for him to grow up in.”

Question is will his boss increase his salary or will he get a bonus. If I was a betting man.

This weekend I installed two water barrels to collect rainwater, now I have 120 litres of rainwater to water the garden. Would still like to add a real big 200 liter water barrel at the back of the garage for the dry summer months. Plan for next year. It feels good not to use pumped and purified drinking water on the garden. Stockholm tap water tastes better than most mineral waters, but may not be as fashionable.

What is left to do: need to save all waste foodstuffs and put it into a composter.

NB, What I do so far:

1)Heat the house from ground thermal heat (this is not special in Sweden)
2)Run the car on ethanol (this is not that different in Sweden, but still rare)
3)Re-charge all batteries for last 6yrs
4)All house lightbulbs are low-power, high efficiency CFL's
5)Recycle all paper, plastics and metal (my wife does this).

Caveats

I do like some biodiesel cars, as you do not have to fill up so often.
The dinning room chandelier uses old (8 x 15W) lightbulbs as it is on a dimmer switch, cannot dim CFL's. If someone invents a dimmable CFL I will by 8 of them, if you can get them can someone tell me where and what they are called.

I Read recently about the big green fuel lie here http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2328821.ece which states that ethanol can cause more problems than it solves. Well of course it can. That is if you look at it in isolation.

However, I also recently read why a German chemical company, that can keep it's main factory high cost Germany because they have integrated the inputs and outputs. Well two reasons.

1) The Germans are clever
2) It re-uses many of the chemicals produced by one process as the input into another.

So as my American colleague Ken always says "net net". Which I do not understand but take to to believe in English "In summary this is what you want to do".

Why don't we use the ethanol produced in the ethanol brewery to produce the electricity to power the ethanol brewery. This is a bit like electricity power stations, which use their own power to keep themselves going. Have a generator running off excess ethanol or other by products produced in the process.

When you use the brake on a Toyota Pirus, it uses the kinetic energy to stop the car to charge the battery.

Also, why do all those oil refineries have large towers burning off execess gas, why don't they use it to generate electricity or use it as raw material for another product. Very profligate behaviour.

Also, we do not need to use corn or sugar cane to produce ethanol. We can use cellulose and clever high efficiency bio-tech yeasts, that improve fermentation rates. This is where we want to get too: http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18227

Concerning clever Germans, the Gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea does not strike me as being particulary environmentally friendly. I have not seen the Green party in Germany do much about this.

Now the Danish are clever too, they also have integrated heating and power systems. Maybe we should have our ethanol breweries close to Nuclear power stations. A potentially explosive mixture/idea.

Also, electricity for the brewery rhymes well.