Results tagged “power management”

Virtualization, dedupe and low-power servers are all hailed as the vanguards of the green data center. Indeed, they are key elements in driving energy efficiency in the data center but there's one that can have a bigger impact: energy management.

It turns out, according to KDA Consulting's Katherine Austin, that data center infrastructure (power distribution and cooling) can out-consume servers and storage.  I wrote an article on Earth2Tech, based on Austin's report "Green Data Center Design: Strategies & Players" (subscription required), on some startups that are leveraging wireless sensors to help IT organizations get a handle on managing power.  Here's a snippet.

HP, for instance, relies on SynapSense for its Environmental Edge monitoring system. SynapSense, a startup launched by Intel's Peter Van Deventer and UC Davis computer science professor Raju Pandey, makes the wireless sensor technology that feeds power and cooling data to real-time visualization software. Armed with this information, administrators can save power by reducing cooling to levels that allow equipment to operate safely without overheating.

Read the rest here.  Thanks Katherine and Katie!

The notion that computing giants are pursuing ways of reducing the power it takes to cool their datacenters doesn't come as a surprise. However, this Computerworld story on Google's chiller-less facility in Belgium makes mention of an intriguing concept that dovetails with the promise of cloud computing.

The datacenter will use outside air for cooling and will even work weather forecasting into its power management strategy. When it gets too warm outside--only expected to happen a handful of days a year--Google plans to transfer the load to other sites and effectively shut down until the cool weather returns.

Interesting stuff, but it's the follow the moon concept the article mentions that got my attention. Experts think that one day organizations might take advantage of nighttime temperatures and lower electricity rates and have their computing resources chase day/night boundary. After all, it's always night somewhere in the world.

The problem with such a plan is that it requires resources that only the Googles of the world can afford. It would also require expansive datacenter build-outs to get the global footprint required for such an effort. Fewer and more efficient datacenters are likely to have a better impact. And as electricity from renewable sources becomes commonplace and cheaper, the point becomes moot.

Nonetheless, an interesting concept.

Power management is often described as a low-hanging fruit in establishing a green IT strategy. It seems dead simple: set your desktop and PCs to sleep or power-down after X-number of minutes and bask in lower energy bills. But tell me if this scenario doesn't sound familiar...

You're working late and need some coffee to stave off a TPS report-induced coma, so you make your way to the break area. A stroll through your nearly-empty office is a light show of screensavers and monitors stuck on the last websites your coworkers visited (nothing NSFW, I hope!). It's decidedly wasteful and unfortunately also very prevalent; just look out the windows of an office tower at night into a neighboring building to see what I mean.

Luckily, it's also something that can be remedied with a nudge from management and some legwork from IT departments. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts' VP of Technology, Vineet Gupta, gets it and his efforts to reduce energy consumption at the hotel chain is a promising start:

A key part of the initiative, which is scheduled to roll out this year and be fully implemented across all properties by the end of 2009, is a centrally managed power-down schedule that automatically shuts down all internal desktops and laptops after one hour of activity.

Fairmont estimates the power management will reduce energy consumption by 2,692,683 KwH and save 1,356 tonnes of CO2 annually.

He doesn't trivialize the challenge that it poses to IT departments, saying that it "requires a lot of effort." It also requires some "buy-in" from other sites, and in this case they're sprinkled worldwide.

Nonetheless, the results speak for themselves. There's no mention in the article of how they accomplished it technologically, but it's safe to assume that they're Windows workstations. In that case, there are plenty of centralized power management solutions with more sprouting up all the time, not to mention Group Policy options for admins versed in Active Directory.

Side note: Fairmont manages The Plaza in NYC (pictured above) among other swank resorts. Kudos Vineet!

Source [via @greenittools]

Disappointed that there was little else to greet you than a sign-up page when Microsoft announced its household power management site Hohm? You weren't the only one.

Luckily, it didn't take them very long to open the floodgates. If you entered your email address, you got an alert that Hohm Beta is up and running. The text of that email is below...

Here's the text of that email:

Microsoft is delighted to announce the availability of Microsoft Hohm. You are invited to sign up for Hohm and learn how you can start saving energy!

Microsoft Hohm is a free online beta application that helps you save energy and money. With Microsoft Hohm you can better understand your home energy usage, get recommendations to conserve energy and start saving. As with any recommendation engine, Hohm will provide increasingly more accurate and relevant suggestions for energy conservation as its users contribute home energy input and feedback. One of the objectives during our beta period is to refine our tool and further increase the value our product can offer to you. We hope you will help us!

Sign up and start saving now. It's free: www.microsoft-hohm.com

Follow us here:

Blog: http://blog.microsoft-hohm.com

Give us feedback: www.getsatisfaction.com/microsoft_hohm

Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/microsofthohm

Become on Fan on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/hohmfb

Regards,
The Microsoft Hohm Team

As noted above, Hohm's "recommendation engine" is reliant on crowdsourcing, so the more people that sign up and participate, the better it gets at delivering recommendations. With that in mind, are you going Hohm?

Wondering what the two tech titans (<- 3 times fast, try it!) have in store for smart meters? Earth2Tech's Katie Fehrenbacher has put together a neat matrix comparing Google's PowerMeter and Microsoft's Hohm and what each has in store for eco-minded homeowners.

As it stands now, Hohm seems to have an edge over PowerMeter. Hohm is looking more like a platform that not only monitors how much electricity a home is consuming, it will eventually lead to active and/or automated management of smart appliances and plugs.

Google, on the other hand, has Microsoft beat in the number of partner utilities for PowerMeter. Either way, under these programs the electric bill will no longer be a monthly mystery to many consumers. And that is a great way to spur conservation and smart energy use.

If I may make a suggestion: sooner rather than later, please.

Slightly ahead of the smart meter invasion and Google's PowerMeter, Craig Mundie announced that Microsoft is getting into the home energy monitoring game with a free online service called Hohm. "Microsoft Hohm demonstrates how a combination of advanced software and Internet-based services can help people track, understand and manage their personal energy usage," states Mundie in a company release.

Like many tools and dashboards, the online service allows users to input their homes' features and usage statistics to generate recommendations on saving electricity. But there are a couple of tricks to Hohm that set it apart.

First, if a user declines to input values or doesn't provide a comprehensive home energy profile, Microsoft will derive recommendations based on data from other users and national averages. A nice feature, but the next one is even better. Microsoft is partnering with utilities and providing them SDKs to allow users to upload consumption data straight into Hohm for a more precise energy measurement and recommendation platform all round.

After all, you can't manage what you can't measure (I'm sure you've heard that from one IT vendor too many). Partner utilities include Puget Sound Energy, Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Seattle City Light and Xcel Energy.

Better still, Microsoft is working with Itron and Landis+Gyr for smart meter integration. It will be interesting to see how Microsoft and Google battle it out in this arena.

Also of note, Microsoft states that Hohm runs on the company's own Windows Azure cloud computing platform; is based in part on "advanced analytics licensed from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy;" and also uses Bing search. Wonder how they came to that decision...

Currently in beta, interested parties are asked to supply an email so that Microsoft can contact you when it becomes officially available, presumably very soon. You can also watch a Microsoft-supplied video of what Hohm looks like in action after the break.

Need another reason to love Windows 7?

According to Microsoft, Windows 7 will give green IT pros a reason to smile thanks to new power management features built into the OS. Here's one:

New Diagnostics: new tools will help improve IT administrators' ability to diagnose and troubleshoot power problems across their enterprises. For example, the diagnostic tools in Windows 7 can help IT professionals determine which applications or devices are negatively impacting energy efficiency and how much normal degradation has occurred to the battery of a mobile PC. These tools will enable more efficient power management of PCs across organizations.

This post at Microsoft's Software Enabled Earth blog has more details, but for something you can really sink your teeth into, try the Windows 7 Power Management Whitepaper (PDF, correct link).

[via Twitter @TomRaftery]

Hate wading through your control panel to quickly adjust Windows 7's power settings? How To Geek has a quick and easy guide on switching power profiles on the fly with desktop shortcuts or a hotkey.

It takes the tiniest effort on your part (a couple of minutes, max) but the payoff is definitely worth it if your mindful of your laptop's or PC's power consumption. Geeky and delightful...

[via Lifehacker]

1E is already providing centrally managed power management for PCs, but now the company is eying servers.

I know what you're thinking: better to let those servers just do their jobs. But 1E thinks there's plenty of potential energy savings if organizations had a better grasp on which servers are pulling their weight. eWeek Europe reports:

One of the features of the technology are analytical tools to measure performance of individual servers in a data centre and assess which ones are actually carrying out useful computing tasks.

"Ten to fifteen percent of servers can be decommissioned in any data centre but its hard to know which ones - we will tell you which ones," he said.

For the majority of folks, the most interaction they have with their utility company is the bill at the end of the month. An arrangement that works as long as you know who's in charge. But now, with the impending arrival of smart meters, other companies besides your friendly neighborhood utility will play a role in the lives of eco- and dollar-conscious customers.

Google's PowerMeter efforts, which aim to put power monitoring and management tools in the hands of consumers, are causing some unease among utilities. So the tech giant is trying to smooth things out. Earth2Tech reports:

Some utilities have indicated to us that they've been uncomfortable with the fact that Google is building software and web tools for energy management and smart meters called PowerMeter. In their eyes Google's strong brand could dominate their relationship with the customer. But that hasn't stopped 'Don't Be Evil' Google from reaching out to the traditional utility industry and the incumbent meter makers, and some are starting to respond positively. On Tuesday night Google announced on its blog that it has partnered with a list of eight utilities as well as meter maker Itron to provide PowerMeter to their customers.

Nice to see industry players getting along. You can check out the PowerMeter Partner Page for more info.

Google is also getting cozy with equipment makers like GE and the above mentioned Intron to ensure that the project is a success.