Swine flu threat raises telework questions – Network World

Research firm Gartner said the recent outbreaks of swine flu highlight the need for companies to have in place pandemic plans that address workforce absenteeism rates of 40% or higher.

The good news is that today’s workforce is very mobile, and many companies are in a position to enable telework, even if they haven’t formalized their telework policies, says Cindy Auten, general manager of Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership focused on promoting telework.

Concrete Floors Equal Data Center Power Savings – Greentech Media

“It’s common sense,” he said Tuesday. “Pushing cold air down under a floor and then pushing it back up to cool data centers really requires a lot of power.” By putting the cooling system in the ceiling and letting cold air fall, as physics demands, Fortune’s new data center is able to cut typical fan power bills by up to 75 percent, he said.

Cisco’s random acts of green-ness – GreenTech Pastures – ZDNet

Working with supply chain management company ModusLink Global Solutions, this Cisco unit has reduced its overall packaging materials for each product shipped by almost 49 percent, according to Bullard. This, in turn, has helped it cut back on the number of air shipments needed to get its products from Point A to Point B.

Intel sees green chips of recovery – ft.com/techblog

Intel, which believes in investing during a downturn to the tune of spending $7bn on new manufacturing facilities over the next two years, is trying to persuade its customers to think the same way.

It released a survey and statistics on Tuesday that suggested investing in upgrading three or four-year-old computers will quickly pay for itself.

MAID technology remains underutilized – SearchStorage.com

“MAID should be playing a role [in green data centers],” said Mark Peters, an analyst at Milford, Mass.-based Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG), who points out that there’s no sign of a marked increase in the use of MAID or any disk spin-down. “Although I suspect it’s going to become more important as the OPEX crunch hits. More attention is being paid to dedupe [than to MAID] right now.”