Servers Get Ratings for Energy Consumption – Reuters

The EPA has been working for over a year with server providers including Dell, HP, IBM and Intel to reach an agreement on server types and rating criteria. The Tier 1 server ratings are based off the SPECPower ssj_2008 benchmark and will apply to smaller (up to 4 processors) systems.

Old Software Hogs Energy – Forbes

While applications developers are becoming more energy conscious, it’s only in the past couple of years that work has begun in earnest by companies like Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and IBM to make the operating system and middleware significantly more efficient. The enterprise applications that run on those systems still have a long way to go, and that doesn’t even begin to take into account the legacy code that was installed by CIOs and data center managers who have long since retired.

Cisco: Smart grid will eclipse size of Internet – CNET

The company, whose networking gear is installed in all corners of the Internet, on Monday will announce its intention to make communications equipment for the electricity grid–everything from routers in grid substations to home energy controllers. CEO John Chambers is scheduled to discuss Cisco’s smart-grid push Monday morning at a JP Morgan conference in Boston.

Dell to launch Via-based server – bit-tech.net

Aimed at the high-density server market, the new Dell XS11-VX8 – codename Fortuna – looks to pack twelve independent servers into a single 3.5″ rackmountable case. Impressively, the low-power Nano chip helps each system in the case consume just 30W – a fraction of a traditional server system.

Virtualization on i Boxes Depends on Consolidation, New Workloads – IT Jungle

“When I go to customer conferences and ask how many people are using virtualization in the i community, it is the majority,” [Ian] Jarman says. “There may be a lot of older AS/400 systems out there (not using virtualization), but on the modern systems–Power5 and Power6–I think the majority of i clients are using virtualization. If you look at the midrange and larger systems–the 550, 570, and 595–it is definitely the majority…”