Green data center - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• SPEC tool to improve server-efficiency ratings

  SPEC, the standards body for performance benchmarks, has developed a tool-kit to help more accurately measure the energy efficiency of servers.

• Data centers largely unaffected by East Coast quake

  Staff were evacuated at several data centers following Tuesday's earthquake but operations at most facilities appear to have been unaffected, according to Twitter posts and other sources.

• Using renewable energy in the data center

  Earlier this year, social networking giant Facebook finished construction of its newest data center in Pineville, Oregon. In a press release, Facebook officials touted the new facility as "setting new standards for environmental responsibility in data center design and operations." Those standards incorporate renewable energy tactics such as rainwater reclamation, solar energy, and heat recycling.

• Top 8 ways feds (and corporate users) can take advantage of green IT

  How does the federal government go about implementing green IT? According to a report out today from the Government Accountability Office, the feds have adopted a number of practices that are useful not just for government IT but all manner of private and public company IT groups as well. These include everything from dedicated funding for green products, to improved employee training and reducing use of paper.

• Google, data centers using less power than expected

  Data centers have been using less electricity than you think ... or at least, compared with what they have in the past.

• Dell warranties servers for 'fresh-air cooling'

  Dell said Thursday it will warranty servers to run at 113 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) for a limited number of hours per year, so that customers can make wider use of "fresh-air cooling" in their data centers.

• Energy hogs: Servers vs. desktops vs. set-top boxes

  Set-top boxes supplied by cable companies are likely using more power than desktop and laptop computers, and about 25 per cent of the power used by a two-socket server.

• Emissions from Microsoft, Dell data centers worry residents

  Some residents of Quincy, Washington, home of massive data centers operated by Microsoft, Yahoo and others, are growing concerned about pollution from backup diesel generators at the data centers, and on Wednesday they'll have the chance to discuss the issue.

• Intel adds sensors to aid data center cooling

  Intel is adding new sensors to its server chips to help companies improve the efficiency of data center cooling systems, with a view to cutting operating costs and prolonging the life of equipment.

• Survey: US agencies aren't tracking data center use

  Even though the U.S. White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has pushed government agencies to reduce the number of data centers they operate, a new survey has found that most agencies aren't tracking how close to capacity their data centers are or how much energy they're using.

• How Japan's data centers survived the earthquake

  Smart construction and good planning allowed Japan's data centers to escape virtually unharmed from the massive earthquake that rocked the country in March, a Japanese data center executive said Thursday.

• Romonet brings predictive data center tool to US

  Data center engineers looking to maximize energy efficiency can now model design changes using a tool called Prognose from U.K. startup Romonet.

• Viridity calculates energy cost of applications

  Viridity has updated its data center infrastructure management software to let businesses keep track of how much electrical power is being consumed by individual applications and lines of business, the company will announce Monday.

• Inside HP's prefab data center

  The cutaway section of Hewlett-Packard's latest iteration of a prefabricated modular data center has a space-station-like feel to it.

• Google: Five data center energy saving ideas you can implement

  When it comes to saving data center energy few companies would have the expertise of Google, which has some of the largest data centers in the world. It has or is experimenting with some interesting ideas to cool data centers more efficiently as well - it will soon open a seawater-cooled data center in Finland for example.