EBay develops 'miles per gallon' metric for data centers

by Mike Rinaldi on 3/11/13 2:21 PM

The auction site has shared a new methodology for tracking energy efficiency

By James Niccolai, Computer World

There's a maxim in the data center business that you can't manage what you can't measure, and eBay has come up with the mother of all measurement systems for calculating data center efficiency.

The online auction giant has devised a methodology that looks at the cost of its IT operations in dollars, kilowatt hours and carbon emissions, and ties those costs back to a single performance metric -- in eBay's case, the number of buy and sell transactions its customers make at eBay.com.

The result is a set of data that provides the equivalent of a "miles per gallon" metric for data centers, which organizations can use as a baseline to improve on over time, said Dean Nelson, head of eBay's Global Foundation Services, which manages its data centers worldwide.

"EBay is a single system, it's the sum of a million parts, and we needed a way to measure and convey the efficiency of this system," he said Tuesday at the Green Grid Forum, a data center efficiency conference in Santa Clara, California.

> Click here to read more

Learn why and how organizations are using Data Center Infrastructure Management tools to get more efficient.

Topics: Emerson Network Power, data center infrastructure, Data Center, Green IT, data center design, data center energy, data center infrastructure management, PUE, Containment, Green Technology

13 Data Center Ideas for 2013

by Mike Rinaldi on 2/14/13 1:55 PM

As 2012 draws to a close many of us are planning ahead for 2013, both for our professional and personal lives, formulating a list of goals, objectives, and even a vacation or two. With that in mind I started to create a top-ten list of should do items for data center professionals in 2013. However as always I got a bit carried away and had to pare the list down to a manageable bakers dozen.

One, Take care of yourself. Nothing difficult but an all too important concept many of us take for granted or leaves until we are less busy. There simply is no better time than the present to start an exercise program, weight and/or health management regime to put a little more energy back into our life. This also includes a little time for some R&R, education and self improvement, and other activities well cover below. Start 2013 with a plan to take care of number one. The data center and IT systems communities wouldn't be the same without you.

Establish a baseline, Inventory your assets, etc...

> Click here to read the rest of the list

(Originally posted on EfficientDataCenters.com by Jack Pouchet)

Topics: Emerson Network Power, Data Center, Green IT, data center infrastructure management, Containment, efficient data center, Green Technology, energy

Top 10 Data Center Images From 2012

by Mike Rinaldi on 12/28/12 12:17 PM

Happy Holidays from DVL

Check out the top data center images from 2012. (Data Center Knowledge)

- Click here

data center Liebert

Topics: data center infrastructure, Data Center, Green IT, data center design, data center infrastructure management, robust data center, Containment, data center outages, DC Power

Can You Build a Data Center Over A Weekend?

by Mike Rinaldi on 10/25/12 2:54 PM

An organization that provides professional development and technical support to special education K-12 students found its data center infrastructure to be prone to frequent outages and poor performance, which had a negative impact on the availability of student-targeted services. In addition, their environment was not designed to house a data center and did not have dedicated fire suppression.

What challenged the organization's IT manager and the rest of his team was that they would need to install any infrastructure upgrade solution quickly between Friday evening and Monday morning and that the IT space they had was small; only around 130 square feet.

While researching a solution to fit their needs, the organization attended an education technology conference - in search of the right offering. At the conference, the IT manager visited the Emerson Network Power booth, saw a demo of the SmartRow infrastructure, and sat in on a presentation.

The rest is history - a New Data Center in 48 hours!

See the SmartRow in Person

A simple, cost-effective solution designed to quickly expand IT capacity when you don't have the luxury of more data center white space.

October 29 - Harrisburg

October 30 - Philadelphia

November 1 - Penn State

November 2 - Princeton

Emerson SmartRow

Topics: Emerson Network Power, reduce cost, Data Center, kW per rack, data center energy, data center infrastructure management, robust data center, Containment, reduce downtime, pod

Data Centers to Play Football with the United States Congress

by Mike Rinaldi on 10/11/12 3:50 PM

The fallout from the Sunday September 23rd NY Times front page article entitled Power, Pollution and the Internet which was purported as an investigative reporting piece has begun to spread. In my last blog, I jokingly remarked that the general public would go out and tweet and post Facebook tirades on their newest iPhones. Well it has clearly moved beyond that.

Only a few days later on Sept 27, Ranking Committee Members of the US House of Representatives Henry A. Waxman, Member Bobby L. Rush and Anna G. Eshoo sent letters to the US Department of Energy (DOE) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to request an update on efforts to improve energy efficiency in data centers across the county.

This was posted as an open letter to the US EPA and DOE in effect demanding an explanation of how and why they could allow the apparently flagrant energy and environmental disaster equivalent of the Exxon Valdez oil spill happen, while these two major government agencies ignored the travesty. The letter specifically cited the NY Times article as the cause for their concerns and the motivating force behind the letter. Perhaps by triggering the open letter from members of Congress, the NY Times may feel they have brought justice to the ostensibly polluting, wasteful world of the Data Center Industry, in the same vein as the Washington Posts breaking open of the Watergate scandal.

I agree that there are many "older" data centers that are less efficient than the newest designs. There is no question that there is always room for improvement in almost any system or process and the data center is no exception. However, the NY Times article did not provide both sides of the issue, perhaps because that would have made it less controversial.

Published on 8th October 2012 by Julius Neudorfer, Data Center Dynamics

> Read more

data center questions