Sustainable Technology

Mayor Bloomberg and New York City CIO plan to consolidate their data centers to drive operational and energy efficiency while boosting service. …

… “The City’s current IT infrastructure is highly-fragmented, with more than 50 unique data centers now serving nearly four dozen City entities – many of which are located in prime commercial real estate space. The vast majority of these facilities, and the technologies within them, are obsolete, and having dozens of City entities employ the varied capital and skill sets necessary to maintain individual data centers is an inefficient use of resources.

In his State of the City speech, Mayor Bloomberg pledged to achieve cost savings by reducing redundancies within City agencies, including information technology resources. An initial step toward that goal, and consistent with a key recommendation in the 30-Day Report, is the Citywide IT Infrastructure Services program (CITIServ). ” …

Via Mayor Bloomberg: OVERHAUL OF DATA INFRASTRUCTURE AT MORE THAN 40 CITY AGENCIES

Riverbed Technology integrates high bandwidth, TCP session scalability, solid-state drives, and 10 Gig-E capabilities in its Steelhead 7050 model WAN optimization appliance for enterprise class data centers. …

… “This powerful new appliance efficiently scales to meet the performance, reliability and flexibility requirements of large enterprises and allows them to more cost-effectively manage large-scale data center-to-data center replication, accelerate applications among many locations and users in an enterprise, and build large private cloud infrastructures. ” …

Via Riverbed: Steelhead Appliance

Syracuse University will deploy IBM’s smart technology infrastructure in its data center to enable its education program. …

… “It is rewarding to see IBM recognize the significant level of expertise and dedication to preparing the next generation of smart data center experts here at Syracuse University, said iSchool Dean Elizabeth D. Liddy. The iSchool has aggressive plans for adapting our curriculum to ensure that our students will have hands-on preparation for professional careers working on critical challenges, like using intelligent technology to run an energy efficient data center. ” …

Via IBM: Smart Data Center Technologies

Cisco, EMC, and VMWare partner to accelerate the implementation of virtualization solutions for data centers, which will result in lower costs and power usage. …

… “The coalition has been created to accelerate customers’ ability to increase business agility through greater IT infrastructure flexibility, and lower IT, energy and real estate costs through pervasive data center virtualization and a transition to private cloud infrastructures. ” …

Via Cisco: Pervasive Data Center Virtualization

Leading companies are integrating IT efficiency into the overall sustainability objectives of the enterprise. …

… “Disney has a companywide goal to reduce electricity consumption by 10% between 2006 and 2013, and the data center has to play a big role in achieving that objective, says Denis Weber, director of IT critical facilities infrastructure for the Walt Disney Co. ” …

Via Computerworld: Disney Green Data Center

Avocent agrees to be acquired by Emerson, which will enable an integrated solutions approach to data center energy management. …

… “Combining Avocent’s technologies, relationships and installed base with Emerson’s power and cooling presence allows us to offer a more compelling solution to our data center customers’ most pressing challenge — energy efficiency, said David N. Farr, Emerson chairman, CEO and president. It furthers our customers’ ability to better manage reliability, availability and lifecycle costs through a simple yet comprehensive view of the complete data center physical infrastructure. ” …

Via Emerson: Avocent Acquisition

Extend your infrastructure using Amazon’s cloud to host specific services for your enterprise. …

… “Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) is a secure and seamless bridge between a company’s existing IT infrastructure and the AWS cloud. Amazon VPC enables enterprises to connect their existing infrastructure to a set of isolated AWS compute resources via a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, and to extend their existing management capabilities such as security services, firewalls, and intrusion detection systems to include their AWS resources. ” …

Via Amazon: Virtual Private Cloud

Syracuse taps IBM to collaborate on green data center which will incorporate efficient computing infrastructure and leverage cogen power. …

… “For example, the project will focus on the actual infrastructure of the data center itself, not just the computer hardware and software. A key element will be an on-site electrical co-generation system that will use natural gas-fueled microturbine engines to generate all electricity for the center and provide cooling for the computer servers. The $12.4 million, 6,000-square-foot data center will feature its own electrical tri-generation system and incorporate IBM’s latest energy-efficient computers and computer-cooling technology. ” …

Via IBM: Energy-Efficient Data Center

Being green means running IT operations at their optimum level of energy efficiency at all times, which is a challenge to respond to dynamically. Start where the inefficiency is the greatest — focus on under-utilized servers and infrastructure. …

… “The starting point in becoming greener, according to Logan, is cleaning up an inefficient array of hardware. That process involves consolidating equipment so power-consuming computers and servers are not ineptly idling when they are not needed. ” …

Via TechNewsWorld: Green IT Operations

Dell launches next-generation data center infrastructure products that improve energy efficiency and positions the company to support green IT strategies through the concept of the hidden (untapped, unrealized) data center. …

… “Dell’s Reveal Your Hidden Data Center strategy focuses on server virtualization and consolidation, decommissioning out-of-use equipment, refreshing legacy systems, finding the optimal data center temperature, utilizing containment and moving cooling closer to IT to help businesses improve productivity and energy efficiency in their existing data centers. ” …

Via Dell: New Data Center Infrastructure Products