Sustainable Technology

University of Illinois researchers are using nanotechnology to resize memory devices that results in much lower power requirements.  This technology benefits mobile devices by extending the life of batteries through low power consumption.  …

…   “Pop’s group lowered the power per bit to 100 times less than existing PCM memory by focusing on one simple, yet key factor: size.

Rather than the metal wires standard in industry, the group used carbon nanotubes, tiny tubes only a few nanometers in diameter – 10,000 times smaller than a human hair. “   …

via University of Illinois: Mobile device Battery Life.

Yahoo’s new green data center design goes into operations in NY.  The datacenter will leverage ambient air for cooling and is reported to achieve a PUE rating of 1.08.  …

…   “The Yahoo Computing Coop design earned a $9.9 million sustainability grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. An average of less than 1 cent of every dollar spent on electricity will go toward cooling “   …

Via AP: Yahoo NY Data Center.

Have you deployed hundreds or thousands of PCs and laptops throughout your enterprise?  Make sure your organization knows the basics, so that they can make appropriate power saving decisions.  Simple behavior changes will contribute to the sustainability of your enterprise.  …

…   “Hibernate mode, by contrast, takes a snapshot of everything you have in RAM and writes it to a special hard disk file. Hibernate mode then turns your computer off entirely … “   …

Via Newsfactor: PC Power Saving.

IBM shares results of its Power7 benchmarks which incorporate the energy efficiency perspective.  …

…   “IBM has achieved the industry’s highest ever TPC-C (transaction processing) benchmark using a Power Systems configuration with DB2, hitting 10,366,254 transactions per minute, which beat HP’s best result by more than 2.5 times and Oracle’s best by more than 35%.

The IBM result represents 2.7 times better performance per core than the Oracle result, 41% better price performance, and 35% better energy efficiency per transaction.

HP’s best result is over twice as expensive per transaction as the IBM result. “   …

Via IBM: Power7 Benchmarks.

The Kyoto wheel, a form of enthalpy wheel, can be deployed to maximize the dissipation of heat from the data center at low energy levels.  …

…   “Kyoto wheel is an improved form of the original heat wheel, tailored to the requirements of data centers.

It almost completely separates the outside air from the inside air… “   …

Via Search Data Center: Kyoto Wheel Data Center Cooling.

Acer launches Aspire Predator as gaming PC with all of the performance you would expect, however it also integrate efficiency enablers that optimize power utilization instead of wasting energy.  …

…   “Intel Turbo Boost Technology heightens performance by increasing processor frequency by 133 MHz on short and regular intervals if it’s operating below power, until the upper limit is met or the maximum possible upside for the number of active cores is reached. It also increases energy efficiency by allowing near-zero power consumption for inactive cores.”   …

Via Tweaktown: Acer Aspire Predator.

Taiwanese institute, the Industrial Technology Research Institute, is focusing its energies on the development of an energy efficient, standardized container data center that can serve the needs of the cloud. …

… “The Taiwanese initiative aims to make containerized data centers a standardized product, the same kind of standardization that has slashed the price of PCs over the past few decades. ” …

Via PC World: Container Computer.

Server technology innovation includes advances in energy efficiency. …

… “Intelligent Energy: An energy efficiency technology that enables increasing or decreasing of the processor clock speeds on the basis of system usage or thermal conditions, either on a single server or across pools of servers … ” …

Via CIOL: Server Innovation

NVIDIA Optimus for notebook PCs optimizes the graphics processing workload to improve performance and lower energy consumption. …

… “Notebooks equipped with Optimus Technology can last up to 2 times longer on a battery charge than notebooks with standard discrete graphics without Optimus technology. ” …

Via NVidia: Optimus Technology for Notebook Computers

AMD gains market share at Intel‘s expense, building on a foundation of energy efficient processors. ..

… “The processors were part of platforms that delivered improved graphics capabilities and energy efficiency. ” …

Via PCWorld: AMD Market Share

High profile outages impact Rackspace’s customers. …

… “The issues resulted from a problem with a router used for peering and backbone connectivity located outside the data center at a peering facility, which handles approximately 20% of Rackspace‘s Dallas traffic. ” …

Via PC World: Rackspace Outage

HP brings new infrastructure to the market that improves performance and efficiency in today’s data center. …

… “The HP Cluster Platform 3000SL delivers maximum performance per watt and per dollar. This HPC-optimized implementation of the new HP ProLiant SL series offers double the density over traditional rack servers as well as improved energy efficiency with shared power and fans. ” …

Via HP: Scale-out Computing Portfolio Improves Data Center Performance