Archive for the 'engineering' Category

Apr 26 2010

Federal green data center consolidation has begun, with storage

A couple of months back, I wrote about how the federal government had begun a massive data center consolidation project on the road to seeking both green and operational efficiency. Well, looks like the feds have made progress already. Storage technology company 3PAR is reporting that 14 different federal government agencies have taken advantage of its [...]

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Apr 14 2010

Energy Star reenergized, but at a cost

Following a spate of recent coverage questioning the Energy Star label certification process, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy have announced immediate changes to the certification process. That’s the good news. The bad news is that now product manufacturers will have to pay for label tests and benchmarking reviews “from an approved, [...]

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Apr 14 2010

Intel gets personal about energy consumption management

If Intel has its way, its technology will soon be inside not just your personal computer but inside another piece of technology that is way more ubiquitous: the panel you use to control the heat or air-conditioning in your home or office. This week, at the Intel Developer Forum in China, the company is showing off [...]

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Apr 12 2010

Industrial Ethernet provider signs 5 partners in smart grid push

Climate controlled data centers are one thing, electrical substations thousands of miles from nowhere in hostile climates are another matter entirely. Which means the usual suspects might not, in reality, be the best suspects. That’s why Sixnet, a maker of industrial-strength Ethernet switches, is pushing hard to become a player in the burgeoning smart grid and [...]

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Apr 12 2010

When it comes to energy storage, don’t overlook ultracapacitors

Those of you pondering the various energy storage options emerging to support the development of alternative energy technologies must not forget to overlook the role of ultracapacitors in the mix. Being that my physics background is limited to a high-school honors class and to a “Physics for Arts Students” I took during my undergraduate days at [...]

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Apr 10 2010

Solid state on steroids? HP breakthrough could further reduce tech power consumption

Had intended to write about this development after it had a chance to seep into my brain a bit. But since my blogging colleague Dana Blankenhorn has already done the honors, here goes. The crux of the matter is that Hewlett-Packard researchers have developed something it is calling the “memristor,” which is a resistor that [...]

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Mar 23 2010

HP ties data center power decisions to business value impact

Here’s something that I haven’t thought about all the much, but is bound to become a more important consideration over time: If you want to outsource your data center to a third party to save some power, especially if that somebody is a services company that has both a product and services arm, be prepared [...]

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Mar 18 2010

Will converged data centers save on energy? Not so fast, suggests Gartner

Logic (and industry marketing campaigns) suggest that converged data center architectures will make for less ports, fewer switches and therefore less cooling infrastructure and energy consumed. But a new report from Gartner is challenging that notion, because of the complexity involved in designing such converged networks. Titled “Myth: A Single FCoE Data Center = Fewer Ports, [...]

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Mar 17 2010

Fujitsu rethinks data center cooling with latest Primergy server for cloud applications

Fujitsu’s latest Primergy server product, called the Primergy CX1000, was designed to appeal to the economics of cloud service providers — especially those that are focused on ultra energy efficiency. By divesting the servers of individual fans and cramming them into its new Cool-Central cabinet architecture, Fujitsu believes it can deliver a 20 percent reduction in [...]

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Mar 12 2010

Super-efficient technology from Supermicro

The tier one technology companies ala Dell, Hewlett-Packard and IBM all view for green IT headlines on a weekly basis, but there is plenty of innovation going on among smaller players. Super Micro, for example, just showed off new server technology during the CeBit computer show in Hannover, Germany. The common theme in the products it [...]

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