Wow, was my employer ever busy while I was hiding in Saskatchewan. I think this whole Eco Innovation launch is maybe the most important thing we’ve done since I joined in 2004. There are a whole lot of arrows pointing the same direction: The rising, and generally uncontrollable, cost of energy. The space and HVAC constraints in modern data centers. The future of the planet. It’s not (quite) an emergency yet, but there are plenty of environmental, economic, and political scenarios that could land us in (not entirely figurative) hot water pretty damn quick, alone or in combination. I suspect the whole industry’s going to be climbing in this bandwagon; it would be irresponsible not to.
Comment feed for ongoing:
From: Tony Fisk (Aug 27 2007, at 23:35)
Not heliocentric, but this WorldChanging article follows similar lines:
Efficiency Measures Could Cut Data Center, Server Energy Use by Half
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From: len bullard (Aug 28 2007, at 05:51)
It is an emergency coming to a dry lake near you soon enough. We've baked this summer here in the sunny south with weeks of 100+ temperatures. No one can prove it is global warming but the phrase 'you have to go through Atlanta to go to Hell' has become a commuter flight.
Dead fescue can take care of themselves.
With that weird reverse logic so typical of the web, the growth of data centers (say blade runners over mainframes) for game worlds, for corporate centers, for cable providers, and bit torrent pirates depend very much on making electrons competitive again.
That solutions are coming from a company called "Sun" is deliciously ironic.
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From: Daniel Haran (Aug 28 2007, at 08:15)
Sun doing this is a really good thing - energy efficiency is visionary.
That said, I wish that VP stopped using outrageous energy use figures. Scaring people into being green doesn't work - and especially grievous when there's a bottom-line argument that can sell better servers.
More here:
http://dotherightthing.com/entries/1175-sun-microsystems-going-the-green-way
http://www.danielharan.com/2007/08/26/are-data-centers-causing-climate-change/
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