Search Results for: fujitsu

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Monitors on the TransEurasia Express!

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Fujitsu Siemens Computers announced recently that it was shipping 10,000 monitors and bare bones system chassis from China to Germany by train!

I thought this was simply a pr stunt to get some headlines until I read that transporting the goods by train is one-third faster than ocean freight, costs only one-quarter as much as air freight and yet produces less than 5% of the CO2 emissions of air freight!

Intrigued I invited Fujitsu Siemens senior director of global logistics, Hans Erbe to come on GreenMonk TV to discuss the shipment and to give us some hard numbers around money and CO2 saved!

You can foillow the progress of the shipment on the train’s blog at http://www.transeurasiablog.com/

I should also apologise for the quality of the audio in the podcast. We were connected via Skype and despite connecting several times, this was the best audio we could get 🙁

The television image in the video is from videocrab

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Turn Servers Off When You Don’t Need Them Part 2

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I recently blogged about the fact its common in Japan to turn servers off at night, so I found it interesting that Cassatt, the data center automation vendor launched by BEA founder Bill Coleman , has just announced a power management play- claiming “customers have experienced up to 50 percent reduction in their power usage, simply by allowing Active Power Management to turn off servers when idle, and then confirm a successful power-up when they’re needed again.”

According to the release the The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported last month that data centers are consuming up to 1.5 percent of all the electricity generated in the U.S.

But Europe is actually ahead of the US in some areas of efficiency and greening. BT, a leader in the field, now looks for always available, rather than always on in its equipment purchasing. One of the strangest arguments of the last ten years came from the Washington lobbyists and politicians claiming efficiency initiatives harm the economy. I am glad this argument is being won by the other side – green power can save money whether you’re a small or large business. As this Computerworld story says vendors such as Sun and Fujitsu are now showcasing their own initiatives. It doesn’t matter whether you turn electricity off to save money or save the planet.

Why do I find the Cassatt pitch interesting? Partly because it answers a key counterpoint to “turn you server off” thinking. Thus Mike Gunderloy, in comments to my earlier blog post, asked:

Has anyone looked at the labor costs of this? I know that even on my tiny little dozen-machine network, I am reluctant to power everything off at night simply because it takes so bloody long waiting for the damn things to boot up in the morning. Seems like actual working fast-boot technologies would go a long way to sell this initiative.

IT labor costs of course will kill energy efficiency initiatives every time, if they are too high. That’s where automation software comes in. We can expect automation vendors of all stripes to pursue similar power management strategies, which is a good thing.

Power off.

picture courtesy of r3wind‘s creative commons attribution license.

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Go Green Nippon Style: Turn Your Server Off at Night

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I recently met with Fujitsu Siemens Computer about green data initiatives, based on what the joint venture calls IT with a sense of responsibility. The underlying hook to the narrative is Japanese/German engineering excellence (not a bad peg, I am sure you’d agree).

Bernhard Brandwitte, director of product marketing for FSC and perhaps more importantly in the context of behavioural change an excellent story-teller, told me something that really rocked me on my heels: in Japan its common to turn production servers off at night. Yup- apparently the Japanese insurance industry tries to avoid fires in plants at night by offering much cheaper cover for companies that power down after dark.

What does that mean in practice? A much more coherent backup and recovery strategy for one. A commitment to not 24/7, not follow the Sun, not have uptime for its own sake.

I have been thinking about this issue for a while, but it was a tweet from Chris Dalby this morning that pulled the trigger:

yellowpark is going green. I’m turning my server off each night 🙂

Chris is someone I deeply respect. Another cool thing is that he won’t shop at supermarkets- all his shopping is packaging free, from a local farm shop. When he tweets a delicious lunch menu you know the vegetables were never wrapped in plastic. That is a pretty good metaphor for Chris: He is very real, very passionate, and focuses on local issues. He is all about change from the grassroots.

Chris’ commitment to server-off computing is cool because he is an expert in technologies such as Windows Small Business Server, which he sells into small and medium-sized businesses. I wonder if he could set up a service helping SMBs become more green, given his bona fides?

All I know is that much as we should all turn off our appliances at night, and our cellphone chargers, so we should ask – do we really need that server on all night?

 

picture credit: Chris’s dog, from his moo cards, saying… “Turn that bloody server off, I’ll be your watchdog…”

disclosure: Chris is a friend.