Financial Times Article, Awareness a Rack uses Electricity Like a Giant Electric Oven for 5 Turkeys

This Financial Times article doesn't have anything really new, but it was interesting they chose to use a giant oven cooking 5 turkeys to explain to the financial community how much power a rack of servers consume.

IT going green: Temperature rises push heat up the agenda

By Dan Ilett

Published: July 8 2008 16:33 | Last updated: July 8 2008 16:33

A rack of computers in a data centre uses the same amount of electricity as a giant electric oven – “an oven cooking about five turkeys,” says Steve O’Donnell, senior vice-president of IT for First Data, and author of thehotsisle.com.

Heat is a big problem for data-centre operators, especially as temperatures rise in the northern hemisphere’s summer. But to remove it with air conditioning is expensive and uses more power.

“As the thermometer level increases, so does the headache for the IT director,” says Osca St Marthe, principal consultant at technology consultancy Morse.

“Power costs are coming on to the radar of the board – some people have seen electricity costs double,” he says. “All technology operates within certain temperature parameters and as the temperature increases, the efficiency of your systems decreases. ”

“People are finding they can’t get enough power into the data centre and are, therefore, worrying about adding more air-conditioning units. In fact, at one data centre I visited people were worried that plugging a phone charger in might tip the balance, let alone more air-conditioning units.”

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Greene out at VMware, Big Changes Coming as Virtualization Software is a Commodity

DataCenterKnowledge chose an interesting headline which got my attention.

VMware Surprise: Greene Out as CEO

Virtualization market leader VMware (VMW) announced that President and CEO Diane Greene has departed and been replaced by Paul Maritz, a Microsoft veteran who has most recently been in charge of the cloud computing operation at EMC, VMware's parent company.

VMware's release also said that "revenues for the full year of 2008 will be modestly below" the 50 percent growth seen in 2007. The switch comes as Microsoft is finally bringing its Hyper-V virtualization technology to market, posing the largest competitive threat yet to VMware's leadership in the sector.

Greene co-founded VMware with her husband, Mendel Rosenblum, who serves as chief scientist and is a prominent advocate for the company's technology. VMware watcher Alessandro Perilli of Virtualization.info noted that Greene had been a popular CEO. "This replacement, if imposed by the parent company EMC, may have a huge domino effect on the whole VMware management team," Perilli writes.

Shares of VMware are off sharply on the news. In early afternoon, VMW is trading at $39, down $14.36 for a decline of 27 percent.

Potential slow sales are bringing VMware stock down as WSJ reports.

The warning and management change are the latest episodes in the volatile VMware saga, which has seen shares in the virtualization software maker rocket as high as $125 following its $29 initial public offering in August 2007, when it was spun off from EMC, before falling back earlier this year. Shares were recently down 26% to $39.06 on the New York Stock Exchange.

EMC still owns a nearly 85% stake in VMware.

VMWare said Tuesday that 2008 revenue growth "will be modestly below" its prior target of 50%. The mean estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial was for 51% growth to $2 billion.

The announcements sent shares of VMWare tumbling 26% to $39.30 Tuesday. Shares of EMC were recently trading down 12% at $13.33.

It will be interesting to see what Paul Maritz does taking his experience with Cloud Computing.

EMC’s New Cloud Infrastructure And Services Division

An important aspect of the press release is that Pi’s founder and CEO – Paul Maritz – will be President and GM of this new EMC division.

I’ve been dropping hints like crazy that something was up in this space, but I guess now it’s pretty obvious – we’re taking this shift in the industry very, very seriously.  This ain’t just PowerPoint talking here …

We’re saying that success in this new space will require a very different technology base – and a business model – very unlike other parts of the traditional IT landscape.

The visible parts of this new entity include Pi’s assets, as well as Mozy and the Fortress platform … but I think it’s worth a tour through the rest of the EMC portfolio to see other synergistic aspects.

Paul was one of the best Microsoft VPs I enjoyed working with, and I believe he'll be able to take VMware to a new possibility of cloud computing and virtualization.

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Survey shows Support for Energy Exploration Rises

A survey by Pew Research Center shows Americans are shifting their attitudes towards energy exploration.

As Gas Prices Pinch, Support for Energy Exploration Rises

More Favor Drilling in ANWR
Overview

Amid record gas prices, public support for greater energy exploration is spiking. Compared with just a few months ago, many more Americans are giving higher priority to more energy exploration, rather than more conservation. An increasing proportion also says that developing new sources of energy - rather than protecting the environment - is the more important national priority.

Figure

The latest nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted June 18-29 among 2,004 adults, also finds that half of Americans now support drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, up from 42% in February.

The public's changing energy priorities are most evident in the growing percentage that views increased energy exploration - including mining and drilling, as well as the construction of new power plants - as a more important priority for energy policy than increased conservation and regulation. Nearly half (47%) now rates energy exploration as the more important priority, up from 35% in February. The proportion saying it is more important to increase energy conservation and regulation has declined by 10 points (from 55% to 45%).

And, the partisan, age, gender divide has disappeared.

Partisan Gap over Energy Exploration Disappears

Much of the increase in support for energy exploration has come among groups that previously viewed this as a less important priority than energy conservation - young people, liberals, independents, Democrats, women and people who have attended college.

Figure

Fully half of people ages 18 to 29 (51%) now say expanding energy exploration is a more important priority for energy policy than increasing energy conservation and regulation; only about a quarter of young people (26%) expressed this view in February. The proportion of liberals who say expanded energy exploration is the more important priority also has doubled (from 22% to 45%).

The gender gap in attitudes about whether greater exploration or greater conservation is the more important priority has disappeared, as women have become much more supportive of expanded exploration (up 18 points).

Similarly, more independents (19 points) and Democrats (16 points) view increased energy exploration as the more important priority. About the same proportions of Democrats (46%) and Republicans (43%) now say expanded exploration, rather than increased conservation, should take precedence; in February, far more Republicans than Democrats expressed this view.

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New Coal Electricity Plant Carbon Emissions Limited by Georgia Court Order

WSJ reports on a Georgia Court Order limiting carbon emission from a new coal power plant.

Georgia Court Orders
Greenhouse-Gas Limits

WSJ ROUNDUP
July 1, 2008; Page A4

In a decision with potentially significant ramifications for power companies and the national debate over global warming, a state court in Georgia ruled Monday that a proposed coal-burning power plant can't proceed unless its carbon-dioxide emissions are limited.

The ruling against a proposed 1200-megawatt power plant in Early County, Ga., marks the first time that a judge has applied a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on global warming to emissions from an industrial source, environmental groups said. David Byford, a spokesman for Houston-based Dynegy Inc., which is developing the project with LS Power Group of East Brunswick, N.J., said, "We're disappointed in the ruling and we're planning an appeal."

The Supreme Court's April 2007 decision required the Environmental Protection Agency to determine whether carbon dioxide -- the greenhouse gas most blamed for global warming -- endangers public health or welfare, the legal criteria to be regulated under the federal Clean Air Act. Citing concerns about the impact of such an action on the U.S. economy, the Bush administration has yet to formally issue that declaration, however, and officials in some states have begun to fill the void by setting their own policies aimed at curbing carbon-dioxide emissions.

Action like this will help to drive energy prices higher as Environmental groups plan on using this ruling in 30 other proposed coal plants.

Environmental groups said they planned to use the Georgia court's ruling to hold up about 30 other proposed coal plants that are subject to litigation.

"We will be taking this decision and making the same arguments to push for an end to conventional coal," said Bruce Nilles, who oversees the Sierra Club's National Coal Campaign. The plant's developers, LS Power Group and Dynegy, were reviewing the ruling and didn't have an immediate comment.

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