Shameless Data Center Marketing Video, I bet you haven't seen this in server aisles

May 21, 2010 Dave Ohara

The following video is on YouTube, can't figure out who would produce this video. I guess it was OK to let the actors in the white space given they were portraying Adam and Eve, so they had no secrets as you know the story and you could tell if they were walking out with anything as they had no clothes.

Which brings up an interesting point that a lot of what users read and watch is driven by data center marketing and sales, including the analyst community who market their data center research - Gartner, Forrester, IDC, and Uptime Institute.

Who was the target customer for this video? I can't figure it out.

Here is a shot of some of the server hardware.

IBM and Univ Central Florida Partner for System Engineering Education, a place to look for Smarter Planet Engineers

May 17, 2010 Dave Ohara

IBM has a great marketing campaign with Smarter Planet, and I blogged about how this is great marketing for system engineers.

IBM has a press release announcing its partnership with UCF for System Engineering education.

IBM and University of Central Florida Team to Prepare Graduates for High-Growth Technology Jobs

IBM helps UCF's Institute for Advanced Systems Engineering students create, develop and manage the smart products and services of the future

ARMONK, N.Y. & ORLANDO, FL. - 14 May 2010: IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the University of Central Florida’s (UCF) Institute for Advanced Systems Engineering (IASE) today announced they are working together to prepare students for jobs in systems engineering, a profession that is critical to the creation of the smart cities, healthcare systems and advanced products and systems of the future.

To help create the systems engineering workforce that is needed to tackle society’s most pressing technology development and integration challenges, IBM is investing more than $2 million in software, in-kind donations and consulting. Through this relationship, UCF students gain hands-on experience using IBM’s most popular systems engineering software. In addition to its use in classroom activities, the IBM software gives students and faculty tools to compete for grants and participate in advanced research projects. IBM executives and technical staff provide input into the development of IASE curriculum and coursework, and support the university’s efforts to create a learning environment that emulates the real world of systems engineering.

I had a chance to interview University of Central Florida Professor Serge Sala-Diakanda.

The Institute for Advanced Systems Engineering (IASE) promotes the cross disciplinary research and education in systems engineering at the University of Central Florida, and is committed to developing advanced solution methodologies and tools for basic and advanced systems problems in a variety of application domains.

But first a little background. I have an Industrial Engineering degree, and so glad I chose technology companies (HP, Apple, and Microsoft) instead of traditional manufacturing to work which eventually led me to working more as a systems engineer rather than a typical industrial engineer.

Sometimes it is easier to recognize a job by who the people are with the degrees. Here is a short list.

Stephen Worn - DataCenterDynamics CTO

Tim Cook - COO Apple Computer.

John Muir - Sierra Club

Mike Duke - CEO Wal-Mart

David Harder - neighbor and part of a group of friends who have Industrial Engineering degrees. Gary Devendorf in another.

Interviewing Serge was a good chance to get into a lot of details on what UCF is doing in Systems Engineering.

Members of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Advanced Systems Engineering gain hands-on experience with IBM’s most popular systems engineering software as they prepare for careers creating the smart cities, healthcare systems and advanced products and systems of the future.

The IBM SW products that UCF uses are in the Rational Family.

Rational Doors

IBM Rational® DOORS®, a family of requirements definition and requirements management solutions, improves quality by optimizing communication and collaboration and by promoting compliance and verification.

Clearcase

IBM® Rational® ClearCase® provides comprehensive software configuration management for any size project.

Rhapsody

IBM® Rational® Rhapsody® is a visual development environment for systems engineers and software developers creating real-time or embedded systems and software. Rational Rhapsody helps diverse teams collaborate to understand and elaborate requirements, abstract complexity visually using industry standard languages (UML, SysML, AUTOSAR, DoDAF, MODAF, UPDM), validate functionality early in development, and automate delivery of innovative, high quality products.

With all these SW tools from IBM, Serge and I discussed the issues for students to get real world experience as it can be big difference between the universities view of system design vs. the business environment. One of the things it seems like IBM could do is create a System Engineer Marketplace for engineers who are trained with the IBM tools. This is a problem I addressed by working co-op two times, and eventually having 1 year and 3 months experience as an engineer at HP before graduation. The time at HP was valuable to put things in perspective as I finished my degree.

Something we didn't talk about is UCF's location in Orlando is close to another place Industrial Engineers work.

System Engineering approaches make sense for green data centers, but one of the things I learned is it is extremely difficult to be the lone system/industrial engineer. Ideally, you need a community of other engineers to discuss ideas and approaches.

Google does have an opening for Control Systems Engineer. But, I doubt Google is looking for a System Engineer trained with IBM's Rational Toolset. :-)

The role: Data Center Control Systems Engineer

Data Center Control Systems Engineers possess demonstrated design, operation, and construction experience in the areas of complex and mission critical facilities. You will have extensive knowledge of large-scale facilities controls and monitoring systems for all infrastructural systems.

As the Data Center Control Systems Engineer, you have excellent communication skills and are able to work in teams and matrix organizations. You are expected to develop and maintain strong functional relationships across multidisciplinary teams to anticipate future controls and monitoring design requirements. You will be continuously involved in the improvement of plant performance based on historical data collected and collaborate on retrofit projects to improve plant efficiency based on business case justifications. For this position, you will be traveling as needed, possibly up to 50% of the time.

Triple Bottom Line - social, economic, and environment responsibility, can BP be Green in light of the Gulf Spill?

May 10, 2010 Dave Ohara

Being green is an overused term. Many of the enlightened speak of triple bottom line.

The triple bottom line (abbreviated as "TBL" or "3BL", and also known as "people, planet, profit" or "the three pillars"^[1]) captures an expanded spectrum of values and criteria for measuring organizational (and societal) success: economic, ecological and social. With the ratification of the United Nations and ICLEI TBL standard for urban and community accounting in early 2007, this became the dominant approach to public sector full cost accounting. Similar UN standards apply to natural capital and human capital measurement to assist in measurements required by TBL, e.g. the ecoBudget standard for reporting ecological footprint.

BP is claiming its Green.

BP touts itself as 'green,' but faces PR disaster with 'BP oil spill'

GALLERY

Deepwater Horizon explosion in Gulf of Mexico sends oil slick toward U.S. coastline

Cleanup and containment efforts continue after an oil platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil is leaking into the water at a rate of up to 5,000 barrels a day.

By Paul Farhi

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 6, 2010

What do you call a gigantic man-made disaster that is threatening to despoil the ecosystems and wreck the economies of the Gulf Coast? The answer is important, if you happen to be one of the companies responsible for it.

The massive slick spreading toward Louisiana has gone by several names since crude oil began gushing from a damaged drilling rig on April 20. Media accounts have referred to it as "the Gulf oil spill," "the Deepwater Horizon spill" and the "Gulf Coast disaster."

President Obama, leaving little doubt about whom he considers responsible for the epic mess, put a brand name on it in remarks in Louisiana on Sunday. The president dubbed it "the BP oil spill," after the company (formerly British Petroleum) that leased the now-damaged drilling platform. The Environmental Protection Agency refers to it the same way in its official pronouncements.

Australia has largest Carbon footprint per person from Coal electricity generation, largest Uranium reserves WW and no nuclear power plant, where is the logic?

May 1, 2010 Dave Ohara

The Economist has an article about Australia’s prime minister backpedaling on the environmental stance.

Australia and carbon emissions

A change in the climate

Make us greener, oh lord. But not yet

Apr 29th 2010 | SYDNEY | From The Economist print edition

ONLY a few months ago Kevin Rudd, Australia’s prime minister, was painting a dark picture about looming storm surges, rising sea-levels, a fall of over 90% in irrigated farming and a drop of nearly 2.5% in GNP over this century unless Australia took action against climate change. “Action now,” he declared. “Not action delayed.” But this week Mr Rudd climbed down from what seemed a defining pledge of his leadership. Instead of using this year to get parliament to adopt an emissions-trading scheme that would put a price on carbon pollution, action will now be delayed until 2013 at least. Some wonder if it will ever happen at all.

I knew Australia had a vast coal electricity production, but didn’t know it put them at the top of a carbon impact.

Relying on coal for most of its electricity, Australia is one of the world’s highest carbon-emitters per person.

Australia has environmentalist who are proud of the nuclear free stance.

Australia

There is an active anti-nuclear movement in Australia,^[3]^[4]^[5] and the country has no nuclear weapons or nuclear power stations. However it has run a research nuclear reactor since 1958. (The original HiFAR reactor was replaced by the OPAL research reactor at Lucas Heights, 40 km southwest of Sydney, in 2006.^[6]) Nuclear weapons have been tested in Australia atMaralinga, Emu Field and the Monte Bello Islands.^[5]

Australia also mines and sells a large quantity of uranium ore. Nuclear waste dumps have been proposed in Western Australia and South Australia.^[5]

But has the largest uranium ore deposits in the world and second to Canada in Uranium ore export.

2007 uranium mining, by nationality. Data is taken from [2].

Australia has the world's largest uranium reserves, 24% of the planet's known reserves. The majority of these reserves are located in South Australia with other important deposits in Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Almost all the uranium is exported under strict International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards to satisfy the Australian people and government that none of the uranium is used in nuclear weapons. Australian uranium is consumed strictly for electricity production.^{[citation needed]}

So, being one of the largest carbon emitters per person is OK, yet you are a leading exporter of Uranium allowing other countries to run nuclear power plants, and 75% of your coal mining is exported. Seems like the Australia prime minister is in a no win situation to take an environmental stance for Australia.

Redmond High teacher wins $25,000 NEA Green Prize in Education, thinks Green is built on simple solutions

April 20, 2010 Dave Ohara

Sometimes I wonder if the challenges to green the data center is the confusion companies have in approaching the problem. PUE as simple as it is as a metric can be confusing to a novice on where to start. To be greener requires change. Change requires a motivation. What is the motivation for green?

In Seattletimes, there is an article about a Redmond High School teacher who won the $25,000 National Education Association award for Green Prize in Education.

Redmond High environmental-science teacher wins $25,000 Green Prize

Mike Town, who teaches environmental science at Redmond High, was presented the inaugural $25,000 Green Prize in Environmental Education from the NEA Foundation on Monday. The award was delivered by a grandson of undersea explorer and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau.

By Katherine Long

Seattle Times Eastside reporter

KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Teacher Mike Town listens Monday before receiving the NEA Foundation's inaugural Green Prize in Public Education.

Information

Cool School Challenge: The "Cool School Challenge" program can be downloaded for free athttp://coolschoolchallenge.org.

When he was a boy, one of Mike Town's heroes was Jacques Cousteau, the French explorer and filmmaker whose "Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau" brought the beauty of the marine environment to viewers around the world.

So it seemed fitting that when Town was awarded a national environmental-education prize Monday, it was delivered by one of Cousteau's grandsons, Philippe.

Here is a quote from Philippe Cousteau.

“The guiding philosophy of Mike Town's Cool School Challenge is that big changes start with small steps. His program provides a simple process that enables students, working together with their teachers, to proactively reduce greenhouse gas emissions of schools, making a world of difference in their own communities," said Cousteau. "The natural environment is a leading interest of many students and their teachers, but there are few resources to support them. If we truly want to save what my grandfather called our water planet then we must arm youth with the knowledge, skills and tools to take action to do so. Mike Town’s program is a great step toward this.”

Cool School challenge takes an approach asking for the motivation.

Conceptually modeled after the U.S. Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement, the Cool School Challenge aims to motivate students, teachers, and school districts to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions schoolwide. At the heart of the Cool School Challenge is the philosophy that big changes start with small steps, and that taken together, simple individual actions create a world of difference.

This project was the unanimous choice as the winner.

The NEA Foundation created the Green Prize in Public Education to recognize and showcase an outstanding public school educator or program that best advances social and environmental responsibility, improves student learning, and can be replicated. Town was the unanimous choice of a prestigious panel of national leaders from the environmental, education, business, and philanthropic sectors.

Mike's passion is to leverage and be a multiplier.

The shaggy-haired Town, who describes himself as "an old hippie who happens to be an educator," decided to become a teacher because "it has this multiplier effect" — by teaching young people, he said, his passion for the environment can reach many more.

Here is a Google Map of other schools who have joined the program.

Could the same approach be used to green data centers? Most likely yes.