The Green Grid Forum held a Technical Forum in SF Feb 5 - 6, 2008.
An unprecedented opportunity to "Get Connected to Efficient IT", The Green Grid Technical Forum is a unique industry event designed to bring members and other industry stakeholders together to further The Green Grid’s mission of advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. Attendees will learn about The Green Grid’s Data Center Metrics, current and emerging techniques for managing data centers for efficiency and future technical deliverables from the organization. The Green Grid will also host discussions with leading industry policy-makers from around the world.
Part of going Green in a Data Center is to figure out what works, and this event was a great opportunity for industry leaders to exchange ideas. There were over 300 attendees registered for the event, including the biggest of data center operators; Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google. Well, not Google as they didn't show up. Which is confusing given Google's claims of being an environmental leader. Google's Green Energy Czar says
we launched the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, which aims to set efficiency standards for power supplies and dc-to-dc converters, both for servers and also for desktops. It’s about taking what we’ve done on the server side and getting some of the same efficiency improvements on the desktop side where there’s a huge opportunity in terms of total savings.
Google's motto is "do no evil." Given Google operates more servers than anyone else should "do no evil" include participating in The Green Grid Technical Forum? Google has taken on the environmental task by starting projects like Renewable Energy Initiatives, but wouldn't it be better if Google helped validate data center best practices?
Why didn't Google join The Green Grid?
As a side, someone saw Microsoft's Christian Belady, talking to Yahoo's Christina Page.That would have been a fun conversation to list to.
* I was just joking about the roll call analogy.