| Helping environmentally-conscientious business leaders choose environmentally-friendly solutions.
CloudTC and N-Able Acquired
"Australian-owned IP PBX systems company, Vixtel, has completed the acquisition of Silicon Valley based glass phone developer, CloudTC, for an undisclosed figure,"...
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ProfitBricks: Where InfiniBand Meets Cloud 2.0
In a recent meeting with William Toll and Pete Johnson of ProfitBricks, the pair were ecstatic to explain how their company has...
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Proactive Care Puts Operators One Step Ahead
By Thomas Fuerst, Senior Director, Multimedia Solutions MarketingAlcatel-Lucent
Monitoring and analyzing network data proactively saves operators time, money, and customers.
When a network service fails, it makes headlines, ticks off customers, and costs that network operator money. When a failure is headed off in advance, on the other hand, there might not be praise-laden headlines, but it's newsworthy nonetheless.
The traditional approach to customer care has typically been: a disgruntled customer calls customer service and complains of a service interruption or problem; the rep, learning of it for the first time, sends out a technician the next day, and eventually finds a resolution. Often, customers are left feeling put out, and the operator has spent significant time and money resolving the problem. Even worse is the customer who doesn’t call and just feels this is ‘typical’ of their network experience. That is a customer at risk of leaving.
Proactive care flips this dynamic on its head by using predictive analytics to identify potential outages or errors in the network and stop them before they occur. It consists of three main parts: one, constantly monitoring and measuring data on the network; two, real-time analysis of the data; and three, the most important, acting on that analysis to fix the problem.
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10 Lessons from Volleyball
I've played volleyball for over 25 years. I have traveled around the US to watch the pros live - both indoor...
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Emerging Threats Combats a Million Plus Pieces of New Malware a Week
There are 250,000 plus new pieces of malware being produced each day equating to one piece per person in the US in...
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NFV-Based Software Telcos Need OSS/BSS Interoperability
One of the goals of ETSI NFV is to allow new entrants to provide solutions to carriers based on software instead of...
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SysAid's Lifshitz: The Cloud Will Dominate ITSM Market
Cloud computing has really become a household word with mainstream media outlets running stories on television about the growth in the space...
Full Story »Data Centers Find They Can't Afford to Not 'Go Green'
April 9, 2008
In the data center market, the need for green technology solutions to reduce energy consumption is rapidly becoming imperative. That’s according to executives who gathered for a panel Wednesday during Computerworld’s Storage Networking World conference.
Going green is no longer just a matter of moral rightness or social responsibility, Computerworld reported. It is now becoming a business necessity for data center operations to know how much energy each device consumes and to find ways of reducing that energy consumption.
Want More Energy For Computing? Burn Trash!
April 2, 2008
If your company has an extra $5,000 or so in its green technology budget, it might be worth considering a device the converts trash into energy with very minimal emissions. The device is called “the Gigapit,” and is made by startup Data Centigrade, Inc.
The Gigapit is small enough (the size of a small trash bin) to be installed in an office, where it works to turn trash into business-class energy, ByteandSwitch.com said in a Tuesday report. The minimal smoke produced can be piped into the “air pleneum”above the drop ceiling present in most offices, or out an open window.
“Depending on the type of waste being burned, a typical company can reduce its data center power bill by 20 to 40 percent in the first year,” ByeandSwitch.com quoted Data Centigrade’s CEO, Guy Montag, as saying. Fuel efficiency depends on what’s being burned, he added: "Paper isn't great.
IT Execs to Gather in Orlando for Green Enterprise Computer Event
April 2, 2008
If green technology is your thing (and it must be if you’re reading this blog), take note: later this month more than 400 executives from data centers and IT organizations will descend on Orland, Florida for the Uptime Institute Symposium 2008 (theme: Green Enterprise Computing).
The goal of the event, schedule for April 27-30, is addressing operational and strategic challenges associated with developing energy-efficient systems for data centers. Industry benchmarks will be a key topic covered.
Keynoters will hail from some pretty big players in the IT space: Dell, Microsoft, Yahoo, IBM, Intel, Sun Microsystems, VMWare and APC. The event is sponsored (as the name suggests) by the Uptime Institute, a Santa Fe, California-based think-tank and advisory firm that focuses on computing reliability and energy efficiency.
Hybrid Batteries 'Benign'
March 15, 2008
Rich Tehrani and I were talking the other day about the merits of hybrid automobiles when we got on the topic of whether the batteries from these vehicles pose any sort of an environmental problem when it comes time to dispose of them.
I seem to recall reading something a few years back that said the disposal of these large batteries was going to be challenge – basically that they were going to crowd our landfills, leak and cause all sorts of problems (and you know there’s only going to be more hybrids on our roads over the next few years).
But as it turns out, that’s not at all true. According to an entry found at www.hybridcars.com/faq, these batteries are “fully recyclable.” As per the entry:
“The hybrid battery packs are designed to last for the lifetime of the vehicle, somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 miles, probably a whole lot longer. The warranty covers the batteries for between eight and ten years, depending on the car maker.
I seem to recall reading something a few years back that said the disposal of these large batteries was going to be challenge – basically that they were going to crowd our landfills, leak and cause all sorts of problems (and you know there’s only going to be more hybrids on our roads over the next few years).
But as it turns out, that’s not at all true. According to an entry found at www.hybridcars.com/faq, these batteries are “fully recyclable.” As per the entry:
“The hybrid battery packs are designed to last for the lifetime of the vehicle, somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 miles, probably a whole lot longer. The warranty covers the batteries for between eight and ten years, depending on the car maker.
Organic Retailer Touts Fuel Cell Powered Supermarket
March 12, 2008
Whole Foods is announcing the opening of the first supermarket in the world to use fuel cell technology to power its store.
According to a company news release, Whole Foods is leveraging fuel cell technology to generate half of the electricity to operate the store, and 100 percent of the hot water.
Whole Foods Market is a retailer of natural and organic foods has announced that their Glastonbury, CT store will use a fuel cell power plant built by UTC Power, a United Technologies Company with whom Whole Foods has signed a 15-year service and maintenance agreement.
For more details check out this news item.
TMCnet Interviews ON24 CEO
March 12, 2008
TMCnet’s Mae Kowalke recently interviewed Sharat Sharan, president and CEO at ON24 to discuss Webcasting and the impact such technologies might have on the environment.
According to Kowalke, “New communications technologies like online conferencing are making collaboration among geographically-dispersed teams easier than ever before. Companies adopt such technologies for a variety of reasons, from wanting to reduce their travel budgets to seeking ways of operating more efficiently to getting in on the ‘green technology’ movement.”
One of the points Sharan drove home was the notion that in times of economic uncertainty, it makes sense to invest in technologies such as Webcasting to help reduce travel costs.
Said Sharan:
“There are indications that the economy will begin slowing and a recession is around the corner. More companies are already looking to reduce travel and cut costs. Combined with green mandates, I envision Webcasting gaining more prominence in 2008.
Can Virtualization Green The Emerald Isle?
March 12, 2008
SiliconRepublic.com is reporting that Microsoft’s server and tools business manager, Bill O’Brien, believes that adopting new virtualization technology — like that available in Microsoft’s new Windows Server 2008 — can save Irish businesses over 50 million Euros annually.
Said O’Brien:
“It’s estimated only five percent of businesses are virtualized today, that represents a tremendous growth potential and an incredible saving in terms of businesses expenditure on energy year-on-year.”
SiliconRepublic also quotes O’Brien as saying if every server in Ireland was upgraded to Windows Server 2008, it would remove more than two million tons of CO2 from entering the environment every year.
Become a Carbon Hero
February 26, 2008
With more and more people becoming conscious of their environmental responsibilities these days, the focus on reducing global warming has escalated.
To this end, more people are looking for ways they can do their part to become green and reduce their carbon footprint.
Now, a new device that helps increase peoples awareness is helping them to become a 'Carbon Hero.'
That’s what Andreas Zachariah, a graduate student from the Royal College of Art in London and inventor of Carbon Hero and Oxford graduate student Nick Burch are saying about their product, the Carbon Hero.
The new device is a personal carbon calculator that detects movement using satellite navigation and displays a user's carbon footprint on their mobile phone.
Becoming more aware of ones own contributions, and the difference they can make by choosing a different method of travel, can have a positive impact on green initiatives.
“If you go on a diet you want to see if all that effort has made a difference so you weigh yourself. The beauty of our system is that it’s easy; you have a ’weighing scale’ on you all the time giving you your carbon footprint. When you make the effort to walk instead of taking the car you can immediately see the result, so it feels more worthwhile doing it and you are more likely to stick with it,” Zachariah was quoted as saying in this ScienceDaily report.
And not only can this new device help users personally discover and adjust their impact on the environment but also, businesses looking at the benefits of going green, can find benefit in using Carbon Hero as well.
Green Technology the Answer to Pollution in Japan?
February 21, 2008
Coal-fired power stations definitely don’t help in the fight against global warming, unless maybe they use “clean-coal technology,” as does a power station in Nakaso, Japan. That station, Financial Times in Japan reports, is run by a consortium of nine power companies and is being championed by the country’s trade ministry as a way to prove that the technology can reduce pollution.
Specifically, the ministry thinks that using “clean-coal” technology can results in CO2 emissions comparable to an oil-fired plant.
"For combating climate change, what is needed is substantive technology that leads to real reductions,” the Financial Times report quoted Takashi Mogi, an assistant director at the ministry’s environmental affairs office as saying. Mogi admitted, though, that such technology may not yet available: “It is not very easy to believe we will achieve that without the help of innovative technology that does not already exist.”
In its report, Financial Times indicated that, as wonderful as clean-coal technology is, Japan may be using this as a way of removing pressure to make more long-lasting changes.
Green Tech Not 'Sexy' Enough?
February 6, 2008
Green technologies companies, CNet News blogger Michael Kanellos said in a Tuesday posting, may face an uphill battle getting customers excited about their products because those products simply aren’t “sexy” enough.
Kanellos pointed out that solar and wind companies sell electricity-generating equipment… not exactly the most exciting thing around. Nor are new types of water filters or home biomass heating systems.
In other words, Kanellos suggested, the majority of green companies “sell commodities you need, but don't desire.”
That may be true, but then again maybe not.
