Greg Galitzine : Green Blog
Greg Galitzine
| Helping environmentally-conscientious business leaders choose environmentally-friendly solutions.

ip communications

Green WiFi

June 15, 2007

Something magical happens when you combine solar power and municipal WiFi. You get internet access for a population of 44,000 residents. St. Louis Park, Minnesota is where this green technology implementation is taking place. The WiFi APs will be connected by fiber and reside on 16 foot poles painted an aesthetically pleasing brown.   Clint Pires, CIO for St. Louis Park, said his city is the first in the U.S. to combine Wi-Fi and solar panels so widely.   "Our decision to use solar power reflects the city's philosophy of environmental stewardship, but we also expect to save $40,000 to $50,000 each year by using solar power instead of electric utility connections," Pires said in a statement.

Green Technology Conference

August 16, 2007

Please accept my invitation to be part of TMC’s newest event. Here is a recent invitation we sent out. In case you missed it, here it is. Hope to see you at this show.

Polycom

August 20, 2007

I recently had the opportunity to ask Jessica Kersey, senior director of corporate communications with Polycom, about the green movement and how Polycom is helping companies transition into a new era.   Polycom delivers end-to-end, rich media collaborative applications for voice, video, data and the Web from desktop and mobile personal systems to the network core.   For more background on Polycom, please read earlier TMCnet coverage of the company here.   How is the green movement changing the way your company operates?   Polycom’s voice and video communications and collaboration solutions are the ultimate green technology as they enable dispersed workgroups in today’s global enterprises to meet and collaborate virtually, which reduces the need for travel. As the market leader in collaborative communications, we use Polycom technology more extensively than virtually any other company. This substantially reduces our need for travel and our carbon footprint as a company.

TANDBERG

August 21, 2007

Rick Snyder, president of TANDBERG Americas, recently took the time to answer questions about the telecommunications industries role in the green movement, his company’s efforts to stay ahead of the pack and the upcoming Green Technology World Conference this September in Los Angeles.   TANDBERG, a global provider of visual communications, has a stated mission of developing products that reduce CO2 emissions, traffic congestion and unnecessary business travel, while maintaining or improving productivity.   For more background on TANDBERG Americas, please read earlier TMCnet coverage of the company here.   How is the green movement changing the way your company operates?   We’d been using videoconferencing to reduce the need for business travel and improve productivity since 1989. As we grow exponentially, it becomes even more essential that we address our carbon footprint. Recently, with the introduction of Tandberg Movi, all employees with a webcam can join the enterprise video network.

Green Technology Conference Doing Well

September 6, 2007

Thanks to all the readers of TMC’s green blog for supporting the Green Technology World conference taking place next week in Los Angeles, CA. Our attendance numbers are far ahead of where we thought they would be based on the limited time we had to market this event. We now expect up to 2,000 people to register for the show when all is said and done. In addition there may be some of you who don’t want to use a computer to register just so you can lower your carbon footprint.

Codian

September 7, 2007

As of the publication date of this interview with Codian’s Simon Downey, Norway-based video conferencing giant Tandberg announced that they are acquiring the high-definition (HD) video conferencing gear maker for $270 million in cash and stock. The deal, which is expected to enable Tandberg to more rapidly pursue current opportunities within its core videoconferencing and telepresence markets, is expected to close in the third quarter of 2007.   Codian designs and manufactures advanced video conferencing products, which include Multipoint Control Units, ISDN gateways, Video Conference Recorders and Streaming Servers.   Rick Snyder, President of TANDBERG Americas, is scheduled to kick off the Green Technology World Conference program with a keynote address in Petree Hall D at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles, CA, on Tuesday September 11 at 9:00am.   Snyder plans to describe in practical terms how adopting a strategy to reduce carbon emissions can increase a company’s brand value, driving competitive advantage.   “The key to engaging enterprises in the environmental movement is to identify CO2 reduction programs that can be implemented easily, do not sacrifice productivity, and demonstrate measurable ROI for an organization,” explained Snyder. “I am looking forward to sharing the experience of our customers who are reducing their carbon footprint by eliminating unnecessary business travel and implementing visual telecommuting programs.”   While we will no doubt hear more about the two companies as the acquisition progresses, I’d like to share this interview I conducted with Simon Downey, senior product direct at Codian, about telepresence and the evolution of the IP communications space in general.   Downey will be presenting during the upcoming ITEXPO as part of a panel discussion titled The Dawning of Telepresence.

Green Technology and IP Communications

September 11, 2007

If you ever wondered how IP communications and green technology are similar, take a look at this blog post explaining how it all works. We hope to see you at Green Technology World conference very soon. The show kicks off in a few hors and we can’t wait to host you.

Cash For Comm Clunkers A Truly Green Solution

August 26, 2009

Kudos to companies such as Grandstream, MegaPath, and Netsuite for offering and to Rich Tehrani in his blog for raising and promoting what will turn out to be a much more effective 'cash for clunkers' campaign: turning in old legacy PSTN/TDM equipment and obsolete premises-based solutions for IP and where appropriate hosted tools and recycling them to avoid e-waste. 

The cash for clunkers in the comm industry will arguably be more effective in that this one doesn't involve governments, subsidies, and kowtowing to special interests. The Sierra Club has criticized what had started out to be a well-intentioned program into 'support for gas guzzlers'. Money allocated for this program has arguably come at the expense of more efficient mass transit. While there has been stimulus money to build new systems, agencies are being starved to buy vehicles and operating funds to provide services. 

In contrast going to software-based IP and hosted means less goods that have to be manufactured from raw resources that must be extracted and processed, and lowered transportation costs and the consequent environmental consequences at all stages.



Panduit and EMC Combine to Increase Data Center Efficiency

September 26, 2009

As the adoption of IP-based communications technologies continues to grow, the convergence of voice, video, and data traffic over a single media IP enables is creating a need for businesses to improve their system uptime and overall service levels across their networks. That necessarily includes their data centers, which, as more advanced and robust applications are developed, also increased bandwidth needs as they become mission critical elements of a successful enterprise.   Of course, with the increased focus data centers receive due to their critical nature, they also become a greater part of enterprise cost saving initiatives.   Combining the need to optimize data center performance and increase their security with the need to reduce operational expenses, Panduit has been focusing on methods to consolidate data center physical infrastructures in a way that will meet all of these needs, along with creating more energy efficient and eco-friendly "smart data centers."   The approach is embodied in its Unified Physical Infrastructure vision, or UPI, which, as TMC's Erin Harrison writes, "leverages intelligent physical infrastructures as the foundation to enable convergence across communication, computing, control, power, and security systems." Those five components, as Panduit's vice president of global marketing Vineeth Ram explains, are part of any data center operation, and can be tightly integrated under a single, unified management system to increase operation effectiveness and create a more energy efficient environment.   A key part of driving operational efficiency and minimizing risk lies in the ability to automate processes. Panduit has recently enabled integration of its PIM (Physical Infrastructure Manager) software with EMC's Ionix software to facilitate increased visibility and control of physical infrastructure components.    Panduit's software provides a Web-based utility for automating the documentation of network connectivity, change notification, asset management and reporting, and virtual server mapping. EMC's Ionix further enhances automation by enabling efficient and effective management of both physical and virtual layers, including networks, storage systems, servers, and applications.   By delivering real-time data on the connectivity status of network infrastructure to EMC Ionix, Panduit and EMC helps enable more efficient monitoring, management, and automation of network tasks. The combined solution helps network administrators react quickly to alarm situations, manage configuration changes, apply policy settings, ensure compliance, and generally adapt quickly to evolving connectivity requirements.   The collaboration helps drive the UPI vision, and allows businesses to improve their data center reliability, reduce operational expenses, become more agile and sustainable, and drive Green IT initiatives, especially as they continue to leverage virtualization and cloud computing strategies.   Read more about Panduit's UPI vision and the solutions it has developed to drive that vision to market on the Smart Data Centers community.  

Trends Shaping the Next Generation Data Center

September 28, 2009

As enterprises grow, their requirements for access to data center applications and services grows at least as quickly, which is driving many of businesses to build out new data centers or enhance the capabilities of their existing ones.   Underlying this general trend, which includes data center optimization, increased efficiency, and risk mitigation via a converged physical infrastructure such as that defined by Panduit, are several other factors that are resulting in data center executives to look closely at how they are developing their data centers.   During a recent videocast focusing on data center evolution, Garter research vice president Mark Fabbi outlined four trends that are helping drive next generation data center design: regulation and compliance, flexibility and agility, cost, and Green IT - all of which are pushing data centers toward a three-step process that includes consolidation, virtualization, and automation.   Regulation and Compliance In order to meet regulatory requirements, most data centers are looking to increase their control over data through centralization of storage and servers, which is driving many of the consolidation projects - which are an ideal opportunity to leverage Panduit's ideal of a converged, all-IP physical infrastructure.    Flexibility and Agility On its surface, the need for more real-time access to data and services from more places, including mobile and remote workers, seems to contradict the desire for increased control. However, the growing movement toward virtualization and automation is helping achieve both goals.   Cost Savings The down economy, which seemingly has flattened out somewhat, only heightened an existing movement to cut costs across businesses, and resulted in an increased need to justify investments, perhaps more than ever before. Consolidation, virtualization, and automation are well suited to helping lower data center CAPEX and OPEX.   Green IT There is a global movement towards eco-friendly technologies, partially as a function of cost saving initiatives, but it also involves other, global environmental issues that more and more businesses are considering as they make technology decisions. This also increases the focus on consolidation, virtualization, and automation.   Each of these trends is helping drive consolidation, virtualization, and automation. Consolidation allows for the sharing of assets between resources, so they can be repurposed for multiple uses. Then, virtualization and automation can be leveraged to allow faster, easier access to resources to increase operational efficiency across the enterprise, along with cost savings. They also play well into Green IT initiatives, as they help decrease the physical footprint of data center technology, and are designed to reduce power consumption and, consequently, cooling requirements.   These four trends, which represent the changing requirements placed on data centers, combine to increase the focus data center infrastructure components, particularly as the interact with one another. Specifically, with the ever-changing requirements being placed on data center assets, the infrastructure must be able to accommodate that evolution without having to be re-engineered each time.    That requires insight into the entire infrastructure, including not only the applications and other assets, but the servers and switches, cabling, security, power and cooling, and all other components that allow the data center to operate efficiently. In other words, the physical infrastructure becomes a moving part in the business process, rather than a static transport mechanism, which requires a holistic approach to designing, deploying, and managing the entire data center.   That's where Panduit, along with its partners is making a difference by adding intelligence into the data center to allow it to become more agile, more efficient, and more cost effective. According to Fabbi, infrastructure vendors must have a broad, comprehensive range of solutions to address the many data center systems that must be integrated into a single, united entity. Panduit and its partners bring those end-to-end solutions to the data center market, driving tighter integration between not only data center infrastructure systems, but also between the data center end the enterprise businesses they support.   Watch to full videocast to see more of how Gartner views data center evolution, and how Panduit and some of its partners are addressing data center pain points to help them become more agile, more cost effective, and more operationally efficient.   For more on Panduit's UPI vision, and its high-speed transport and green data center solutions, visit the Smart Data Centers community.   
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