IBM Systems Lab Services and Training has been working on a project with Syracuse University for a number of years and was recently released.
Syracuse University, IBM, New York State Launch One of the World's Greenest Data Centers. Read more in this posting about how our team was involved and will continue to be involved with the university and studies on green data centers.
Congratulations goes out to our very own Dr. Roger R. Schmidt, IBM Fellow and Chief Engineer for Data Center Energy Efficiency was recognized this week in London with an award for OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO THE INDUSTRY as part of this year's Datacentre Leaders' Awards.
Read more about this prestigious award! Also, you can read more about Roger in “Two Minutes.”
Sparkplugs – Our teams in action!
As a leader in technology, our team, particularly IBM Fellow Roger Schmidt, took the role of technical lead along side Syracuse University’s Professor Khalifa of the Syracuse University Mechanical Engineering department to work on a number of projects surrounding data center efficiency. This was the inception of the Green Data Center which was announced a few weeks ago. This data center and the projects surrounding it include modeling and research to form tools and assist clients in building data centers. Students, professors and IBM teams are working on modeling and research in a beta involving a data center in Spain. They will determine what design is best for utilities, air conditioning, cooling towers, pumps and more. Other factors that become important can be weather patterns, water cooling and outside air. These models can be used to determine what may be the best solution for the client compared to a traditional datacenter from an energy standpoint. Modeling also allows for comparison of capital costs to see what the best fit is for clients’ needs.
The project also focuses on hardware improvements and best practices, testing them out on the actual data center for optimal results. The team is excited for what will potentially be developed from this partnership with Syracuse University.
http://bit.ly/7QfjpG -- IBM press release and video
http://bit.ly/84zZCs -- Syracuse news story video
A short interview with Roger Schmidt, IBM Fellow - IBM Systems Lab Services and Training
IBM Systems Lab Services and Training (IBMSLST):
When you started at IBM did you ever imagine you would be named an IBM Fellow?
Roger Schmidt: I will be honest that when I was hired out of college and worked in the lab on performing heat transfer experiments and developing products I thought, "I could do this my whole career. This is the greatest!" Little did I know that my career would take me here. I would say a turning point in my career was when we started shipping our CMOS (Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor) technology. I was asked in the early '90's to visit a small company to assess their new IBM CMOS servers. I found a small office with three racks and storage and one tiny air conditioner. I immediately had concern for this environment and after multiple visits assisted the client to create an environment suitable for their IT equipment. This event prompted me to get much more involved in our air cooled CMOS products and their deployment into our customer's data centers.
IBMSLST: Did you ever think that energy use and thermal management would become such key elements of the IT infrastructure equation when you first started to develop your knowledge in these areas?
Roger: It wasn't clear until that client visit I mentioned that there were probably others like this client that had data centers that were not aware of the thermal issues of a data center. I wrote a technical paper to share what I had learned from that experience and continued to network and get involved in the power and cooling community. I decided to put together a group of industry leaders from 15 companies and to develop a chart of "server power trends." With problems and trends in power and cooling, this chart allowed us to share our collective information with the industry. In 1999 the chart was included in an article written by Ken Brill from the Uptime Institute,
Heat Density Trends in Data Processing, Computer Systems, and Telecommunications Equipment.
The next step I took was moving the group over to create a technical committee in
ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) to focus on best practices for data centers. ASHRAE is a leading source for expertise for the heating, ventilating and refrigeration relating to building including data centers. Their members are a resource for policy-makers in the development of legislation and regulations affecting the public, the HVAC&R community, and the engineering profession. I am past chairperson of committee, now the largest of the 110 technical committees within ASHRAE.
IBMSLST: What are clients' biggest obstacles to running and growing their businesses in today's environment, and what can Lab Services do to help them?
Roger: The return on investment is key for a client and they generally look for a payback in at least one year and at the most two.
Data Center Services is positioned to assist with best practices in power and cooling through their assessments and work with the
Measurement and Management Technologies (MMT) developed by IBM Research.
IBMSLST: Before we go, what would you recommend to your colleagues to assist in the progression of efficient data centers?
Roger: Walk in the client's shoes for a day and walk through a data center and learn!
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