Sustainable IT Topic Center

Sustainable IT news, in-depth articles and more

Swedish data center saves $1 million a year using seawater for cooling

A data center in Sweden has cut its energy bills by a million dollars a year using seawater to cool its servers, though jellyfish are an occasional hazard.
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Data centers show signs of 'green fatigue'

A new survey from the Uptime Institute suggests fatigue is setting in when it comes to making data centers greener, and it may be partly due to overachievers like Google and Microsoft.

Networks in 2020: More traffic, less energy

Networks could use far less energy by 2020 even though they'll be carrying much more traffic, an industry group says.

Harvard aims to help developers make cheaper solar panels

Hoping to usher in an age of low-cost solar power, Harvard's Clean Energy Project in June plans to release a list of 20,000 organic compounds that could be used to make cheap, printable photovoltaic cells.

Sandy begets tree-hugging companies

Severe weather shifts are forcing companies to rethink their energy strategies; they're using both technology and geography to become more energy independent.

New data center survey shows mediocre results for energy efficiency

A new survey suggests that large data centers might be less energy efficient than was previously thought.

Nanowires could boost energy in solar cells by 15x

Building solar voltaic cells from nanowires instead of standard metal conductors can increase the amount of energy that can be captured by a factor of 15, according to a new study by scientists from the Nano-Science Center in Denmark.

Trade groups look for uses for recycled CRT glass

An electronics and a recycling trade group are looking for ways to reuse recycled cathode ray tube (CRT) glass from computer monitors and television sets, with a US$10,000 prize for the best proposal.

eBay develops metric for data center performance

There's a maxim in the data center business that you can't manage what you can't measure, and eBay has come up with a new measurement for doing both.

EBay develops 'miles per gallon' metric for data centers

There's a maxim in the data center business that you can't manage what you can't measure, and eBay has come up with the mother of all measurement systems for calculating data center efficiency.

From virtual reality to non-conductive liquids, data centers innovate

Google I/O is getting most of the attention this week, but a conference at the other end of Silicon Valley showed there's plenty of innovation going on in the word of data centers, too.

Being green and the madness of crowds

Some time ago I had a call with a company that ran data centers they claimed were "green." Their argument for their greenness was they purchased power with green credits, which meant they paid a premium for electricity to fund alternative energy programs. Along with that they had a car park full of solar cells.

Next-gen servers: The next big thing

As small businesses implement the latest technology to keep up with client demands, next-generation servers come to the forefront of the discussion. But what is a "next-gen" server exactly?

Smart buildings get smarter

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission's new headquarters integrates many state-of-the-art green technologies, including solar panels and wind turbines. Such IT-driven building designs are minimizing energy consumption while optimizing operations.

Urban tech: From Masdar to Main Street?

Self-driving electric taxis, smart appliances and municipal solar power are all amenities enjoyed by the residents of the futuristic Masdar City in the Middle East. Here's how they'll make their way to the U.S.

In Search of an Energy Yardstick

We take a comprehensive look at the new green-IT metrics for measuring data center efficiency and productivity from The Green Grid and other industry groups. Insider, registration required.

KPMG: Aims to reduce its carbon footprint by 25%

KPMG has made the use of green technologies a key component of its efforts to optimize its investments in IT, including a data center transformation that is expected to save about 15% in energy costs.

The top Green-IT organizations: Hard-wired to be green

Computerworld's top Green-IT organizations for 2011 have woven energy-saving initiatives into the very fabric of their IT strategies

JM Family: Eliminates more than 1,400 physical servers

JM Family first started to virtualize its data center servers in 2006, and since then, it has eliminated more than 1,400 physical servers and has avoided using more than 5.5 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually.

Prudential Financial: Moving to a virtual environment

Prudential's green-IT initiatives include using alternative energy sources to help power its data centers. In a project expected to be completed this year, solar panels are being installed at its Roseland, N.J., data center.