Samsung is the 2013 underwriter of the Uptime Institute Server Roundup awards. As part of the sponsorship, Samsung Semiconductor’s VP of Marketing Jim Elliot will be presenting on the latest advances in IT hardware components at Symposium next week. You can read more about Jim’s presentation and Samsung’s commitment to Server Roundup here.
In this video, Samsung’s Director of Strategic Marketing, Dr. Sylvie Kadivar provides a preview of the keynote.
Stay tuned for more blog posts from the event, and I look forward to seeing all of you in Santa Clara next week.
By Kevin Heslin
I’m very excited about my panel on DCIM next week (Thursday at 4:30 pm) at the Uptime Institute Symposium. Not only are the panelists absolutely terrific, the session title, Putting DCIM to Work for You, expresses that this session will be different than most sessions on DCIM, which to my experience tend to focus on the promise of DCIM rather. My panelists, Twitter’s Eric KO, HP’s Ken Jackson, and Regions’ James Pryor, will instead focus on what DCIM can offer today.
I think it is fair to say that this panel will provide an interesting counterpoint to other Symposium panels, including David Schirmacher’s presentation covering Digital Realty’s experience with DCIM and Rhonda Ascierto’s presentation, Beyond the Basics: Procuring Data Center Infrastructure Management Software. Both sessions are on Tuesday.
For many companies, the promise of DCIM remains the promise of DCIM, with many surveys suggesting that the fragmentation of the DCIM market is an impediment to broader adoption. Pundits consistently survey the data center community to find the reasons that adoption rates lag earlier predictions.
In addition to fragmentation, they find
We can boil this list down to one essential: Vendors make the promise of DCIM attractive, but shortcomings of the product category undercut the value proposition.
In one regard, Ko, Jackson and Pryor are like everyone else. They run critical data centers for companies that have little tolerance for downtime. However, they chose to wade through the fever swamps that cloud so many data center decisions and survived to tell the tale at Symposium.
In our 60-minute session, I intend to ask the panelists how they navigated the knotty issues surrounding the purchase of DCIM, to describe the benefits and shortcomings of their DCIM installation, and to talk about lessons learned.
For those of you looking for solutions to rising energy costs, untamed PUE, stranded space or capacity and hot spots, this session will be a must attend, especially if you are considering a DCIM solution.
Today, Uptime Institute announced that we are extending the application deadline for the 2013 Green Enterprise IT (GEIT) Awards. The GEIT Awards recognize projects, ideas and products that significantly improve energy productivity and resource use in IT.
Under the new deadline, completed applications must be submitted by 11:59 PM ET, February 8, 2013. Click here to learn more about the application process, or visit http://symposium.uptimeinstitute.com/geit-awards.
The GEIT Awards, now in their sixth year, are judged by an international committee of independent experts in a double-blind review process. The 2013 application forms and categories reflect an emphasis on converged digital infrastructure, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and improved resource efficiency in energy, water, and carbon use.
The competition is open to applicants in all countries. Award winners will be celebrated and invited to present case studies of their cutting-edge innovations at Uptime Institute Symposium 2013 in Santa Clara, Calif., on May 13-16, 2013.
On January 16, we will host a webinar to discuss the purpose and benefits of the GEIT Awards program and how to apply for a GEIT Award.
Webinar Details:
Title: Get recognized for your Green IT initiatives
Date: January 16, 2013
Time: 12:00 noon ET
Presenters:
Registration: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/948521849
The days of meeting your IT-driven business objectives in a single data center are long gone. Many organizations own multiple enterprise data centers and use outsourced hosting providers and cloud services to address demand. While the market for new data center builds and retrofits remains strong, a recent Uptime Institute sampling of senior-level executives with responsibility for IT and data center facilities at large global companies found that the majority also use third-party compute services:
Type of Service |
% using |
| Colocation or hosting services | 85% |
| SaaS | 54% |
| Public cloud | 31% |
Managing a global organization’s digital infrastructure portfolio is a complex task. When you include IT-driven sustainability initiatives throughout the organization, it’s almost mind-boggling … but the potential rewards of a holistic sustainable IT strategy are equally significant, both in terms of savings and corporate identity.
That’s why we’ve introduced a new category to this year’s Green Enterprise IT (GEIT) Awards competition: Green Digital Infrastructure Strategy. This Award recognizes exceptional energy and resource efficiency beyond an individual data center. Case studies may involve any or all of the following initiatives:
The Green Digital Infrastructure Strategy category looks beyond an individual project or facility to spotlight the organization’s Green IT vision. Your GDIS case study should display your corporate portfolio of Green IT initiatives.
Does this mean you can’t profile an exceptional individual project or facility by applying in another category? Absolutely not! You are welcome to submit that individual project in one of our other categories as well. That project or facility can still be included in your Green Digital Infrastructure Strategy case study, along with your other Green IT initiatives.
The 2013 GEIT Awards competition is now open. To be considered, applications must be submitted by January 18, 2013, but don’t put off applying … end-of-year reporting and the holiday season are closer than you think! Further information is available here.
According to Uptime Institute’s Second Annual Data Center Industry Survey, reducing data center energy use is an important concern to an overwhelming majority of data center owners and operators.
Uptime Institute Symposium is the must-see Green IT event of the year. Our keynote presenters are pulled from today’s headlines. Our annual Green Enterprise IT Award Winners provide groundbreaking, repeatable case studies. And Uptime Institute and 451 Research experts provide you with the information and leadership you need to drive Green IT initiatives at your own organization.
Highlights from Symposium’s Green IT sessions below:
-Facebook’s senior data center engineers will discuss details of the social media juggernaut’s Open Compute Project.
-Greenpeace’s Senior IT policy analyst Gary Cook will discuss his organization’s latest report on carbon and cloud computing.
-Deutsche Bank’s chief scientist Andrew Stokes will show how this financial institution’s investment in hyper-efficient operations has paid off.
-Dean Nelson will walk us through eBay’s engineering marvel in the Arizona desert – Project Mercury, a hot-water-cooled data center that operates at temperatures as high as 115 Fahrenheit.
-Winners of the Inaugural Uptime Institute Server Round-Up, AOL, will show you how they decommissioned and recycled 9,484 outdated servers to take home the trophy.
-The Environmental Defense Fund’s Climate Corps, MBA students partnered with companies to drive energy efficiency, will discuss how their projects so far have saved 1 million metric tons of CO2 emissions annually and $1billion in net operational costs over the project lifetimes.
This is your last chance to register for the most important Green IT event of the year, featuring leadership sessions from Uptime Institute Founder Ken Brill, The Green Grid and Stanford Professor and energy researcher Jonathan Koomey. Sign up today, and follow Symposium on Twitter at #Uptime12.
Uptime Institute is now regularly publishing online videos: profiling data center leaders, commenting on new tools and metrics and showcasing data center operational excellence in its Network membership. 
