Uptime Institute announces the winners of the Inaugural Server Roundup Contest. AOL roped in the prize for both the largest percentage of equipment removed and for most IT equipment removed. NBC Universal rode in with runner up.
The Inaugural Uptime Institute Server Roundup was announced October, 2011 as a contest to remove and recycle obsolete IT equipment. Participants were required to document the decommissioning of the machines, and provide data on power savings, and photos of the servers.
Decommissioning a single 1U rack server can result in $500 per year in energy savings, an additional $500 in operating system licenses, and $1,500 in hardware maintenance costs. Our winners rounded up close to 10,000 head.
Matt Stansberry, Director of Content and Publications, said, “The intent of the Server Roundup was to encourage and recognize the removal of obsolete computing hardware. So much of the past several years’ efforts around data center efficiency has focused on the facilities infrastructure and PUE. This contest was specifically designed to engage the IT community to get serious about asset utilization and energy efficiency.
“By taking unused servers out of the data center, you’re also reducing the amount of supporting infrastructure necessary. Removing unused servers has a huge impact on overall energy use, which is the goal of most data center owners and operators.”
AOL sent 9,484 head to the stockyards, representing a 26% turnover in server assets across the company. The roundup resulted in a total savings of $5.05 million from reduced utility costs, maintenance, and licensing costs, and includes cash in hand of $1.2 million from asset sales and reclamation. Environmental benefits were seen in the reduction of almost 20 tons of carbon emissions.
“AOL decided to pursue this contest due to both the prestige of the Uptime Institute, whose programs are typically well-respected in the data center arena, and the fun associated with the program, since AOLers do have fun at work,” said Brenda Rian, AOL’s Senior Manager, Environmental Health & Safety. “AOL has been working on data center energy efficiency for a number of years, and this contest allowed us to pause and quantify the carbon footprint and utility savings of these ongoing efforts.”
NBC Universal’s Infrastructure team culled 1,090 head. Those servers removed represent approximately 29% of the total enterprise. Only about 3,800 physical servers remain in their herd.
“The concept behind the Roundup was unique. Taking a routine activity that most people never see and moving it to the forefront of the conversation is a great mechanism to inspire not only our team but healthy competition between like minded organizations,”said Saul Mankes, Director, Data Protection & Infrastructure Continuity NBC Universal, MediaWorks.
“As energy costs continue to rise, rationalizing the portfolio to achieve increased efficiencies has been critical to meeting the growing needs of the business. Through intense virtualization efforts and rigid reviews of infrastructure NBCUniversal has been able to retire over 60 tons of recycled hardware. As a result the company has been successful in lowering power consumption, support costs and increasing awareness of these challenges.”
You can congratulate the cowpokes at AOL and NBC Universal during the 2012 Uptime Institute Symposium in Santa Clara, CA, 13-17 May. They’ll be taking off their spurs and coming in off the trail to present and collect their rewards – genuine Texas rodeo belt buckles. Symposium will feature an awards ceremony, and presentations regarding the specific process, protocol, and benefits of their efforts. Buy them a sarsaparilla and listen to their tales of technology gone bad.
Let’s “head ‘em up, move ‘em out, get those doggies rollin” for Uptime Institute Server Roundup 2012. Contest rules are the same as last year. Deadline for submissions is Feb 1st 2013.
SAO PAULO, BRAZIL — At the inaugural Uptime Institute Brazil Network meeting in Sao Paulo this week, a panel of top South American data center design firms answered questions from data center owners and operators on the top trends in the Brazil region.
According to the panelists, modular data center designs are becoming increasingly common in Brazil. The panelists also said Brazil’s data center designs tend to look more like European installations with smaller data center deployments than are typically built in the U.S.
The data center design panel also noted that economization or free cooling is becoming viable in Brazil as data center operators start raising inlet air temperatures. But Brazil’s climate can complicate issues, and mechanical cooling for some part of the year is still necessary.
Below are more photos from this week’s event in Sao Paulo.
Take the Uptime Institute’s Second Annual Data Center Survey.
The data from this survey will help your organization make effective data center decisions over the coming year, and will help you benchmark your organization against the broader industry trends.
All survey participants will receive an anonymous copy of the raw data, as well as the full report with analysis from Uptime Institute, and will be entered in a drawing for an Apple iPad or passes to the Uptime Institute Symposium 14-17 May 2012, in Santa Clara, CA.
Thank you to all the participants from last year who made the inaugural survey a huge success. We look forward to your participation.
Here are some of the results from Uptime Institute’s 2011 Data Center Survey:
Why should you invest the time to complete an application for Uptime Institute’s Green Enterprise IT Awards?
Because implementing a successful project isn’t enough – you’ve got to TELL people about it.
Winning a Green Enterprise IT (GEIT) Award does just that. When you win a GEIT Award, the Uptime Institute – The Global Data Center Authority — announces on the world’s stage that your project demonstrates thought leadership, adherence to best practices, and bold innovation.
Winning a GEIT Award enhances your stature within your organization and increases the credibility of future projects you might champion. Winners receive a complimentary registration to present their case study at the annual Uptime Institute Symposium , so you’ll be able to share your Award-winning project with your peers in a 30-minute session . And because delegates will recognize you on sight as a GEIT Winner, your networking opportunities increase exponentially. After Symposium, your presentation and case brief become part of the Path Forward, the official proceedings of Symposium hosted on the Symposium website for the benefit of the global community.
Winning a GEIT Award is smart business. Your project has already provided significant benefits in terms of increased productivity and cost efficiency, but winning a GEIT Award amplifies that benefit: when an independent team of international experts examines your project in a rigorous double-blind review process and determines that you’ve implemented the very best solution to produce the highest-impact result possible, clients sit up and take notice.
Apply now for 2012 GEIT Awards.
This week we are posting testimonials from data center managers and IT executives from around the globe who have participated in Uptime Institute’s Green Enterprise IT Awards (GEIT).
Stephen Bowes-Phipps, Data Centres Manager at University of Herfordshire
Participating in the Uptime Institute GEIT Awards has given further credibility to the work not only that I have undertook but the progress the University of Hertfordshire is making with respect to furthering the Green IT Agenda. We have also used the award to provide greater publicity to the sector to encourage others to follow our path and spend the necessary time and investment in reducing their ICT operational and environmental costs.
In a perfect world, it would be nice to believe that funding for Green efficiencies always deliver a SMART return on investment (ROI) that makes senior decision makers feel good about the outcomes. Unfortunately, that is not always the case (though it was in ours). Awards can celebrate Green IT projects that are good for sustainability but have poor or non-existent ROI. There is evidence that corporate sustainability efforts have taken a back seat during the global recession as organizations seek to retrench their positions in a shrinking market. However, consumers may just be more selective about whom they do business with, and those who can demonstrate independent accolades of using their funds to both improve efficiency and bear more responsibility for the environment and communities in which they operate in, may win the lion’s share of the new and repeat business.
Download the University of Herfordshire GEIT Case Study here.
Uptime Institute is now accepting applications for 2012 Green Enterprise IT Awards. The GEIT Awards recognize projects, ideas and products that significantly improve energy productivity and resource use in IT, data centers and beyond. The GEIT Awards are open to applicants in all countries and are judged by a committee of independent experts. In 2012, the Institute invites applications in 8 categories. Application deadline is February 3, 2012. Award winners for 2012 will be honored at the Uptime Institute Symposium in Santa Clara, CA, May 14-17, 2012.
Over the next few weeks we will profile some of last year’s winners, reflecting on how participation in GEIT impacted their careers and IT organizations.
Eric Swanson, Data Center Manager, at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
GEIT has definitely helped my organization. The process does take some time and effort, but my experience has been that it is well worth it. In my case it helped keep the focus on gathering metrics throughout the project, and routinely studying that data to understand where opportunities for further improvements might be. This was particularly true in our challenging environment, as we were operating in upper ASHRAE conditions with a lot of infrastructure challenges and IT load growth, pushing us beyond best practices.
The metrics, graphs and knowledge gained throughout the project are useful to this day. The application process also helped identify areas that we should have been tracking, for example, PUE and DCIE metrics.
The award has also helped my career. The Uptime Institute’s Green Enterprise IT award is open to the international community, and therefore shows others that you have been involved with something that is world-class. The symposium’s web site has a summary, presentation, and case study. This provides an excellent 3rd party reference to showcase the work done, and share the knowledge widely, which for me was the driving force for participating.
The experience of preparing and presenting at the Symposium was also very educational, as was being at the Symposium.
Also, pursuing green technology has returned on its investment. This project was part of a larger effort to extend data center IT load, mainly through low-cost methods that greatly improved efficiencies and lessened our environmental impact. In our case the payoff was immediate.
Download the case study here.
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. 
