That’s approximately the amount of power required to keep Google’s data centers running. As this NYT piece mentions, all those searches, Gmail accounts, YouTube videos and tons of other services continually absorb 260 million watts, or about a quarter of the output of one nuclear power plant. There are two important things to note from this [...]
Read more Stat of the day: 260 million watts
Over the past couple of years, some startups have been using mobile chips as a way to bring high performance computing to the data center in the form of low-power, space-saving servers. On Friday, August 19, one of those startups, SeaMicro, will be discussing the tech behind its Intel Atom-powered SM10000-64HD server (pictured above) during [...]
Read more SeaMicro to show cool Atom-powered server tech at Hot Chips
Nexant announced today that it added $43 million to its coffers, and that Intel Capital isn’t the only VC that has taken an interest in the smart energy software firm. In addition to Intel, Oak Investment Partners has joined existing investors TeleSoft and Beacon in funding the new round. According to Nexant’s Executive Chairman, Arjun [...]
Read more Nexant banks $43M
No green energy, no dice. That’s Microsoft’s stance on siting new data centers, according to a story in the Roanoke Times. The company passed on building a nearly half-billion dollar facility in Montgomery County, Virginia. Instead, it settled on Boydton County. The reason: A dearth of renewable energy options. Oh, yeah, and sinkholes. The sinkholes [...]
Read more Microsoft passes on not-so-green site for massive data center in Virginia
As expected, ARM officially announced its new Cortex-A chip design and in addition to specs that portend a new generation of powerhouse smartphones, it looks like ARM is finally laying the groundwork for some serious competition in the server processor space. ARM’s latest design is an upgrade in every regard, from clockspeed (up to 2.5 [...]
Read more ARM’s Cortex-A15: From smartphones to green data centers
Overclocking processors is a common enough tweak for computer enthusiasts. Not so much in the data center, though. Why? First, no sysadmin will risk a server’s stability or voiding the warranty on an expensive piece of hardware. Also, why put added strain on a facility’s cooling systems? Enter liquid cooling. Submerging computer hardware into inert [...]
Read more Dawn of the liquid-cooled, overclocked data centers?
TierPoint, a provider of colocation and telecom services, is gearing up for a new $8.2 million data center build in Spokane, Wash. One of the hallmarks of the project will be low-power geothermal cooling. According to Greg Zemp, a TierPoint partner, utilizing this unconventional method of lowering IT hardware temps not only reduces energy costs [...]
Read more TierPoint goes geothermal
Data center energy management firm Viridity Software this week raised $8 million in a second round of funding from Battery Ventures and North Bridge Venture Partners, bringing its total haul to date to $15 million. More than just monitoring energy usage — a common enough capability these days — the Amesbury, Mass.-based startup develops software [...]
Read more Viridity completes $8M Series B round, lands big customers
Building, let alone operating, a Tier IV data center to support a business that transacts $2,000 per second — that’s over $172 million per day, $60 billion per year folks – sounds like the makings of a huge energy guzzler. But that’s not the case for Dean Nelson, eBay’s senior director of Global Data Center [...]
Read more eBay’s Project Topaz: Anatomy of a $300 million green data center
Eaton, an industrial power distribution and control firm, acquired Worcester, Mass.-based Wright Line, a maker of energy efficient server racks, enclosures and hot/cold aisle containment systems. The two companies are a perfect match, according to Jerry R. Whitaker, Eaton’s president for its Electrical Americas division. “Combining Wright Line’s strong enclosure and air management portfolio along [...]
Read more Eaton buys Wright Line
This work by Pedro Hernandez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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