Biomass is not a particularly typical data center fuel, but it looks like it could be a good alternative to other less renewable sources of energy. Wikipedia has a lot of interesting stuff to say on the subject. Basically biomass is living or recently-living material, especially plant matter, used to generate electricity or heat. It’s better for the carbon cycle than fossil fuels since burning fossil fuels releases carbon that’s been out of the cycle for too long, whereas biomass creates less of an imbalance. It’s still not a perfectly healthy fuel, but it’s better than say, coal (I’m looking at you, Facebook).
 The term “grass-fed” and its environmentally-friendly connotations are a little misleading in relation to a biomass-fueled data center, considering biomass is far from carbon-neutral. But it does make sense since the data center in question, a potential facility proposed by the Data Center Coalition, would be using biomass mostly composed of grass.
Grass is easy to come by on the plains of Missouri where the Data Center Coalition wants to build, which is lucky for Missouri since it’s not an incredibly attractive candidate on account of a lack of tax-exemptions for data centers. It’ll be interesting to see how this biomass niche develops. For more check out the article on the Columbia Business Times site.
Elizabeth English
photo by Let Ideas Compete under flickr creative commons license
The two bickering companies are taking things to new levels in their disagreement about  Facebook’s construction of a data center in Oregon which will be using environmentally-unfriendly coal for a lot of its energy.
Apparently this week Greenpeace addressed a letter to Facebook’s CEO insisting that Facebook take responsibility for what’s going on and work on the problem. As I’ve commented before, as such a popular, ubiquitous, and therefore influential modern institution, Facebook really does have a responsibility to set an example for other companies and keep standards high. It’s pretty shocking that this is an image they’re okay with presenting.
Facebook fought back this time with a bit of research into Greenpeace’s clean energy credentials, to see if they’re throwing stones from glass houses, and discovered that one of their facilities is also unusually high on coal use.
At first glance this does seem scandalous. But then I remembered that the bad behavior of others doesn’t authorize more bad behavior. Greenpeace should be more careful, but their screw-up doesn’t mean it’s okay for everyone else to do the same. That they’re acting as a watchdog on this issue puts them in a vulnerable position, but whether or not they are unassailably green, everyone still has a responsibility to take care of the planet.
Facebook’s retaliation is a little immature and not very far-sighted. The clear answer is that everyone needs to strive to protect the environment and prevent exacerbation of climate change and depletion of natural resources - not bicker and try to excuse themselves.
See this article at TGDaily for more details on the battle.
Elizabeth English
 Usually data center and IT news coming out of Virginia is pretty positive - construction, jobs, that kind of thing. This past week, though, a major outage in a facility used by the state to house servers for government services has crippled important agencies like the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the situation doesn’t look like it’s improving too quickly.
It’s getting a little grim, in fact, with the governor now requiring that an inquiry be made and an outside agency determine whether the contractor whose facility suffered the outage owes the state for damages. Apparently Northrop Grumman, the agency in question, has gotten a lot of negative attention from its government customers in the years they’ve been working together - the dangers of what according to BusinessWeek is a $2.4 billion contract lasting ten years. Oh, commitment.
The worst of the problems actually caused by the outage seem to be that people can’t get their driver’s licenses renewed or get any tax stuff done. The state is giving anyone in a situation like that leeway due to the exceptional circumstances, and refraining from fining people who are affected, but the length and breadth of the outage is still an issue, especially given the fraught history of the relationship between the Virginia Information Technologies Agency and Northrop Grumman. Hopefully this will inspire a reassessment of their practices.
Elizabeth English
photo by taberandrew under flickr creative commons license
The Register makes a very good (and pretty funny) point about Dell’s recent reinvention.  With all their recent acquisitions here in the general San Francisco Bay Area, Dell is developing a decidedly West Coast flair.
Between buying Scalent, Ocarina Networks, and KACE, all Bay Area/Silicon Valley-based companies, it looks like Dell is definitely making progress towards a new conception of data centers.
One of the most admirable things about Dell right now is devotion to an open system in which all kinds of third-party components can be used with Dell’s systems. They also have a respect for legacy technologies which is looking pretty innovative at this point when most companies are all in favor of expending a lot of capital on brand-new equipment, which they feel will theoretically save in the long run. Terms like "hippies" and "free love" are coming up, and with good reason.
Earlier this week Ben Linder, CEO of Scalent, offered a lot of insight into all this at a San Francisco publicity event, and talked about how Dell is letting Scalent stick to its former principles and respecting its differences in approach to the data center management software which is their focus. Check out the full story at The Register.
This inclusive, flexible approach seems like exactly the right thing to do in some ways, and I look forward to seeing how it all plays out. Abandoning the simplicity of more modular or containerized approaches in favor of the practicality of integration is an interesting rejection of current trends, and in years to come we’ll see how it all goes.
Elizabeth English
photo by Travis_Simon under flickr creative commons license
First of all, its nickname is Merlin. Second, it’s supposed to be the greenest data center extant. These factors place CapGemini’s newest venture high on the list of coolest data centers as well as greenest.
 So, say the industry average PUE is about 2.5 - Merlin’s is just 1.08. The Reuters news article doesn’t go into as much detail as one could wish about how exactly this exemplary PUE is sustained, but it does discuss the cooling technique which is a part of it all, and more information is available at ZDNet.
The data center was built in a recycled facility, a warehouse in Swindon in the Southwest of England, and is very adjustable in size. CapGemini is using a self-contained modular system which is scalable to their changing needs.
Their cooling is quite innovative and uses five stages to cool air in an extremely energy-efficient process. A combination of filters, water, fans, and outside air work together to keep the data center at a reasonable temperature while maintaining high standards of environmental friendliness.
Merlin is the face of the modern data center - in a recycled space, with cutting-edge environmentally-conscious technology, high flexibility, and a cool name. Cementing its position as the greenest data center out there, the UK’s Environment Agency is the first customer Merlin is hosting.
Elizabeth English
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