April 8, 2009 -- The Uptime Institute has announced the addition of several new program features to its fourth annual Research Symposium 2009: LEAN, CLEAN & GREEN, a global IT knowledge-sharing event on the topic of energy-efficient computing and data centers.
The first is a keynote address on Tuesday, April 14, at 12 p.m. EDT by Google's thermal architect Chris Malone. Malone will share with Symposium attendees the strategies and tactics that led to Google's recently released, groundbreaking performance results of data center energy efficiency for six major Google-designed data centers, which have reached a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.2, among the best in the industry.
"Google is using industry-proven concepts in radically different ways, which has led to millions of dollars in savings for the company," said Kenneth G. Brill, executive director of the Uptime Institute, a Santa Fe, N.M.-based research think tank and advisory to owners and operators of the world's largest enterprise data centers on the technical and business issues of computing reliability, sustainability and energy efficiency.
"By making appropriate business tradeoffs that optimize reliability, performance, and capital and operational expenditures, the Institute estimates that Google has saved at least $500 million in capital expenditures alone. The point here is that any company with a similar business case, application portfolio and appetite for risk can accomplish equally striking results."
In addition to the new Google keynote, two interactive panels will feature high-profile corporate, government and NGO speakers from around the globe who will discuss their personal challenges and successes associated with data center energy consumption management.
On Tuesday, April 14, at 5:30 p.m. EDT, the "Energy Czar Roundtable" will feature:
-- Sun Microsystems, Subodh Bapat, vice president and distinguished engineer;
-- IBM, Rich Lechner, vice president, energy and environment;
-- Reed Elsevier Inc., Stephanie Singer, vice president of global data center facilities & legal hosting;
-- Mass Mutual Financial Group, Sean Anderson, assistant vice president and director of corporate green initiatives.
The panel is based on a report by McKinsey & Co. and the Institute, "Revolutionizing Data Center Energy Efficiency—Key Analyses," released at the Institute's 2008 symposium. The report outlines areas of greatest inefficiencies in data center management and makes six major corporate IT structural and governance recommendations, including appointing an internal "Energy Czar" and moving financial accountability for global data center assets from corporate real estate to the CIO.
The panelists, all of whom embody the traits of the Energy Czar position, as envisioned in the McKinsey report, will discuss their roles and address the financial impact of having a specific management position dedicated to managing data center energy consumption.
Additionally, on Wednesday, April 15, at 8:30 a.m. EDT, Pierre Bull, policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, will moderate a videoconference, hosted by Cisco TelePresence. The videoconference will bring together government, NGO and private-sector thought leaders from North America, EMEA and Asia-Pacific for a virtual roundtable exchange of strategies that enable the uptime industry to increase profitability, prevent energy shortages, and reduce the global IT carbon footprint.
Some of the organizations participating in the roundtable include:
-- U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
-- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ENERGY STAR
- Cisco Systems, Inc.
- European Commission, Joint Research Committee, Italy
-- Bureau of Energy Efficiency, Government of India
-- Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore
-- MTN, South Africa
The videoconference is open to the general public and will be Webcast at www.uptimeinstitute.org
Symposium participants comprise 13 countries and include IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems, McKinsey & Co., AMD, Forbes, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Dell, PG&E and many others. For a detailed Symposium agenda, click here. To register for the Symposium, click here.