I find myself back in the beautiful green island in the South West Indian Ocean, Mauritius, to deliver Green IT and EUCoC training to a mixture of private and public delegates, organised by our newest partner Focus Global Ltd, based on the island.
Focus Global Ltd provide high quality training courses on a variety of topics and further information can be found here.
The training covered the syllabus of the BCS Learning and Development curriculum for the Foundation Certificate in Green IT and the Intermediate Certificate - EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency).
All of the delegates responded well to the training and we incorporated a lot of interactive workshops and joint activities, this was very well received and we'll be amending our courses to include more interactive sessions.
I've extended my stay to undertake a client visit to assist in the possible implementation of the first ICEOTOPE installation in the southern hemisphere and to deliver a presentation to the BCS Mauritius branch on the impending energy crisis on the island and how ICT can assist in mitigation and adaptation activities.
We've also been invited to conduct some more training courses at a later date, and also to provide consultancy services on Green IT and energy efficiency in Data Centres/Cooled Server Rooms.
There are also a number of public tenders that we are evaluating for joint ventures.
We seem to be entering a new era of energy efficient computing with many different opportunities presenting themselves, the first series is that the UK have incorporated a Climate Change Agreement for Data Centres, this scheme allows participants to reduce frictional costs such as the Climate Change Levy and CRC taxation in return for quantifiable energy reductions/operational efficiency in data centres based upon an improvement in baseline PUE.
A sector target of 15% reduction in PUE over the first 5 years has been decided upon.
The scheme will be reviewed in 2020, when a further reduction of 15% over the next five years (subject to confirmation) has been mooted.
The scheme ONLY applies to "wholesale" operators, i.e. those organisations that provide co-location or hosting services to other clients, this means that owner/operator or enterprise data centres are not included, at least for the present, but this could mean a shift from on site data centre operations to colo data centres in order to achieve energy efficiency savings and a reduction in costs, but could also accelerate a shift to "cloud" computing.
The second major event is the Energy Saving Opportunities Scheme (ESOS), this is the UK's interpretation of Article 8 of the EU's Energy Efficiency Directive (Oct 13) and requires mandatory energy audits to commence in April 2015 by most large organisations, this will include reviews of ALL activities undertaken by those organisations and will of course include Green IT and Data Centre energy saving opportunities.
Carbon3IT Ltd have a range of services to meet the new legislative regime, please contact us for more information on how we can assist you.
Finally, our partners Datacenter Dynamics are ramping up BCS CEEDA programme activities in the APAC, CIS and Latam regions and as lead assessors/auditors to the programme we will be undertaking a lot of trips to various data centres both in the UK and those regions, we are going to be extremely busy.
We will be looking to recruit additional experienced personnel to enable us to meet these opportunities so please send us your CV's (send to info'carbon3it.com, and put CV in the subject line) or call us for a chat.
Until next time and remember that Carbon3IT Ltd practices #Green IT in action, we practice what we preach.
Sunday, 10 August 2014
Thursday, 17 July 2014
ICEOTOPE Free Trials (UK Only)
Some of you may be aware of the innovative liquid cooled server solution from Sheffield, the ICEOTOPE.
More information on the ICEOTOPE can be found here
We have been aware of this product and its development for the past three years and have recently been given the opportunity to assist them in their future rollout plans.
These include a limited number of free 2 week trials when you can evaluate the product in your own environment and compare it with you current or future technology needs.
We'll even thrown in 2 days of engineering time to assist you and your team work out a full evaluation plan.
There are conditions and these include that you allow us full access to the test data and allow us to publish it.
The trial can be extended at a small cost.
If you'd like to take the opportunity to test and evaluation the "future of the data centre" please get in touch on 01926 843835 or info@carbon3it.com
We are looking forward to your call.
More information on the ICEOTOPE can be found here
We have been aware of this product and its development for the past three years and have recently been given the opportunity to assist them in their future rollout plans.
These include a limited number of free 2 week trials when you can evaluate the product in your own environment and compare it with you current or future technology needs.
We'll even thrown in 2 days of engineering time to assist you and your team work out a full evaluation plan.
There are conditions and these include that you allow us full access to the test data and allow us to publish it.
The trial can be extended at a small cost.
If you'd like to take the opportunity to test and evaluation the "future of the data centre" please get in touch on 01926 843835 or info@carbon3it.com
We are looking forward to your call.
Saturday, 12 July 2014
The Final
two games of the world cup will be (have been) played this weekend, at the time of writing we know not the winner, runner up or 3rd/4th places but it matters not, football will be the winner!
Last weekend was a fantastic weekend of sport in the UK and we saw the Netherlands (our team due to England's lacklustre and woeful campaign) win through against Costa Rica to play Argentina, whom they lost to on Wednesday, Lewis Hamilton win the British Grand Prix from 5th on pole and millions of people watching the Tour de France in Yorkshire.
We went up to Manchester on the Monday for the DCA EE&S group meeting, which was well attended and where lots of topics were dicussed (more info can be found on the DCA website), afterwards the delegates were treated to a wide range of ales and beers in a very nice pub and later to a greek meze meal in Princess Street.
The next day the Data Centre Transformation conference was full of interesting stuff, more details on that event will also be published on the DCA website in the near future.
Next week, we'll be in London for the PEDCA update and awaiting full confirmation of our trip to Mauritius (if enough delegates register for the courses, that is!)
So, enjoy the weekend and we'll be back with another blog entry soon.
Last weekend was a fantastic weekend of sport in the UK and we saw the Netherlands (our team due to England's lacklustre and woeful campaign) win through against Costa Rica to play Argentina, whom they lost to on Wednesday, Lewis Hamilton win the British Grand Prix from 5th on pole and millions of people watching the Tour de France in Yorkshire.
We went up to Manchester on the Monday for the DCA EE&S group meeting, which was well attended and where lots of topics were dicussed (more info can be found on the DCA website), afterwards the delegates were treated to a wide range of ales and beers in a very nice pub and later to a greek meze meal in Princess Street.
The next day the Data Centre Transformation conference was full of interesting stuff, more details on that event will also be published on the DCA website in the near future.
Next week, we'll be in London for the PEDCA update and awaiting full confirmation of our trip to Mauritius (if enough delegates register for the courses, that is!)
So, enjoy the weekend and we'll be back with another blog entry soon.
Saturday, 5 July 2014
CCA for Data Centres - Update
Well, its here, its live and its been passed into law.
If you're a co-location or hoisting data centre operator that can fulfill the requirements then you can obtain a reduction on the CCL and exemption from the CRC carbon tax, this is mooted to be worth £170 Million for the UK sector.
Carbon3IT Ltd were invited by DECC to review the information from techUK and the Data Centre Council and to comment on the text of the legislation, as you can imagine we considered this to be an endorsement of our continuing work to promote energy efficiency within the data centre sector, both in the UK and globally.
I was of the opinion that a CCA for Data Centres would be hard if not impossible to achieve so congratulations to the techUK and in particular Emma Fryer for pulling it off.
Now, the hard work begins, applicants will have to provide a years worth of accurate PUE data, and this means sub metering and verifiable to the Green Grid methodology for PUE which will shortly be a ISO standard (another area where Carbon3IT Ltd through our MD being on the BSI IST/46 committee has had input) as well as various limitations on the size of the data centre, its energy consumption, and that it provides wholesale (co-location/hosting) services (i.e that other companies lease or rent space within the facilities)
Enterprise, or companies that own and operate their own facilities will NOT be able to participate at this time, however we do understand that the scheme may be extended to include enterprise facilities at some point in the future.
We also attended the CCA for Data Centres launch party at CBRE last Tuesday on their wonderful roof terrace overlooking St Pauls Cathedral in London
Carbon3IT Ltd are partnering with a number of companies to provide 3rd party verification and consulting to data centre operators that wish to participate in the scheme and as soon as our negotiations are finalised we will post details of our partner companies and contact details.
In the meantime, should you wish to go directly to us for these services please contact us on our usual contact points.
In other news, our MD was invited to speak at the Green Grid event in Japan next week, but due to prior commitments (the DCA Data Centre Transformation Conference in Manchester) we were unable to attend this year, but the invitation is open and we hope to visit soon.
Our MD will also be hosting the 2nd DCA Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Group meeting in Manchester on Monday 7th July, further details on this event can be found here and will be in attendance at the Data Centre Transformation Conference the next day, more details on this event can be found here.
If you're going to to be at either event, we'll see you there.
Our next blog will report on both meetings, until next time, enjoy the remaining quarter finals of the World Cup, the Tour de France, the Wimbledon Ladies Final, the F1 British Grand Prix or whatever sporting event takes your fancy this weekend.
If you're a co-location or hoisting data centre operator that can fulfill the requirements then you can obtain a reduction on the CCL and exemption from the CRC carbon tax, this is mooted to be worth £170 Million for the UK sector.
Carbon3IT Ltd were invited by DECC to review the information from techUK and the Data Centre Council and to comment on the text of the legislation, as you can imagine we considered this to be an endorsement of our continuing work to promote energy efficiency within the data centre sector, both in the UK and globally.
I was of the opinion that a CCA for Data Centres would be hard if not impossible to achieve so congratulations to the techUK and in particular Emma Fryer for pulling it off.
Now, the hard work begins, applicants will have to provide a years worth of accurate PUE data, and this means sub metering and verifiable to the Green Grid methodology for PUE which will shortly be a ISO standard (another area where Carbon3IT Ltd through our MD being on the BSI IST/46 committee has had input) as well as various limitations on the size of the data centre, its energy consumption, and that it provides wholesale (co-location/hosting) services (i.e that other companies lease or rent space within the facilities)
Enterprise, or companies that own and operate their own facilities will NOT be able to participate at this time, however we do understand that the scheme may be extended to include enterprise facilities at some point in the future.
We also attended the CCA for Data Centres launch party at CBRE last Tuesday on their wonderful roof terrace overlooking St Pauls Cathedral in London
Carbon3IT Ltd are partnering with a number of companies to provide 3rd party verification and consulting to data centre operators that wish to participate in the scheme and as soon as our negotiations are finalised we will post details of our partner companies and contact details.
In the meantime, should you wish to go directly to us for these services please contact us on our usual contact points.
In other news, our MD was invited to speak at the Green Grid event in Japan next week, but due to prior commitments (the DCA Data Centre Transformation Conference in Manchester) we were unable to attend this year, but the invitation is open and we hope to visit soon.
Our MD will also be hosting the 2nd DCA Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Group meeting in Manchester on Monday 7th July, further details on this event can be found here and will be in attendance at the Data Centre Transformation Conference the next day, more details on this event can be found here.
If you're going to to be at either event, we'll see you there.
Our next blog will report on both meetings, until next time, enjoy the remaining quarter finals of the World Cup, the Tour de France, the Wimbledon Ladies Final, the F1 British Grand Prix or whatever sporting event takes your fancy this weekend.
Saturday, 21 June 2014
Train in the Sun!
We've been in discussions for quite a while with our Mauritian partners and have finally drawn up the training schedule. more information can be found here (scroll down to the first news entry (21/6/14)).
I've worked out that you could undertake the training in Mauritius for near what you would have to spend to take the training in the EU/UK, and that includes your flights and accommodation, but not your food or any other treats you may wish to take.
So, if you're thinking of taking the BCS L&D training courses in Green IT which leads to the Foundation Certificate in Green IT or the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres which leads to the Intermediate Certificate - EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency), which I understand will be a mandatory element of the CCA for Data Centres agreement then why not consider taking the courses and enjoying a bit of Sun whilst you're at it.
The training courses cover all you will need to know to take the following exams (exam fees NOT included):
Foundation Certificate in Green IT
Intermediate Certificate - EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency)
Exam vouchers can be procured via the BCS, Chartered Institute for IT directly or through their agents.
Please contact us if you want any further information.
I've worked out that you could undertake the training in Mauritius for near what you would have to spend to take the training in the EU/UK, and that includes your flights and accommodation, but not your food or any other treats you may wish to take.
So, if you're thinking of taking the BCS L&D training courses in Green IT which leads to the Foundation Certificate in Green IT or the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres which leads to the Intermediate Certificate - EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency), which I understand will be a mandatory element of the CCA for Data Centres agreement then why not consider taking the courses and enjoying a bit of Sun whilst you're at it.
The training courses cover all you will need to know to take the following exams (exam fees NOT included):
Foundation Certificate in Green IT
Intermediate Certificate - EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency)
Exam vouchers can be procured via the BCS, Chartered Institute for IT directly or through their agents.
Please contact us if you want any further information.
Tuesday, 17 June 2014
June Update
Well, the sun has come out at last in the UK, although we understand that this is going to be a temporary state, still at least we have the World Cup to watch and comment upon, even if England didn't do well in their opening match losing 2-1 to Italy.
So, further to our last update we had a very interesting June so far, firstly we completed the first BCS CEEDA report for the facility in Austin Texas, and also prepared the second report for a facility in the UK.
More CEEDA assessments are lined up in the coming months, if you'd like your facility to be assessed please contact us on the numbers above or via our social media feeds and we'll put you in touch with the right person.
We spent a couple of days down at the University of East London with the other members of the EU Horizon 2020 consortium preparing the bid document, lots of fun, deep discussions and writing ensued and the bid has now been submitted.
We await the pleasure of the EU commission team and hope to find out whether the project has funding by the end of the year.
We're also in the process of developing another funding proposal for another data centre related project, more details on that one in our next blog or perhaps the one after.
The BICSI conference speech went well and although this was a cabling crowd, there were some interesting questions from the audience regarding energy efficiency in the data centre.
I was sadly unable to take part in the 3rd BCS Green IT webinar due to a very dodgy internet connection, but by all accounts it went very well and actually overran, we hope to hold a special live round table event on Sustainable Supply Chains in the near future. As always we 'll let you know about it via our social media feeds and other relevant websites.
As always, certification in the data centre is a varied thing, but I attended the DCA certifications event last week, the certification itself is a full assessment of tier, security, energy efficiency and operational excellence and further details on the certification can be found on the DCA website here
We're not involved in assessing the data centres at any part of the process.
Progress on the energy efficiency schemes detailed in our last blog post have yet to be officially released although I do have a meeting scheduled with two of the parties involved with the delivery of the schemes and will report on our progress in future blogs.
As to our next trip overseas, discussions are progressing well with some training courses on Mauritius and hopefully we'll be able to update you all in our next blog, which may be composed whilst on the island!
Whats next, well we have a meeting arranged with ICEOTOPE to formalise our relationship this week and a meeting with some new potential partners next week as well as a BSI training course.
The week after is free except for a datacentre.me networking event which is always a good well run event.
The week after is the DCA Data Centre Transformation Convention in Manchester, further details can be found here. We've put our hands in our pockets and scraped together enough cash for the dinner on the 8th, so if you're already going, come and say hello.
As you can all tell, its been busy and its getting busier, but dont let that put you off from engaging with our services, just drop us an email or tweet us and we'll be back to you asap.
Our services include:
EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency) Application Preparation
Pre BCS CEEDA assessments
Green IT Strategy and Action Plans
Data Centre Energy Efficiency Strategy and Action Plans
Green IT and Energy Efficiency in Data Centres training
We look forward to hearing from you.
Until next time......
So, further to our last update we had a very interesting June so far, firstly we completed the first BCS CEEDA report for the facility in Austin Texas, and also prepared the second report for a facility in the UK.
More CEEDA assessments are lined up in the coming months, if you'd like your facility to be assessed please contact us on the numbers above or via our social media feeds and we'll put you in touch with the right person.
We spent a couple of days down at the University of East London with the other members of the EU Horizon 2020 consortium preparing the bid document, lots of fun, deep discussions and writing ensued and the bid has now been submitted.
We await the pleasure of the EU commission team and hope to find out whether the project has funding by the end of the year.
We're also in the process of developing another funding proposal for another data centre related project, more details on that one in our next blog or perhaps the one after.
The BICSI conference speech went well and although this was a cabling crowd, there were some interesting questions from the audience regarding energy efficiency in the data centre.
I was sadly unable to take part in the 3rd BCS Green IT webinar due to a very dodgy internet connection, but by all accounts it went very well and actually overran, we hope to hold a special live round table event on Sustainable Supply Chains in the near future. As always we 'll let you know about it via our social media feeds and other relevant websites.
As always, certification in the data centre is a varied thing, but I attended the DCA certifications event last week, the certification itself is a full assessment of tier, security, energy efficiency and operational excellence and further details on the certification can be found on the DCA website here
We're not involved in assessing the data centres at any part of the process.
Progress on the energy efficiency schemes detailed in our last blog post have yet to be officially released although I do have a meeting scheduled with two of the parties involved with the delivery of the schemes and will report on our progress in future blogs.
As to our next trip overseas, discussions are progressing well with some training courses on Mauritius and hopefully we'll be able to update you all in our next blog, which may be composed whilst on the island!
Whats next, well we have a meeting arranged with ICEOTOPE to formalise our relationship this week and a meeting with some new potential partners next week as well as a BSI training course.
The week after is free except for a datacentre.me networking event which is always a good well run event.
The week after is the DCA Data Centre Transformation Convention in Manchester, further details can be found here. We've put our hands in our pockets and scraped together enough cash for the dinner on the 8th, so if you're already going, come and say hello.
As you can all tell, its been busy and its getting busier, but dont let that put you off from engaging with our services, just drop us an email or tweet us and we'll be back to you asap.
Our services include:
EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency) Application Preparation
Pre BCS CEEDA assessments
Green IT Strategy and Action Plans
Data Centre Energy Efficiency Strategy and Action Plans
Green IT and Energy Efficiency in Data Centres training
We look forward to hearing from you.
Until next time......
Thursday, 22 May 2014
A long overdue update
Its been busy busy busy over the last few weeks and we've only just calmed down, so its time to update you all.
Firstly, we've completed two BCS CEEDA assessments, one in the US, actually Austin in Texas, where one of our existing clients has built a state of the art energy efficient data centre in a colocation facility.
The build has really opened the eyes of the landlord and we hope that some of the technology will be cascaded down into their own new facilities.
I was very impressed with the overall baseline energy efficiency and the willingness of our client to really push the boat out.
For the techies out there, the facility has a PUE of 1.2 which compared to the normal PUE of 2+ for colocation facilities in the US is very very good.
The other CEEDA assessment was in the UK.
Its getting very busy in this area as we have some new and re-assessments lined up in this part of our business and we'll let you know all about them once they've been completed.
We've also been invited to participate in an Horizon2020 EU Funding call, cant say much about it at the present as its still in preparation but once the proposal has been submitted we'll let you know.
We've also been invited to speak at the BICSI UK conference on the 3rd June in Birmingham UK, more details here, the topic will be the impending regulatory landscape for data centres in the UK and EU.
We've been given the morning opening slot to wake everybody up!
The next day will be the 3rd BCS Green IT 2014 webinar on "Sustainable Supply Chains" hosted on the brighttalk platform more details and registration here
Our MD also contributed to another webinar on certification in the data centre more details here
This is a very important and underrated area that data centre operators of all shapes and sizes will need to be aware of, so if you have any questions or would like some further assistance in this area please contact us on our normal numbers or social media channels.
We've been invited to celebrate the launch of the 2nd Green Mountain Data Centre in Norway on the 5th, this is a private event but if you're a follower of Carbon3IT Ltd and have also been invited we'll see you there!
We were invited to the DCS Awards last week by one of our potential partners so thank you for that!
On matters relating to overseas, we have just put forward a proposal to conduct some more Green IT and Energy Efficient data centres training to our friends on Mauritius and that is scheduled to take place sometime in June or July (no details yet) but as soon as we do have them we'll let all our Mauritian friends know.
All in all, things are looking good for us as a business on account of a few interesting regulatory schemes that are impending, the first is the Climate Change Agreement for Data Centres, which is imminent.
The second is the Energy Saving Opportunities Scheme (ESOS) which is in effect the requirement of organisations over a certain size to perform MANDATORY energy audits from April 2015 and then every 4 years (more details to be released by DECC on the 3rd June)
The third, and probably the most important from a data centre perspective is the will of DG Connect (the arm of the European Commission responsible for the digital agenda across the EU) to impose some sort of energy efficiency legislation onto the sector. We'll be keeping abreast of this situation through our connections and as always keep you up to date.
Until next time, enjoy the summer and Football World Cup (good luck to England!)
Firstly, we've completed two BCS CEEDA assessments, one in the US, actually Austin in Texas, where one of our existing clients has built a state of the art energy efficient data centre in a colocation facility.
The build has really opened the eyes of the landlord and we hope that some of the technology will be cascaded down into their own new facilities.
I was very impressed with the overall baseline energy efficiency and the willingness of our client to really push the boat out.
For the techies out there, the facility has a PUE of 1.2 which compared to the normal PUE of 2+ for colocation facilities in the US is very very good.
The other CEEDA assessment was in the UK.
Its getting very busy in this area as we have some new and re-assessments lined up in this part of our business and we'll let you know all about them once they've been completed.
We've also been invited to participate in an Horizon2020 EU Funding call, cant say much about it at the present as its still in preparation but once the proposal has been submitted we'll let you know.
We've also been invited to speak at the BICSI UK conference on the 3rd June in Birmingham UK, more details here, the topic will be the impending regulatory landscape for data centres in the UK and EU.
We've been given the morning opening slot to wake everybody up!
The next day will be the 3rd BCS Green IT 2014 webinar on "Sustainable Supply Chains" hosted on the brighttalk platform more details and registration here
Our MD also contributed to another webinar on certification in the data centre more details here
This is a very important and underrated area that data centre operators of all shapes and sizes will need to be aware of, so if you have any questions or would like some further assistance in this area please contact us on our normal numbers or social media channels.
We've been invited to celebrate the launch of the 2nd Green Mountain Data Centre in Norway on the 5th, this is a private event but if you're a follower of Carbon3IT Ltd and have also been invited we'll see you there!
We were invited to the DCS Awards last week by one of our potential partners so thank you for that!
On matters relating to overseas, we have just put forward a proposal to conduct some more Green IT and Energy Efficient data centres training to our friends on Mauritius and that is scheduled to take place sometime in June or July (no details yet) but as soon as we do have them we'll let all our Mauritian friends know.
All in all, things are looking good for us as a business on account of a few interesting regulatory schemes that are impending, the first is the Climate Change Agreement for Data Centres, which is imminent.
The second is the Energy Saving Opportunities Scheme (ESOS) which is in effect the requirement of organisations over a certain size to perform MANDATORY energy audits from April 2015 and then every 4 years (more details to be released by DECC on the 3rd June)
The third, and probably the most important from a data centre perspective is the will of DG Connect (the arm of the European Commission responsible for the digital agenda across the EU) to impose some sort of energy efficiency legislation onto the sector. We'll be keeping abreast of this situation through our connections and as always keep you up to date.
Until next time, enjoy the summer and Football World Cup (good luck to England!)
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