This week has been very busy indeed, first of all we had a few catch ups with one of our partners over a huge project they are involved in, cant say too much as its still in the tender stage but it is data centre related and could yield a lot of work for us in 2014 (we'll keep you informed)
Gary Thornton of the BCS DCSG instigated a thread on the linked in website regarding the CCA and we've made a few comments about this.
We may have some news on this soon as we understand that some behind the scenes work is being conducted by various Government departments to progress the implementation of the CCA moving forward.
We've been finalising some CEEDA assessments (3) and all of them have been delivered to the delivery partner for publishing to the clients.
One piece of very exciting news is that John is the prospective chair of the Data Centre Alliance's energy efficiency committee, this of course, builds on our work to be the first point of call for all things related to data centre energy efficiency.
More information on the work of the DCA can be found here.
We will find out on the 20th Jan if John has been selected as chair.
We'd also like to draw our readers attention to the EU's Eco Design directive for servers here, this is an very important piece of prospective legislation that we, in the data centre industry need to be aware of as it will impact on the design and operation of energy efficient data centres in the coming years (we understand that its about 4-5 years off!)
There have been many industry comments regarding the 1 side of the PUE calculation, that is of course the IT side of things, where M&E engineers have been bemoaning that whilst they have done all they can to reduce the cooling side of the equation, IT does not seem to have made any great progress, this really is a fallacy though, as IT has improved its energy efficiency by the use of virtualisation and the inherent Moores law of a doubling of compute power every 18 months (meaning more compute per watt).
It is perhaps in the software side of things, i.e. actually code that uses processing power more efficiently and minimising idle and standby energy that is the real key here.
However, the eco design directive is a very good start as it will ban the import of servers that do not meet a required energy efficiency standard.
As I said above this will not happen overnight so you will not see your favourite brands suddenly disappearing from sale, but you may see a slimming down of server ranges and perhaps (and we are seeing this more and more) tech companies moving into the Cloud in a big way and only offering their systems in a cloud format on a leasing basis.
This is obviously going to have a big impact on the way uses IT, perhaps it may be time for pure techies used to working on in house it systems to retrain in other fields as the days of the IT department in today's sense may be disappearing for good.
Enough doom mongering for now and lets think about sunnier climes and a more relaxed way of life and move onto to Mauritius, well we're probably going back out in April/May to lead some Green IT and EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres training courses and to attend the IST in Africa event, where we hope to present a paper (this weekends task) and maybe to establish our permanent presence on the island.
We're also planning to hold our first TIF event in Coventry soon and details on this can be found on the events tab of our website here
Have a great weekend and we'll see you again soon, until next time....
Saturday, 11 January 2014
Monday, 6 January 2014
Our Data Centre Assessment/Auditing Services...
are as follows:
First off, we review on behalf of the EU-JRC applications for the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency), this is done anonymously as we do not see the participants name, merely the application spreadsheet and the country of location.
We have also been involved (amongst others) in the development of the 5 BCS CEEDA products, which are ENTERPRISE (for Owner Operators), Design, Build, Commission & Operate (DBCO) for all types of Data Centres, CEEDA Ready (for Designers), CoLo and Tenant (for CoLo and Tenants).
We also assess and in some cases audit our peers in all types of CEEDA assessments,
We are also BSI ISO50001 Lead Auditor's and ONLY conduct Data Centre audits and assessments under this service offering.
Our commercial offerings are therefore as follows:
We can assist in the production of your EUCOC application and indeed have helped 2 global telecommunications companies in the recent past, one with 1 application and one with 7 and potentially another 40 odd in the EU/EMEA region.
We can also help you with an potential assessment for the BCS CEEDA award programme, this is essentially a gap analysis and assistance to assess your current level and design programme to get you to the next or highest level as appropriate.
Our ISO50001 offering is gap analysis and assistance in the preparation of your Energy Management System documentation as required.
If you are interested in any of the above service please drop us a line on info@carbon3it.com with DC Assessment in the subject line or call us on 01926 843835.
We look forward to your call.
First off, we review on behalf of the EU-JRC applications for the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres (Energy Efficiency), this is done anonymously as we do not see the participants name, merely the application spreadsheet and the country of location.
We have also been involved (amongst others) in the development of the 5 BCS CEEDA products, which are ENTERPRISE (for Owner Operators), Design, Build, Commission & Operate (DBCO) for all types of Data Centres, CEEDA Ready (for Designers), CoLo and Tenant (for CoLo and Tenants).
We also assess and in some cases audit our peers in all types of CEEDA assessments,
We are also BSI ISO50001 Lead Auditor's and ONLY conduct Data Centre audits and assessments under this service offering.
Our commercial offerings are therefore as follows:
We can assist in the production of your EUCOC application and indeed have helped 2 global telecommunications companies in the recent past, one with 1 application and one with 7 and potentially another 40 odd in the EU/EMEA region.
We can also help you with an potential assessment for the BCS CEEDA award programme, this is essentially a gap analysis and assistance to assess your current level and design programme to get you to the next or highest level as appropriate.
Our ISO50001 offering is gap analysis and assistance in the preparation of your Energy Management System documentation as required.
If you are interested in any of the above service please drop us a line on info@carbon3it.com with DC Assessment in the subject line or call us on 01926 843835.
We look forward to your call.
Tuesday, 10 December 2013
Climate Change Agreement - Data Centres
It was hidden in the recent Autumn statement from the UK chancellor but it seems that a CCA is a done deal!
We've known about the possibility for a Climate Change Agreement for Data Centres for quite a while now, as we've been party to a number of events and updates from techUK (Formally Intellect).
My view was that it was going to be a very hard sell if not impossible to get the Treasury to sign up to, as unlike other industry CCA's and there are a 54 of them, a data centre cannot be "assessed" on the required production metric, therefore it is very difficult to quantify actual savings especially if the data centre is growing (as many of them are, due partly to Cloud services) but fair play to techUK and in particular Emma Fryer who it seems has managed to get Treasury on board and the agreement is scheduled to be in place prior to the end of the year.
I was reminded of my "impossible" statement by some illustrious members of the industry at the EUCOC update meeting yesterday and was advised that I would have been up for some good natured ribbing if I had gone public, which I hadn't until now.
More info on CCA's can be found here and here
One of the reasons I had said that it may prove impossible was that a) Treasury would not really understand what data centres are all about, and that b) the reporting system for data centres signed up to the scheme would prove to be unpalatable in terms on the information required and how to actually achieve the required sector target savings.
Well the first hurdle has been overcome, and that is the Treasury, but perhaps the most important and hardest hurdles are yet to be seen let alone overcome.
I've no doubt that there will be some horsetrading over the exact requirements of the scheme and who and who cant sign up (we understand that it is just wholesale i.e. Colo and Hosting Sites that will be included for the time being) but I cant help thinking that whatever is required there will be a sting in the tail that is quite unintended.
We'll keep you all up to date on anything we hear via our social media and website
We've known about the possibility for a Climate Change Agreement for Data Centres for quite a while now, as we've been party to a number of events and updates from techUK (Formally Intellect).
My view was that it was going to be a very hard sell if not impossible to get the Treasury to sign up to, as unlike other industry CCA's and there are a 54 of them, a data centre cannot be "assessed" on the required production metric, therefore it is very difficult to quantify actual savings especially if the data centre is growing (as many of them are, due partly to Cloud services) but fair play to techUK and in particular Emma Fryer who it seems has managed to get Treasury on board and the agreement is scheduled to be in place prior to the end of the year.
I was reminded of my "impossible" statement by some illustrious members of the industry at the EUCOC update meeting yesterday and was advised that I would have been up for some good natured ribbing if I had gone public, which I hadn't until now.
More info on CCA's can be found here and here
One of the reasons I had said that it may prove impossible was that a) Treasury would not really understand what data centres are all about, and that b) the reporting system for data centres signed up to the scheme would prove to be unpalatable in terms on the information required and how to actually achieve the required sector target savings.
Well the first hurdle has been overcome, and that is the Treasury, but perhaps the most important and hardest hurdles are yet to be seen let alone overcome.
I've no doubt that there will be some horsetrading over the exact requirements of the scheme and who and who cant sign up (we understand that it is just wholesale i.e. Colo and Hosting Sites that will be included for the time being) but I cant help thinking that whatever is required there will be a sting in the tail that is quite unintended.
We'll keep you all up to date on anything we hear via our social media and website
EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres Update 9th December
I was going to put this update in with a blog about the Climate Change Agreement mooted for the UK data centre industry but I have decided that the CCA deserves a blog posting all my itself, so we'll be concentrating on the EUCOC.
The EUCOC is a dynamic code, it moves with the industry, it includes the industry in its thinking and for that reason it is a very valuable tool. When I teach the BCS Intermediate Certificate in the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres I stress that participants and endorsers get the opportunity once a year to discuss what should come out, what should go in and how we move forward with it, I also underline that it is a vendor independent code, written by the industry for the industry.
The code is truly independent, the best practices are there for anyone to use, without a licence fee.
If you want to be become a participant to the EUCOC and use the badge, then you will have to sign up, fill out the spread-sheet and submit information for review by an external assessor, none of your information is ever referable back to you and if published the information is anonyomised (sp?)
So, this year the meeting was in Brussels, attended by approximately 30 people a mixture of endorsers, participants and staff to discuss section 10 and 11 which are respectively the best practices that are likely to be included in the next iteration of the code and those that are on our watchlist, pending inclusion should they become viable such as software efficiency metrics or AC/DC converters etc.
We have made some changes and we hope to get the next revision out for use in March 2014, as the code is dynamic a lot of changes need to be made to the back end as it were to keep everything tidy and this is why is can take some time to get the information out.
If you have any further queries on the code or indeed how you can sign up please visit the code website here
You can find a list of the code documents, participants and endorsers but if you need any further help, please drop us a line at info@carbon3it.com with EUCOC in the subject line and we'll get back to you within 24 hours.
Next blog will be about the UK Climate Change Agreement for Data Centres mentioned in the Autumn Statement on the 5th December 2013
The EUCOC is a dynamic code, it moves with the industry, it includes the industry in its thinking and for that reason it is a very valuable tool. When I teach the BCS Intermediate Certificate in the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres I stress that participants and endorsers get the opportunity once a year to discuss what should come out, what should go in and how we move forward with it, I also underline that it is a vendor independent code, written by the industry for the industry.
The code is truly independent, the best practices are there for anyone to use, without a licence fee.
If you want to be become a participant to the EUCOC and use the badge, then you will have to sign up, fill out the spread-sheet and submit information for review by an external assessor, none of your information is ever referable back to you and if published the information is anonyomised (sp?)
So, this year the meeting was in Brussels, attended by approximately 30 people a mixture of endorsers, participants and staff to discuss section 10 and 11 which are respectively the best practices that are likely to be included in the next iteration of the code and those that are on our watchlist, pending inclusion should they become viable such as software efficiency metrics or AC/DC converters etc.
We have made some changes and we hope to get the next revision out for use in March 2014, as the code is dynamic a lot of changes need to be made to the back end as it were to keep everything tidy and this is why is can take some time to get the information out.
If you have any further queries on the code or indeed how you can sign up please visit the code website here
You can find a list of the code documents, participants and endorsers but if you need any further help, please drop us a line at info@carbon3it.com with EUCOC in the subject line and we'll get back to you within 24 hours.
Next blog will be about the UK Climate Change Agreement for Data Centres mentioned in the Autumn Statement on the 5th December 2013
Mauritius 2 - The Return - Rain
Now I've seen rain and I've seen rain, but I've never seen so much rain that the drains decide not to work.
Mauritius is quite a rainy place actually, and it all tends to come in a few days so the effects can be quite severe. Earlier this year 11 people lost their lives in a flash flood caused by debris left during the construction of the new ring road holding back storm water until it burst and ran down the mountain.
The British built some hefty drainage systems in the 19th Century but as the population has grown and more space used for housing this has proved to be inadequate for today's urban landscape.
Normally, a thin trickle of water can be seen in the canals (that's what the storm water drains are called) making its way towards the sea, but just a few minutes after it rains, the canals can become raging torrents of rusty brown water enough to sweep anything and anyone down towards the sea.
And its not as if they are not deep enough, they must be at least 2m deep and 5-6 meters wide, so that's a lot of water.
Many people I spoke to very scathing about the lack of water management on the island and said that the Government should do more to capture the water and use it, that is not a debate I want to get into but there are options to use this precious resource.
Next update, probably later today will be the EUCOC update meeting held in Brussels on the 9th December and some of the actions arising from it.
We'll also be making a statement about the mooted CCA for the UK data centre industry and what this could mean moving forward.
Mauritius is quite a rainy place actually, and it all tends to come in a few days so the effects can be quite severe. Earlier this year 11 people lost their lives in a flash flood caused by debris left during the construction of the new ring road holding back storm water until it burst and ran down the mountain.
The British built some hefty drainage systems in the 19th Century but as the population has grown and more space used for housing this has proved to be inadequate for today's urban landscape.
Normally, a thin trickle of water can be seen in the canals (that's what the storm water drains are called) making its way towards the sea, but just a few minutes after it rains, the canals can become raging torrents of rusty brown water enough to sweep anything and anyone down towards the sea.
And its not as if they are not deep enough, they must be at least 2m deep and 5-6 meters wide, so that's a lot of water.
Many people I spoke to very scathing about the lack of water management on the island and said that the Government should do more to capture the water and use it, that is not a debate I want to get into but there are options to use this precious resource.
Next update, probably later today will be the EUCOC update meeting held in Brussels on the 9th December and some of the actions arising from it.
We'll also be making a statement about the mooted CCA for the UK data centre industry and what this could mean moving forward.
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
Mauritius 2 The Return - Infotech Launch Party and the Show itself
The Launch Party
Right, cufflinks purchased and many mosquito bites later I was picked up at Mon Choix by Riad and off we went to attend the INFOTECH Launch party in the presence of the Minister of ICT, the Chair of the NCB and the Executive Director, plus around 300 various company directors, staff and other notables including my good self.
I won't bore you with the details of each speech, but each of the 3 began with the usual introductions and pleasantries that went on for about 5 minutes finally culminating with "Ladies and Gentlemen" and then to the main thrust of the speech.
I was very pleasantly surprised that Green IT was given a high priority with mention of myself and the companies we were representing and even more surprised and taken aback that the media wanted to interview me for both print and TV (I'm a bit of a celebrity on Mauritian TV don't you know ;o)
After the hour long opening ceremony, we were shown two short videos detailing the rise of ICT as a mainstay of the economy and in such a short time, and a history of the event itself, it was the 20th Edition!
Then, it was time for the Minister to visit each stand, after about 25 mins he came around to our stand and I gave him a briefing on ICEOTOPE, the liquid cooled server solution, re-iterated that the technology was well suited to hot and humid environments and that we would probably....oh sorry cant tell you the rest, its classified!
Anyway, now that the minister has visited the stand we were able to go and enjoy a few drinks and nibbles.
The Show
The show included a number of shops with show discounts, the NCB with their huge stand, advising about things such as the Green IT strategy, the jobs fair, a number of companies looking for staff for BPO and call centre operations, and of course ourselves.
We had a lot of visitors over the duration of the show, the biggest draw was the liquid cooled server solution as of course this will lead to lower capex costs in construction of the data centre and because there is no mechanical cooling, lower opex cost because you dont have to pay for the energy used by the mechanical cooling solution, win win.
The show became extremely busy over the weekend, when more people come with their families, this is when we had our most visitors as some of the main IT people on the island cant make it during the week due to work commitments, but can at the weekend.
Overall we had about 30 direct inquires regarding ICEOTOPE and we have now followed up with the majority of them (if you attended the event. but have not had an email from us with the ICEOTOPE information, please drop me a line and I'll get it to you within 24 hours (we're like that you see, we like to communicate!))
Our plans
If some of our plans come to fruition, i.e. regarding our island base, we'll be back in March or April, and we'll definitely be back in May as we have another event to attend. We obviously cant reveal our plans as yet, but as always you'll hear about them here and our social media feeds first.
Next time we'll be talking about the rains and the floods in the Vallee Des Pretes last week.
Right, cufflinks purchased and many mosquito bites later I was picked up at Mon Choix by Riad and off we went to attend the INFOTECH Launch party in the presence of the Minister of ICT, the Chair of the NCB and the Executive Director, plus around 300 various company directors, staff and other notables including my good self.
I won't bore you with the details of each speech, but each of the 3 began with the usual introductions and pleasantries that went on for about 5 minutes finally culminating with "Ladies and Gentlemen" and then to the main thrust of the speech.
I was very pleasantly surprised that Green IT was given a high priority with mention of myself and the companies we were representing and even more surprised and taken aback that the media wanted to interview me for both print and TV (I'm a bit of a celebrity on Mauritian TV don't you know ;o)
After the hour long opening ceremony, we were shown two short videos detailing the rise of ICT as a mainstay of the economy and in such a short time, and a history of the event itself, it was the 20th Edition!
Then, it was time for the Minister to visit each stand, after about 25 mins he came around to our stand and I gave him a briefing on ICEOTOPE, the liquid cooled server solution, re-iterated that the technology was well suited to hot and humid environments and that we would probably....oh sorry cant tell you the rest, its classified!
Anyway, now that the minister has visited the stand we were able to go and enjoy a few drinks and nibbles.
The Show
The show included a number of shops with show discounts, the NCB with their huge stand, advising about things such as the Green IT strategy, the jobs fair, a number of companies looking for staff for BPO and call centre operations, and of course ourselves.
We had a lot of visitors over the duration of the show, the biggest draw was the liquid cooled server solution as of course this will lead to lower capex costs in construction of the data centre and because there is no mechanical cooling, lower opex cost because you dont have to pay for the energy used by the mechanical cooling solution, win win.
The show became extremely busy over the weekend, when more people come with their families, this is when we had our most visitors as some of the main IT people on the island cant make it during the week due to work commitments, but can at the weekend.
Overall we had about 30 direct inquires regarding ICEOTOPE and we have now followed up with the majority of them (if you attended the event. but have not had an email from us with the ICEOTOPE information, please drop me a line and I'll get it to you within 24 hours (we're like that you see, we like to communicate!))
Our plans
If some of our plans come to fruition, i.e. regarding our island base, we'll be back in March or April, and we'll definitely be back in May as we have another event to attend. We obviously cant reveal our plans as yet, but as always you'll hear about them here and our social media feeds first.
Next time we'll be talking about the rains and the floods in the Vallee Des Pretes last week.
Saturday, 30 November 2013
Mauritius 2 - The Return - Cufflinks
So, the cufflinks, well there is a vast mall on Mauritius located just up the hill from Paillies and about 3 miles from Port Louis on the way to the highlands, here there are European restaurants, such as KFC, Burger King etc and the usual array of shops for tourists. To be fair it is a lovely venue, but I would prefer to barter with the locals down in the central market or chow down on birani or other local delicacies for a quarter of the cost.
I needed a new pair of cufflinks as mysteriously mine had disappeared, well actually probably more mislaid.
So I went in armed with my limited French and asked, no gestured, that I needed cufflinks, scrub that, I asked if she could speak English, she could and she directed me to their "sister shop" over the way.
I like cufflinks, I prefer them over buttons as they seem to be a little looser around the hands, but I like a certain classic style, rather than modern designs, and unfortunately what were presented to me were all of a modern design and manufactured of steel with goldy bits and more importantly priced at R2500+, £50 upwards. I don't like to spend too much money on small items so I passed saying "I'll have a look around the mall to see if there is anything I like, if not I'll be back".
Just across the way there was a shirt shop, knowing that in the UK shirt shops usually have cufflinks, off I went, and there was the most red stripy set of cufflinks now I like Red, and these were perfect and would certainly go with the one tie I had brought with me, price? R750 or £15, thank you very much sir I'll be having them.
Back into my black cab for the trip back to the Vallee Des Pretres for a sleep and wash up later for the Launch Party at the SVICC.
The cab journey was fairly uneventful, until later I realised that I'd been bitten by one gang of hungry mossies, 30 bites in total , much pain and scratching later.
Anyway, quite tired today as I have been out to Tricolet in the north to see a set of apartments my fried Riad and his family have constructed for the tourist trade (more on that later) so the next installment will be about the Launch Party and first day of the INFOTECH 2013 event.
Ciao
I needed a new pair of cufflinks as mysteriously mine had disappeared, well actually probably more mislaid.
So I went in armed with my limited French and asked, no gestured, that I needed cufflinks, scrub that, I asked if she could speak English, she could and she directed me to their "sister shop" over the way.
I like cufflinks, I prefer them over buttons as they seem to be a little looser around the hands, but I like a certain classic style, rather than modern designs, and unfortunately what were presented to me were all of a modern design and manufactured of steel with goldy bits and more importantly priced at R2500+, £50 upwards. I don't like to spend too much money on small items so I passed saying "I'll have a look around the mall to see if there is anything I like, if not I'll be back".
Just across the way there was a shirt shop, knowing that in the UK shirt shops usually have cufflinks, off I went, and there was the most red stripy set of cufflinks now I like Red, and these were perfect and would certainly go with the one tie I had brought with me, price? R750 or £15, thank you very much sir I'll be having them.
Back into my black cab for the trip back to the Vallee Des Pretres for a sleep and wash up later for the Launch Party at the SVICC.
The cab journey was fairly uneventful, until later I realised that I'd been bitten by one gang of hungry mossies, 30 bites in total , much pain and scratching later.
Anyway, quite tired today as I have been out to Tricolet in the north to see a set of apartments my fried Riad and his family have constructed for the tourist trade (more on that later) so the next installment will be about the Launch Party and first day of the INFOTECH 2013 event.
Ciao
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