IBM and the Environment

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[[Category:Copied 2007 week 29]]  
[[Category:Copied 2007 week 29]]  
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=Coverage in the Press=
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[[Category:Not yet summarised by MI]]
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=MI Summary=
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====Full article: [[IBM and the Environment]]====
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=Coverage in the Press=
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* [[IBM Offers Green Certificates to Data Centre Power Misers (1-Nov-07)]]
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* [[IBM Transforms Wasted Chips into Solar Cells (30-Oct-07)]]
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* [[IBM Puts its Talents to Green Use (29-Oct-07)]]
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* [[Internet Credited for Cleaner Environment (26-Oct-07)]]
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* [[IBM Touts Mainframe Power "Gas Gauge" For Greener Data Centres (16-Oct-07)]]
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* [[IBM Plotting Green Sigma Service]]
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* [[How Big Blue Went Green]]
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* [[Smartbunker Selects IBM Blades For UK's First Renewable Energy Data Centre]]
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* [[IBM Wins CNET's Green IT Initiative of the Year Award]]
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* [[IT Goes Green to keep Companies Growing (6-Sep-07)]]
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* [[IBM's Big Green looks to solar (1-Sept-07)]]
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* [[Environmentalism, Phase II (23-Aug-07)]]
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* [[Congestion management and IBM (23-Aug-07)]]
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* [[IBM moves into carbon consulting (23-Aug-07)]]
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* [[Is IBM Reinventing itself as a green giant? (28-Aug-07)]]
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* [[Performance Per Watt on Power6: Same Thermals, More Work (22-Aug-07)]]
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* [[Could IBM Be the World's First Green Business Behemoth? (22-Aug-07)]]
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* [[Ecologists and IBM join hands to monitor river (16-Aug-07)]]
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* [[IBM's Project Big Green Spurs Global Shift (9-Aug-07)]]
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* [[IBM Linux Initiative Greens Data Centers (9-Aug-07)]]
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* [[IBM unveils green Linux push (8-Aug-07)]]
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* [[IBM aims to become Big Green, says Butler Group (7-Aug-07)]]
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* [[IBM sees green in environmental tech (6-Aug-07)]]
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* [[IBM: Dinosaurs were green (1-Aug-07)]]
* [[System i and the green skeptic (16-Jul-07)]]
* [[System i and the green skeptic (16-Jul-07)]]
* [[IBM touts greener and safer tape storage (11-Jul-07)]]
* [[IBM touts greener and safer tape storage (11-Jul-07)]]
=Text of IBM Articles on IBM and its close partners=
=Text of IBM Articles on IBM and its close partners=
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==Turning your Servers green==
 
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IBM, HP, Sun and AMD have united to launch the Green Grid (www.thegreengrid.org), a non-profit global consortium which aims to cut energy consumption at computer data centres by encouraging and improving power-saving measures. The alliance says that energy efficiency in data centres is the single biggest issue facing technology providers and their customers today. As a result, it has released three White Papers that directly focusing on cutting energy use. These include:
 
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* The Green Grid Opportunity,
 
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* Guidelines for Energy Efficient Data Centers, and
 
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* The Green Grid Metrics: Describing Data Center Power Efficiency.
 
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For details of IBM and the Green Grid, read Green IT: the next burning issue for business at ibm.com/businesscenter/uk/thinktank
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* [[Servers move from a guzzle to a sip, on w3 (1-Aug-07)]]
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*Source: [http://www-304.ibm.com/jct03004c/tools/cpeportal/fileserve/download0/90622/Thinktank_newsletter.pdf?contentid=90622 ThinkTank issue 1]
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* [[Lisa Lindblom on 2007 Market Outlook – 2Q07]]
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* [[Andy McFarlane on Climate Change (25-Jul-07)]]
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==Lenovo tops eco friendly league==
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* [[Larry Hirst on areas of interest for IBM UK: Energy and Climate (23-Jul-07)]]
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* [[Hursley leads the way in efforts to go green (4-Jul-07)]]
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Chinese PC maker Lenovo is the greenest electronics manufacturer, Apple is the least eco-friendly, according to a recycling and toxic content ranking by Greenpeace. Lenovo displaces Nokia
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* [[Welcome to Green Driving]]
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from the top spot it has enjoyed since the rankings began. It scores top marks on its e-waste policies and practice; the company offers takeback and recycling in all the countries where its products are sold. Lenovo also reports the amount of e-waste it recycles as a percentage of its sales.
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* [[Turning your Servers green]]
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* [[Lenovo tops eco-friendly league]]
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The full report is at www.greenpeace.org/electronics. It ranks PC manufacturers on their policies and practices on eliminating harmful chemicals.
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* [[Green champion Ecotricity moves ahead with IBM]]
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*Source: [http://www-304.ibm.com/jct03004c/tools/cpeportal/fileserve/download0/90622/Thinktank_newsletter.pdf?contentid=90622 ThinkTank issue 1]
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==Green champion Ecotricity moves ahead with IBM==
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===About Ecotricity===
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Ecotricity has been building wind turbines and selling electricity across the UK since 1996. It supplies large organisations such as The Body Shop and the Co-op Bank and is recommended by both the Soil Association and the World Wildlife Fund.
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It is the '''only green electricity company''' that builds its '''own renewable energy sources''' and is dedicated to changing the way electricity is made and sold.
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It builds and operates wind turbines on partner sites through its Merchant Wind Power programme. Partners buy their electricity from the turbine and receive a dedicated supply of green power at reduced rates.
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===Ecotricity and IBM===
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IBM’s green credentials and drive to focus on mid-market have opened the door to a $3.72 million deal with Ecotricity - the utility company that sells green electricity across the UK - and will enable the company to take the brakes off its business.
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Ecotricity, which is investing £25 million in wind energy this year, can now move forward with its ambitious plans to change the way homes and businesses buy and consume power.
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===Customer growth===
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Ecotricity has seen its customer numbers double each year for the past three, but the increasing pressure on its back-office systems meant it had to put its marketing activities on hold.
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The company’s founder, Dale Vince, had been searching for a customer relationship management (CRM) and billing solution to support his plans for customer growth, when an email from Client Manager David Benton popped into his inbasket.
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Impressed with IBM’s environmentally-friendly policies and surprised that such a large company would be interested in his 70-employee organisation, he invited David and his Global Business Services (GBS) mid-market colleague James Ritchie for informal talks.
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There was instant rapport between the two organisations, and a few months later, Ecotricity agreed with IBM’s proposal to become the first IBM UK implementation of SAP Industry Solution for Utility (ISU).
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===The direct approach===
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David, who is part of the SMB team covering Southern England, decided to introduce himself to Ecotricity with an email to Dale Vince headed ‘Big but Green’.
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In the note, he said he had selected Ecotricity as a potential client because it was clearly a dynamic, expanding organisation committed to combating climate change. He outlined IBM’s long tradition of minimising its impact on the environment, and covered IBM’s policies on recycling, waste management and using renewable energy sources for its power needs.
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He dismissed the preconception that IBM was only interested in large companies and suggested the two organisations could work well together. Importantly, Ecotricity could fulfil its plans for growth with help from IBM.
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Dale responded positively and the next day David and James were on their way to the company’s HQ at Stroud for their first meeting.
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“The company already had 25,000 customers and planned to move that figure to one million or more, but expansion was being held back by inadequate IT,” says David. “They were using an old legacy billing system that was out of support and needed a great deal of manual work-arounds, and although they had been having lengthy discussions with a couple of suppliers, including one that was proposing a solution with some SAP components, nothing had yet been signed. So, we were in with a remote chance.”
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At the initial meeting, James confirmed IBM’s support for medium-sized companies as well as its understanding of the issues facing utility companies. He then suggested a process mapping exercise that would document the company’s current activities; shortly afterwards a contract was signed and a small GBS team lead by Lori Sangastiano began working with Ecotricity.
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James says: “Like many relatively new companies of this size, there was no real documentation of the way things were done, so there was no base line to work from in order to define and improve things. The mapping exercise was therefore very important and identified some quick wins. There were three or four IT systems people, but no IT management, so Lori worked with the key stakeholders to really understand the needs of the business, while David and I worked on the relationship with Dale.”
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===Sharing values===
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The trust built up by the IBM team during the first engagement, together with a compelling commercial deal, led Ecotricity to choose the IBM proposal for a replacement CRM and Billing solution over the competition (Intallec) whose proposed solution cost 70% less than IBM’s.
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“Things became very competitive at this stage, but it was clear that Ecotricity and IBM share the same values, and this gave us more credibility,” adds David. “Dale was also genuinely pleased that a company the size of IBM wanted to work with him. He had been unaware of our green credentials and history, and it was undoubtedly these that opened the door for our first meeting. Dale wants his company to be a market leader, and Ecotricity becoming IBM’s first implementation of SAP ISU in the UK shows his commitment to the goal. It will create shock waves around the utility industry - Green energy is now big business.”
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The contract is a multi-brand solution that includes GBS implementation services over the next 10 months, $100,000 for IBM System x, and financing by IBM Global Financing (IGF), on top of the SAP licences which IBM wrapped into the deal.
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Hitesh Amin, GBS Mid Market sector lead, who led and closed the deal directly with Dale, says: “This win is very much aligned to the mid-market business model of selling not only services but also hardware, licences, and IGF services. In addition, we were able to close the deal in one week with support from GBS risk & bid and C&N.”
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He adds: “The Mid Market GBS sector approach to focus on white space clients and secure deals which GBS has not won before, is proving to be a win/win business model for Mid Market and GBS industries verticals.”
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* Source: http://w3.ibm.com/news/w3news/top_stories/2007/07/uknews_ecotricity.html
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=Analyst Views and IBM=
=Analyst Views and IBM=
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==Big Blue Focuses Attention on "Big Green" (May-07)==
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* [[Big Blue Focuses Attention on "Big Green" (11-May-07)]]
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Comment by Matthew Eastwood
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On May 10th, IBM announced a new integrated set of product and service offerings collectively called "Project Big Green." IBM recognizes that solving the energy challenges for the Data Center of the Future requires a holistic approach, including a focus on both the physical data center environment and the IT infrastructure itself. IBM claims to have designed more than 40 million square feet of raised floor data center around the world and is currently operating 8 million square feet across the corporation. While this places the company in a unique position in the market, IBM is quick to recognize that the power and cooling density challenges facing data center managers today are so extreme that it will take strong partnerships to adequately address the full range of problems. In fact IBM was joined on stage by executives from Liebert, Emerson, APC, Eaton, Anixter, and GE at the launch event in New York City.
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==Summaries==
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IDC's customer research shows that power and cooling concerns are the top issue in the data center today. Compounding the problem is the fact that most IT managers have no idea how significant the problem is. In fact, a recent survey by IDC’s Enterprise IT Advisory Council found that 47% of the IT managers surveyed had no idea how many watts per square foot their data centers are capable of supporting today. Furthermore, it isn't always clear exactly who is responsible for paying the power bill inside most enterprises today. Again, in the same recent Enterprise IT Advisory Council survey, the IT organization was reported to be responsible for paying the power bill only 28% of the time. As a result, it is common for most people in IT to take the position that it isn't their problem at all.
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{{IBM carb Sep-07}}
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{{Dino sep-07}}
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For IBM, "Project Big Green" is a five- part strategy designed to help customers achieve a significantly more energy-efficient data center. The strategy, which runs across the organization touching Big Blue's systems and technology, global services, software, and financing organizations, includes the following:
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{{IBM GG sep-07}}
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{{Lind Sept-07}}
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DIAGNOSE: Evaluate existing facilities — energy assessment, virtual 3-D power management, and thermal analytics.
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{{I Sep-07}}
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BUILD: Plan, build, or update to an energy-efficient data center.
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{{Behem Aug-07}}
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VIRTUALIZE: Virtualize IT infrastructures and special purpose processors.
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{{IBM Cary Aug-07}}
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MANAGE: Seize control with power management software.
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{{Sys i Jul-07}}
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COOL: Exploit liquid cooling solutions — inside and out of the data center.
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{{Greengrd}}
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One of the more innovative element of IBM's "big green" strategy is a patented “stored cooling” solution that allows customers to store cooling capacity in a chemical solution that can be altered to change state from solid to liquid at a wide range of temperatures. This allows the "system" to be optimized for specific temperature requirements in data centers around the globe. Customers can recharge' the IBM Data Center Stored Cooling Solution service product by running chillers at full efficiency during off peak hours when energy costs are lowest. IBM claims that this solution makes existing chilled water cooling infrastructures run 40–50% more efficiently.
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{{Lenovo Aug-07}}
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IBM and its partners recognize that it will take a significant amount of education before this problem can really be solved. In addition, IBM's partners identified a number of other areas where the industry needs to focus attention in order to solve the problem in the data center. On the supply side, all OEMs must do their best to develop energy-efficient products and educate enterprise customers of all sizes regarding the ROI associated with energy-efficient products. The EPA's Energy Star program has been very successful in consumer markets by giving customers a common set of energy metrics necessary to make informed purchasing decisions. It is clear the enterprise needs a similar set of metrics to support for their planning needs. Another critical part of the solution is the development of enterprise-wide energy policies. This will be critical in order to get a consistent set of goals so that IT, facilities, and the business can all work from the same page.
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IDC believes that it does take a holistic and partnered approach to solving these data center and IT infrastructure problems. It is clear that customera face a large and difficult challenge, and the problem is going to get worse before it gets better. According to IDC research, one-third of data center managers expect their current data center to operate for more than 30 years. At the same time, the typical IT infrastructure is replaced or significantly upgraded every five to seven years, and the compute and power densities grow significantly. As a result, the typical data center with a 20-year life cycle will support three generations of computing infrastructure over the course of its life. Additionally, The typical enterprise class data center averages 50,000 square feet and supports more than one third of all servers within the organization. In the United States, the average operational age of the typical data center is 12 years old, and more than 40% will be replaced within the next 10 years — 17% within the next five years. It is clear that the data center of the future will be quite different that the average legacy data center it will replace.
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* Source: [http://editthis.info/lauraibm/Big_Blue_Focuses_Attention_on_%22Big_Green%22_%2811-May-07%29 IDC]
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=Links to IBM papers on the Environment=
=Links to IBM papers on the Environment=
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* [http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/optimizeit/cost_efficiency/energy_efficiency/pdf/Incentive_programs_for_data_center_thermal_analysis.pdf 'Incentive programs for data center thermal analysis, energy assessments and server consolidation projects']
* [http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/optimizeit/cost_efficiency/energy_efficiency/pdf/Incentive_programs_for_data_center_thermal_analysis.pdf 'Incentive programs for data center thermal analysis, energy assessments and server consolidation projects']
* [http://www.amrresearch.com/Content/View.asp?pmillid=20313 Big Green: IBM and the ROI of Environmental Leadership (April-07)]
* [http://www.amrresearch.com/Content/View.asp?pmillid=20313 Big Green: IBM and the ROI of Environmental Leadership (April-07)]
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==For an overview on the topic(s), see also==
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* [[Vendors and the Environment]]

Current revision as of 11:52, 2 November 2007

Contents

MI Summary

Full article: IBM and the Environment

Coverage in the Press

Text of IBM Articles on IBM and its close partners

Analyst Views and IBM

Summaries

Full article: IBM moves into carbon consulting (23-Aug-07)

IBM moves to add carbon consulting to its huge global business consulting operation. Demand for such services is being driven by competitive pressures to be seen as green as well as by all-but-inevitable caps on greenhouse gas emissions. Adds Clark, who is director of strategic insights at IBM's Venture Capital Group in Silicon Valley: "It becomes a competitiveness issue when everyone else is doing it and you look like the ogre of the block if you don't." He says the pressure is particularly intense in Silicon Valley, where companies like Google (GOOG), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Sun Microsystems (SUNW) increasingly compete on carbon.

"There are some humongous pitfalls in working out carbon footprints," notes Williams. "There is no agreed protocol for calculating carbon footprints. You’re going to have people make all kinds of claims." He says figuring out the carbon content of transportation and packaging is comparatively easy while calculating the carbon content of an individual product "is a tough nut to crack." Says Clark: "We think the added value is being able to integrate carbon accounting with the rest of your business.

Full article: IBM: Dinosaurs were green (1-Aug-07)

IBM has announced that it is to consolidate 3,900 of its data center servers on to just 30 mainframe systems running the Linux operating system on virtual servers as part of its ongoing "Big Green" energy efficiency project. The project will span six IBM data centers in the US, England, Japan and Australia. The consolidated units will run Linux on top of the mainframes' operating system, z/VM.

Comment: "I live a couple of towns away from where IBM got their start (Endicott, NY), and those guys don't exactly have much of a green rep around here. In 1979, 4,100 gallons of methyl chloroform were spilled by IBM. While investigating that, a large plume of trichloroethene, tetrachloroethene, dichloroethane, dichloroethene, methylene chloride, vinyl chloride, and freon 113 was discovered in the groundwater. Later on benzene, toluene and xylene were also found."

Full article: IT Goes Green to keep Companies Growing (6-Sep-07)

Today the typical server consumes four times the amount of power that an average system used just five years ago. With this surge in IT energy consumption, power costs are also soaring, increasing an average of 20% over the course of the last eight years. IBM is taking a leadership role in this effort, investing $1 billion across its business units in programs and technology to help its enterprise customers dramatically reduce their cost base by providing them with the consulting expertise and the products to improve the energy efficiency of their data centre environments.

Full article: Lisa Lindblom on 2007 Market Outlook – 2Q07

For IBM, the challenge is how to channel our image in Engineering domain expertise and Business expertise into the Specific Solutions that decision-makers are focused in key environmental issues and do not perceive IBM as credible in. Venture Capital investment in clean energy is up 10 fold in six years. Battery technology, biofuels, energy intelligence, fuel cells, and solar energy make up the majority of that investment. In a recent survey, 30% of executives cited environmental issues to be one of their top concerns affecting future shareholder value--an issue that didn’t even make the list just a few years ago.

Where IBM Is Less Credible: Technical domain expertise, Chemical, Biological, Environmental, Product domain expertise, Energy, Water, Drugs, Tires. “I just don’t think they have the environmental expertise to address our specific needs.”

Full article: Performance Per Watt on Power6: Same Thermals, More Work (22-Aug-07)

Tim P-M still thinks that IBM should be positioning a line of System i servers with low-power main memory, small form factor SAS disks that use a lot less electricity, and maybe even solid state disks that use very little power. To be competitive, the Power6 line of servers should be the unquestionable leader in performance per watt, because this is what will get a salesperson in the data center door these days.

An i5/OS box that can do transactions with half the energy for the same money will win deals. And with a mix of Web-enabled 5250 workloads and the right hardware, the System i can win in such competitive situations--even against System p boxes running Java. If he were running IBM, that is what he would be building a line of Power6-based System i machines and their marketing message around.

Full article: Could IBM Be the World's First Green Business Behemoth? (22-Aug-07)

IBM could be about to enter another phase in its history. The company's focus has remained steadfastly on the world of IT. But there are indications the company could be returning to its eclectic roots, and it is the burgeoning demands of the low carbon economy that appear to be driving this diversification.

  • IBM's recent partnership with U.S. electricity provider CenterPoint and its investment in research into smart grid technologies capable of smoothing the path towards adoption renewable energy and dramatically cutting energy consumption by providing people with real-time visibility over their energy use.
  • The company's newly revealed interest in in-car technologies, provides Exhibit B. The focus on the development of a car operating system capable of ultimately automating driving may not seem like a particularly green initiative, but when you consider one of the prime goals of such technologies would be to optimise fuel efficiency and ease traffic congestion it is clear a pattern is beginning to emerge.
  • Of course, these initiatives along with the overarching Project Big Green commitment to limit IBM's carbon footprint and enhance the energy efficiency of its servers and other data center technologies still fit into IBM's core IT portfolio.
  • But perhaps the most compelling clue that Big Blue could diversify comes in the form of reports that it is investing heavily in developing photovoltaic technology. According to a recent story over at the Cleantech Blog IBM is using its expertise in semi-conductors to make rapid progress in developing photovoltaic solar technology.

Demand for green products and services is set to soar, but at the moment the supply side of this market remains extremely immature. Consultancies such as SustainAbility and the myriad of cleantech start ups may have experience in the sector, but they all lack the scale large corporate customers will look for when procuring green products and services. Meanwhile, those large multinationals that have been most vocal about their green product lines are either entirely consumer-focused operations, such as supermarkets, or energy and car firms guilty of running their green divisions as niche concerns alongside their traditional polluting businesses.

In contrast, IBM, and several other large IT companies for that matter, are perhaps the best positioned to meet the demand for green services:

  1. they provide the software and hardware that underpins all modern businesses;
  2. they boast relatively low impact business models compared to heavy industries;
  3. they have the engineering expertise in house that would allow them to diversify into other cleantech sectors;
  4. and they often run large consultancy arms already well versed in managing business transformations.

IBM is as well positioned as any company to become the first green business multinational.

Full article: Servers move from a guzzle to a sip, on w3 (1-Aug-07)

IBM is not jumping on the green bandwagon. We’ve been driving it for nearly 40 years. Now IBM is dramatically simplifying our IT infrastructure, identifying almost 4,000 distributed servers at its data centers around the world whose work will be consolidated onto about 30 mainframes. Power and cooling costs alone will be reduced by a 80%.

Since Thomas Watson’s call to action in 1971, IBM has been an environmental leader. In 1973, CEO Frank Cary updated IBM’s corporate policy on environmental protection, stating: “IBM will reduce to a minimum the ecological impact of all its activities."

Full article: System i and the green skeptic (16-Jul-07)

The article wonders whether System i really is more energy-efficient per workload than the equivalent computing power of scaled-out x86 boxes, because of its higher utilisation and use of virtualisation and logical partitions. (Does anyone really believe that IBM’s endeavours are environmentally altruistic?) It applauds the Power6 processor, which is twice as fast as the previous generation using almost no more energy.

Full article: Turning your Servers green

IBM, HP, Sun and AMD have launched The Green Grid, a non-profit consortium which aims to cut energy consumption at computer data centres by encouraging power-saving measures.

Full article: Lenovo tops eco-friendly league

Lenovo is top (displacing Nokia) and Apple is bottom of Greenpeace's league table. Lenovo offers take-back and recycling in all countries where it operates.

Links to IBM papers on the Environment

For an overview on the topic(s), see also

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