Servers move from a guzzle to a sip, on w3 (1-Aug-07)
From Lauraibm
Contents |
MI Summary
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."
Text of Article
With the newest initiative, Big Green demonstrates IBM's environmental leadership by dramatically simplifying our IT infrastructure. IBM is not jumping on the green bandwagon. We’ve been driving it for nearly 40 years.
And 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 energy-sipping mainframes. Power and cooling costs alone will be reduced by a jaw-dropping 80 percent. Floor space requirements at IBM’s data centers will be reduced by 85 percent. This initiative will provide IBM significant savings over five years.
Welcome to the new era of the mainframe. CIOs are shifting their attention – and their infrastructures – to higher-end hardware running advanced software such as Tivoli, WebSphere and DB2 with the help of IBM services.
As such, the mainframe has re-emerged as the consolidation platform of choice amongst the world’s top CIOs. System z has experienced a remarkable resurgence as this has happened, growing revenue for five straight quarters and growing MIPS (a measure of mainframe compute capacity) for eight quarters.
Leading by example
In many cases, clients are executing this mainframe consolidation playbook already. But when it came to consolidation of this scale, CIOs were standing on the sidelines until they saw the industry’s first attempt at a blockbuster enterprise consolidation unfold.
IBM data centers in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Southbury, Conn.; Boulder, Colo.; Portsmouth, UK; Osaka, Japan; and Sydney, Australia, will participate in the initiative. IBM has established world-class teams to migrate, test and deploy the applications, which include WebSphere process, portal and application servers, SAP applications and DB2.
IBM Global Technology Services is playing a critical role in the consolidation and virtualization project, deploying the infrastructure services and developing methodologies for clients to use for similar consolidations. GTS already offers a variety of service for servers and sites/facilities to help clients become more energy efficient and, therefore, more green. The services span Server Services and Site and Facilities Services.
Paving a green path
- If we are to capture mindshare as one of the world's "greenest" enterprises, we need to take every opportunity to tell our story—to ensure the marketplace appreciates the breadth and depth of IBM's expertise and portfolio.
- Wayne Balta, vice president of environmental affairs and product safety for IBM
IBM has continued is environmental leadership in other areas, too. Since 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. Management in IBM is expected to be continuously on guard against adversely affecting the environment and to seek ways to conserve natural resources.”
In 1990, IBM began our annual corporate environmental reporting.
In 1991, IBM established its Product Stewardship program that has brought about industry-leading practices in product recycling and designing products with increased environmental attributes.
Between 1990 and 2005, IBM reduced or avoided CO2 emissions by an amount equivalent to 40 percent of its 1990 emissions through its global energy conservation program. IBM’s new goal is to further extend this achievement by reducing CO2 emissions associated with IBM’s energy use 12 percent between 2005 and 2012 through conserving energy and procuring renewable energy.
Enabling green business – for our clients and ourselves While many environmental initiatives start at IBM, we also help our clients become more environmentally efficient. For decades, IBM has worked with clients to help them address their own energy and environmental issues, while simultaneously enabling us to meet our own commitments to environmental leadership across our business activities.
IBM’s approach to the issue can be described broadly across three themes:
- Innovation that matters -- how IBM is applying industry and technology expertise with research and development to help clients meet their "green" challenges.
- Environmental leadership -- our own record of achievement and ongoing commitment of environmental stewardship.
- Ecosystem collaboration --how IBM is partnering with governments, NGOs, universities and other groups to proactively collaborate on new solutions.
An ongoing effort
- Electricity: IBM recently formed a new global coalition with leading Energy & Utility clients around the Intelligent Utility Network (IUN). Electricity currently represents the largest contributor to global CO2 emissions; it also offers the greatest potential to reduce emissions in the short and medium term.
- Water: IBM also recently began collaborating with the Nature Conservancy on the Great Rivers Partnership to build a new computer-modeling framework to assist in conserving natural water resources.
- Energy: The latest part of Project Big Green, a broad set of technology and services related to making the world's data centers more energy efficient, is just another example of IBM making business more environmentally efficient.
- Source: w3
