November 2009 - Posts

• Uncovering the cost of Unused Servers

  NightWatchMan Server Edition product manager Andy Hawkins will be presenting later today (11/19/09) as part of the Green Data Center Summit (16:00 GMT). The good news is that you can watch it from the comfort of your desk/armchair. He will be talking about using NightWatchman Server Edition to monitor your servers and in doing do taking control of the costs involved in running servers which are not performing 'useful work'. Sign up here for the webcast: http://tinyurl.com/yazkac5 Posted Nov 19 2009, 04:23 AM by 1E Business Blogs Filed under: 1E Products, Green IT, Data Center, Server Power Management

• 1E Podcast Episode 4 – NightWatchman Server Edition

  After the successful release of NightWatchman Server Edition in late October, Andy Hawkins (Product Manager), Richard Cudd (Lead Developer), Steve Newby (Solutions Engineer) and Andy Dominey (OpsMgr Practice Lead) take time out to chat to Dan Kregor about the capabilities of NightWatchman Server, and the cost savings that can be achieved in the data center. Here’s where you can get the podcast: Stream live from 1E.com Download Episode 4 from iTunes Subscribe the the 1E Podcast Network on iTunes We at 1E are dedicated to bringing you real world scenarios to help solve some of the most challenging problems faced by IT professionals. If you are wrestling with an issue, would like some advice or have a topic you would like to see covered, please feel free to send me an email outlining your issue or idea. If selected for inclusion in the 1E Podcast, we’ll make sure to get you invloved and have you contribute to the podcast. Posted Nov 13 2009, 08:38 AM by 1E Blogs Filed under: 1E Products

• 1E Nomad Enterprise the key to simple Win 7 deployments

  Migrating to Windows 7 presents one of the most exciting challenges for IT departments today. The deployment of Operating Systems across large, distributed organizations can be a long, complex process and an expensive task. With the frequency and size of OS and software updates increasing and constrained IT budgets, the challenge becomes even more apparent. Nomad Enterprise consists of two solutions, Nomad Branch and PXE Lite. It uses patented technology to optimize network efficiency and performance, enabling server consolidation and allowing customers to get the most out of their existing networks, avoiding costly network upgrades and the requirement for additional hardware: Nomad Branch® distributes systems management data once over the WAN and then shares it locally with peer agents in branch offices, with or without multicast. No physical visits to the branch sites are required. PXE Lite provides network booting capabilities without the need for separate server hardware, thereby reducing costs and making efficient use of network bandwidth and enabling real zero-touch bare-metal OS deployments. Sumir Karayi, CEO, 1E says: “Many organizations have not performed a mass OS migration for several years as their last large-scale rollout would have been XP. There have been significant advances and innovations in deployment technologies since then. Gartner recommends that organizations should start working on migration projects nowi and our goal is to help organizations move towards that goal quickly. Over the last ten years, 1E has solidified its expertise in leading hundreds of global Windows migrations. We know how to make deploying new operating systems as simple as deploying software. Our unique combination of experience and software solutions will take the pain out of complex OS deployments even in the largest, geographically dispersed organizations while keeping the costs down and with zero disruption to business applications.” Already installed across more than 2.5 million seats worldwide, including many 100,000 seat organizations such as Verizon Wireless and Nestlé, Nomad Enterprise 3.2 helps organizations reduce the cost of managing their branch sites with proven, scalable technology, typically delivering an ROI in less than six months. Posted Nov 09 2009, 05:58 AM by 1E Business Blogs Filed under: 1E Products, 1E News

• Energy Cost will drive IT Energy Efficiency

  I saw a great quote this morning, from John Stanley of the Uptime Institute. ”Dirty electricity is already expensive, it only looks cheap.” He was referring to energy that comes from coal, which looks like becoming even more expensive given the Cap and Trade legislation that's in the pipeline. All across the world, governments are boosting their efforts to increase output from renewable sources, and as the costs come down for renewables, governments are looking to make  so called 'dirty energy' more expensive as part of their drive to lower carbon emissions. This is already having an effect in the IT sector, specifically in the data center world. Central Washington, which has a large Hydro-electric capability from dams on the Columbia River, has already seen VMWare and Yahoo build new data centers locally, as hydro electricity is not only renewable but also relatively cheap. If you can't relocate however, there are other solutions. Some companies are integrating renewable energy solutions into existing data centers. Emerson Network Power is just one example of companies who are already using solar energy today. The cost of such implementations is still high though, and unless the scale of the operation is large enough, the cost savings just don't stack up. Other solutions include looking at potential savings in HVAC, server consolidation and/or virtualization, and server power management. But whatever energy efficiency methods you choose to go for, one thing is for sure, energy is not going to get any cheaper. At the recent Data Center Energy Efficiency Summit hosted by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG), there was much talk of energy efficiency initiatives, but as Mark Thiele of VMWare stated, “We look at this potential for regulation as opportunity rather than a harbinger of doom, Carbon right now is at the top of the hype cycle. The reality is about efficiency, and saving our companies money. Those of us who care about the environment now have a stick to wield.” With only 30ish days to go to Copenhagen, and with President Obama's recent visit to MIT and a Florida solar facility, it's likely that focus on the high energy consumption of IT in general and data centers in particular will remain high for some time to come.   Posted Nov 05 2009, 03:41 AM by 1E Business Blogs Filed under: Green IT, Data Center

• Webinar: NightWatchman Server Edition

  Tomorrow, 3rd November, UK based 1E Solutions Engineer Steve Newby will be talking about the recently released NightWatchman Server Edition If you can't make it tomorrow there is another opportunity to catch this great webinar on the 12th November too.. Sign up here http://tinyurl.com/ylbevkm  Don't miss this one if you are at all interested in saving energy and cost using server power management! Posted Nov 03 2009, 04:51 AM by 1E Business Blogs Filed under: 1E Products, 1E News, Server Power Management

• Why Server Power Management?

  When we first started to think about developing a power management solution specifically for servers, we had to first decide if there was a good reason to do so! When we developed NightWatchman for PCs, it was reasonably clear that there was (and still is) huge demand and opportunity for cost savings by implementing sensible and safe power management. After all there are millions of desktops out there, and the ratio of servers to PCs is at least 10 to 1, so the numbers are there, but what about the approach? PC Power Management With PC Power Management it is easy to categorize large groups of PCs and the working requirements of their users. A PC is either: on -  for the user, on -  for maintenance or off - because it is not required for either of the two previous requirements. Of course you can be a little more sophisticated in terms for monitor standby when the user is temporarily away from the PC etc but these are the main opportunities to save energy. Server Power Management Servers exist for very different reasons to PCs. A server exists to provide a service to someone or something.  The type of service, and the availability required for those services is almost limitless. What is quite fundamental however is the following. If a server isn't providing the service it's supposed to, to the users (or devices) that require it then it should not be consuming power. Of course a server that is not providing a useful service is not only consuming energy. It still requires backup, maintenance, upgrade and also contributes to the cooling requirements of the data center. Anyway, that is the basic premise for NightWatchman Server Edition. It also became clear that you need to treat each server on an individual basis. So, to categorize the various states of servers we can use the following. These various states are graded in terms of energy efficiency, with A being the highest grade. Grade A = Off. Grade B = On and using most of its resources to do what it is supposed to be doing. Grade C = On but using very little of its resources to do what it is supposed to be doing. Grade D = On but using very little of its resources to do anything other than what it is supposed to be doing. Grade E = On but using most of its resources to do anything other than what it is supposed to be doing. So, the goal of NightWatchman Server Edition is to ensure that you run the minimum number of servers at the highest grade possible. Simple huh? Here's a real world example of how we could use the above criteria. Consider  the following two servers: Server One A branch office file server with no remote access. Office hours are 9am till 6pm so there is no possibility of anyone requiring these services outside of those hours. Recommendation: Save power by turning the server off after office hours Server Two A door entry system requires access to a database to confirm your smart ID badge permits access. Access to offices outside of working hours is restricted, but the rest of the building remains open 24 hours a day. Turning this server off is not an option at any time. However, the door entry software consumes few resources so could be hosted on the branch file server. Recommendation: Save power by consolidating onto Server One and decommissioning Server Two. The complication is that acting on Server Two changes the recommendation for Server One demonstrating that Server Power Management is an ongoing task, not a one off piece of analysis. As your environment changes, the ideal power management policies will change too. So you can see that Server Power Management is a complex task. Defining the policies that enable you to save energy and cost would be an enormous project if it were undertaken manually. It would take months to even get to a point where you could start to make some changes, and by that time it is quite possible that your results would be out of date! Such is the complex and fast moving environment that we inhabit today. NightWatchman Server Edition provides you with the reporting and power management tools to automate the above process, and in doing so ensures that all your servers are working in the most energy and cost efficient way possible. In forthcoming blog posts - we'll show you just how it's done!     Posted Nov 02 2009, 10:56 AM by 1E Business Blogs Filed under: Green IT, Data Center, Server Power Management