|
Welcome to B & M Bulletin, produced specifically for users of IT technical services. In this issue:
• Driving down emissions in IT
• Tech View: Virtualisation
• 10 ways to reduce your IT carbon footprint
• Real Skills. Real People - B & M's Samantha Cruickshank
• Project services
|
|
Driving down emissions in IT
Amanda Dunn, Sales Director at B & M, explains why carbon emission reduction is a bigger issue for IT than for the airlines
|
"a bigger issue than for airlines"
|
Today's companies are under pressure from a number of sources to reduce carbon emissions: legislative pressure through the Climate Change Bill, pressure from investors and consumers and pressures to reduce energy costs, to name but a few.
Data centres are up there with airlines as major contributors to carbon emissions, consuming 10 to 100 times more energy per square foot than a typical office building. The US Department of Energy estimates that in 2006, US data centres used an estimated 61 billion kilowatt-hours and that energy use in data centres is projected to grow 12% per year over the next four years. It also says that improving energy efficiency in data centres could yield savings worth some $2billion - the equivalent of the power used each year in 1.8 million American homes.
Research by IDC shows that if current trends hold, the cost to power and cool servers in data centres will increase by 54% by 2010. According to Jed Scaramella, research analyst, Enterprise Servers at IDC, "Powering and cooling the data centre has become a top priority for IT executives. In 2005, $26.1 billion was spent to power and cool the worldwide installed base of servers. Over the next five years, the expense to power and cool the worldwide installed base of servers is projected to grow four times compared with the growth rate for new server spending."
Given the pressure to reduce carbon emissions, it is fair to assume that companies will evaluate their existing facilities and energy goals and will plan to build or update more energy-efficient data centres. There are already projects underway which aim to mitigate any rise in carbon emissions as a result of the anticipated demand for more computing power in the future. IBM's Project 'Big Green', for example, aims to double computer capacity by 2010 without increasing power consumption or carbon footprint, saving 5 billion kilowatt hours per year compared with the same rate of growth using existing energy strategies.
The issues of server and storage consolidation, the exploitation of virtualisation technology and the use of monitoring and management software are key to these plans as they will help to reduce energy costs.
At B & M, we are experienced in providing skilled resources and delivering projects that achieve effective results in key areas such as consolidation, cost reduction and efficiency monitoring. To find out more, contact sales@bmeurope.com.
|
|
Tech View: It's Virtually all there
Paul Smith, B & M's Technical Manager, explains that virtualisation is nothing new
|
Virtualisation is a very broad term that refers to the abstraction of computing resources. It is a technique that allows the redistribution of computing resources into multiple execution environments. Although the term still covers the subdivision of hardware resources, it is starting to become more generic. It is not a new idea, having its origins in IBM's System/370 hardware dating from the 1970s.
There are currently three sub divisions of Virtualisation:
- Platform
- Resource
- Application
Well-known examples of Platform Virtualisation include IBM's mainframe Virtual Machine in the form of VM/SP, PR/SM and most recently z/VM; Microsoft's 'Virtual PC' and VMware Server.
Platform Virtualisation software allows you to make efficient use of unused server time and thus help to keep costs down. For example, instead of four physical servers being busy for only three per cent of the time, you can have one physical server busy for 12 per cent of the time. OK, the calculation is not quite as simple as that, but it illustrates the point.
Resource Virtualisation is where it starts to get interesting (and complicated). RAID architecture allows an efficient and resilient virtual mapping of data to physical disks. The technique of 'Grid Computing' allows the distribution of execution environments over wide geographical areas. The main benefits of these are for disaster recovery/network resilience, and it also has its uses for 24x7 service delivery, allowing multi-national organisations to roll their operational support window around the world, according to time zones.
Application Virtualisation is also something that we have been familiar with even if we didn't know it. Users of Apple Macs have been using the Rosetta virtual application for years; Sun's WABI, Microsoft's MS-DOS box (under Windows) and Linux in all its forms commonly use ABI (Application Binary Interface). The common thread here is that an application is acting as a system service, translating system calls between an end-user application and, typically, the operating system, thus allowing a wider basis for usage than originally envisaged.
Virtualisation is nothing new, but because it offers flexibility at reduced cost, we can expect to see the application of this concept permeate all aspects of our electronic daily lives.
|
Real Skills, Real people: B & M's Samantha Cruickshank
This month we profile Account Manager Samantha Cruickshank
|
Samantha joined B & M as Account Manager in 2007 after spending three years in the telecommunications industry.
After studying languages at Oxford University, Samantha began her career at IBM where she was trained in the IBM portfolio and completed their sales training programme. This provided a solid basis for understanding customer business drivers and requirements as well as working with dynamic teams for the development of complex business solutions.
After some consideration, Samantha decided that she would like to make better use of her language skills and took a break from IT sales to complete a post-graduate certificate in education in Modern Languages. She went on to teach French and German, benefitting from the training in self-analysis and reflective development required of the modern teacher.
The increasing governmental demands on the teaching profession became too far removed from the core skills of teaching and Samantha left to join Ericsson. Here she consolidated the sales skills which she had developed at IBM and extended them through continued exposure to the commercial environment.
Working as an Account Manager, Samantha is now using her skills to develop B & M's business in the IT and Telecoms marketplace.
In her spare time, Samantha likes to go carriage driving and walking, which she does in all weathers. She also enjoys ballroom dancing and has taken some of the exams required for bronze standard.
|
10 ways to reduce your IT carbon emissions
Jerry Smart, MD of B & M Europe, suggests some ways that organisations can start to cut emissions right now:
|
- Consolidating storage to improve the efficiency of systems
- Opting for high density server systems to deliver more computing power per kilowatt of energy
- Using storage virtualisation to improve storage efficiency
- Consolidating servers to reduce footprint
- Using server virtualization to derive maximum capacity from individual servers
- Improving infrastructure to reduce the need for staff to travel to work
- Adopting renewable sources of energy such as photovoltaic solar electric panels
- Using monitoring software to ensure that hardware and software are running at optimum efficiency to minimise wastage
- Taking simple steps such as turning off monitors when they are not in use to conserve energy
- Enabling effective remote or web-enabled collaborative working to reduce business travel - particularly by air.
|
B & M enables business-critical IT systems for large, complex enterprises by delivering a tailored blend of technical expertise, business knowledge, project management and administration. We deliver technical services for systems software and network connectivity on z/OS, AIX, Solaris, HP-UX and Linux enterprise platforms. B & M is completely vendor-independent and currently has senior specialists and software engineers providing services in Europe's top organisations.
We offer a portfolio of technical services to meet customers' needs:
- Technical projects that may be managed by the customer or by B & M
- On-demand services delivering contingency cover for short-term needs or for urgent skills replacement
- Systems support delivered either on-site or remotely; available 24 x 7 if required
- Technical consultancy for short-term, strategic work
- Legacy support to keep critical applications that run on stabilised platforms running smoothly
- Contract support, notably in systems software on large enterprise systems.
For more information about how our technical services could help your organisation achieve its business goals, please contact sales@bmeurope.com
|
|
B & M has specialised in delivering skilled ICT specialists to meet the needs of leading organisations throughout Europe since 1992. We focus exclusively on providing consultancy, technical services and support for z/OS, UNIX and Linux enterprise systems, including third-party systems software, open systems and networking connectivity. We add real value for HR and IT professionals by taking the time to understand their needs and applying best practice methods to deliver results. To find out more about our approach to providing the best skills for each business, go to www.bmeurope.com B & M Europe Limited
www.bmeurope.com
+44 (0)118 981 1880
|
|
