The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), located at the University of Colorado Boulder, disseminates satellite and in-situ data globally to researchers of the cryosphere, or areas covered with snow and ice. The data, from NASA Earth Observing System satellites and both NASA and National Science Foundation ground studies, are used in Earth science and climate studies. To make its mission-essential data center more energy efficient, the NSIDC developed a retrofit project that includes virtualization of IT equipment, a unique new HVAC design, and a photovoltaic solar powered UPS.

This project was a 3-year odyssey with the usual trials and successes. Our 1600 square foot data center used half the power of the 77,000 square foot building. Datacenters are approaching the total energy use the airline industry. The irony that the tools that NSIDC used to study climate change were causing some of the climate change really bothered us. With the completion of this project datacenter power utilization was cut 70% and the cooling energy was reduced more than 90%. Our payback on the project is 29 months and we have significantly lower maintenance and increased reliability.

There were many who said this project was impossible. But in fairness to the engineers, they often have good reason. In the sciences, when you write proposals, you have to push the edge in order to get funding. In engineering the client will not fund you with a novel idea as no one wants to be first. This project is a classic case of revolutionary, not evolutionary, engineering.

Our cooling system was built to replace the existing direct expansion (DX) computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units with eight Coolerado units that use a combination of airside economization and indirect evaporative cooling. These units, can supply air that is 30°F to 40°F (16°C to 22°C) below the incoming air temperature without the use of compressors, while also producing warm, saturated air that is used to increase humidity in the datacenter on demand. The data center also includes a 50 kW roof-mounted photovoltaic (PV) array that charges a UPS to replace the need for a backup generator. The PV system generates about 75,000 kWh of electricity annually with surplus power being fed back to the grid. On sunny days the data center is energy neutral. Prior to the retrofit, the datacenter had an average PUE rating of 2.03; the retrofit project improves its PUE rating to an average of 1.15 while meeting all American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standards.

We are entering an age where more data will be collected every minute than has been collected in the whole of human history. As of May 2012 Facebook had 901 million users, with Twitter reporting in June 400 million tweets per day. Today we are connecting people digitally, and we are also beginning to connect the data their lives generate as well.

The universe is full of non-obvious causal relationships invisible to both the eye and intuition. For example, why do Academy Award winners live longer than the other nominees? Who do first basemen outlive other players on the team? Why do children in schools with fluorescent lighting get fewer cavities than those in incandescent-lit schools?

This talk examines the promise of sophisticated computational answer engines that will soon be able to aggregate the social data of our lives to bring about unprecedented self-discovery; to find and create great new products and services, to cure diseases, end poverty, and effectively usher in a new golden age for humanity.

Byron explains how Moore's Law, big data, and cheap sensors will bring about this great new future, sooner than many think. Now, why does this matter today? Because it is actionable today. We start by looking at a myriad of data in behavioral targeting, from location-based social networks, to social news, to multi-media sharing, to social networking, and online advocacy and fundraising. Then we roll in data sources such as real-time weather and concepts trending across such social entities like Twitter, Digg, Facebook etc. In other words, think of all accessible data sources that can be used to learn about ourselves.

Byron explains that this ability -- to aggregate this social data and process these non-obvious causal relationships -- will have a transformative effect on humanity and will usher in a new golden age in which everyone on the planet will become effectively wiser than any person has ever been before. Positive and negative social implications and privacy concerns are also examined, while attendees are inspired to examine what they can do to better understand the world through the myriad of untapped data sources that surround them.

Data Centres have an insatiable appetite for power and with volumes of data growing astronomically in our connected world, finding adequate sources of power is a monumental quest for the industry at large. The challenge is only heightened by Europe's regulatory demands for green power, not to mention costs on Europe's overwhelmed power grids.

Iceland offers an optimized combination of location, economics, and ecological consideration for large-scale data center implementations - 100% dual sourced green energy, year round free cooling, as well as protection against escalating worldwide power pricing.

Tate Cantrell, CTO of Verne Global, will talk about the practical experience of bringing this fundamentally new approach to the data centre market and how the Iceland location presents a compelling, cost efficient and flexible alternative to scale data centre needs. He will also explore how key learnings from Iceland today could set the stage to define the fundamentals of the data centre of the future.

A perfect storm is converging on the enterprise datacenter. Demand is exploding (data, devices and regulation) as the” network of everything as a service” creates insatiable consumption of compute, storage and bandwidth. While Supply is becoming scarcer (space, power, water and time to commission new capacity) more expensive with pressures on sustainability.

Enterprise IT and DC teams cannot afford to continue to design and deploy with focus only on their relevant silos and without sustainable environment considerations. Firms who integrate their planning and design efforts in these areas will gain competitive advantage as a result of converged datacenter infrastructure.

A different approach needs to be taken. One that is business aligned, integrated, fit for purpose and sustainable.. The approach needs to be extensible, tailorable and sustainable. To do this, firms must architect the datacenter both top down – bottom up in a service oriented manner.

In this keynote presentation, a proven and repeatable playbook for architecting and realizing a hyper-efficient and green datacenter strategy will be discussed.

Harley-Davidson will describe in detail how they analyzed their efficiency issues and the efforts they took to mitigate those issues. They will explain how they used CFD to analyze and model their remediation options. Harley-Davidson will share their CFD models and their findings as well as a sampling of some of the designs they evaluated. Harley-Davidson Inc. solution provider will describe the solution that was chosen for heat containment and how it was implemented. Finally they will review the 30% saving they saw once the solution was implemented.

Metrics… love them or hate them they are an integral part of our lives. Within the data center and energy efficiency arena the proper use of metrics, along with reliable input data, enables us to better engage with management, peers, and society in reporting our performance criteria. Metrics, along with the tools and resources available from The Green Grid, allow us to more accurately represent our findings lest we be compared to the one-armed fisherman describing their latest catch.

This session will review many of the key metrics developed by The Green Gird, their value in reporting both internally and externally, for use in responding to Government and NGO requests, for assisting your corporate sustainability initiatives, and most importantly – for improving data center energy efficiency and productivity.

Cloud Computing is promising a lot of efficiencies and cost savings but it’s also presenting a huge paradigm shift to many IT organizations. Cloud Computing does not only affect the way organizations consume resources but also produces a perceived green side-effect. This session focuses on utilizing best practices and IT Service Management guidelines to create a simple but proven framework to judge the environmental impacts of Cloud Computing. The session also discusses the opportunities and challenges of achieving and maintaining these perceived effects.

Join us for a tour of the 19,000 sq ft. San Diego Supercomputer Center at UCSD. Attendees will board charted busses and drive over to SDSC for a 2:30pm tour.

The tour will last for 1 hour. Learn first hand from the SDSC facility and staff and bring back new tools and technologies for you Green Data Center!

* Limited availability. Sign up for the tour today to reserve your spot!