Green computing: Real or fashionable?

Virtualisation! Consolidated +20 physical servers to 3 ESXi servers, takes minutes to convert a machine, fail over is almost instant and being able to adjust resources without any hassles. Cut power/UPS, aircon and space requirements down by well over 2/3's.

Why companies still choose to live in the stone ages of one box one function is beyond me...
 
rpm said:
A question I have often asked UPS suppliers is why there is not a unit on the market that can directly power a laptop or notebook.
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Because original intent of UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply) is to provide a uninterrupted power supply to computer systems, hence the name. Laptops by default have battery, hence already have UPS for itself. Sounds pointless for laptops use, as it needs different voltage regulators for different laptops, extra circuitry to accommodate a dozen of laptop voltages/currents , therefore extra price, etc... Just simpler to use 220v, if you want to plug in laptop.
 
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And UPS is meant as a means to be able to save critical stuff and power down safely is it not?

thus is you are looking for the same functionality in a laptop, keep the battery charged?
 
milomak said:
And UPS is meant as a means to be able to save critical stuff and power down safely is it not?

thus is you are looking for the same functionality in a laptop, keep the battery charged?
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Depends on system and user discretion. :rolleyes:
 
RVQ said:
Virtualisation! Consolidated +20 physical servers to 3 ESXi servers, takes minutes to convert a machine, fail over is almost instant and being able to adjust resources without any hassles. Cut power/UPS, aircon and space requirements down by well over 2/3's.

Why companies still choose to live in the stone ages of one box one function is beyond me...
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And dont forget the best feature of them all.... I can manage such an environment from the other side of the planet. Its not a concept as I actually do it for a living.

Oh and the servers I manage, powered by green power only as NZ does not have any coal or nuclear power stations. All Hydro, Solar and wind with a touch of geyser.
 
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Jagtiger said:
Depends on system and user discretion. :rolleyes:
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UPS is not a generator.

The question may be how long a specific UPS solution lasts after power outage.

But it is not meant to outdo generators for instance.

if you are in a situation where power goes go out, why was your laptop not connected? Because you could have been charging it. Clearly not the domain of UPS.
 
Elimentals said:
And dont forget the best feature of them all.... I can manage such an environment from the other side of the planet. Its not a concept as I actually do it for a living.

Oh and the servers I manage, powered by green power only as NZ does not have any coal or nuclear power stations. All Hydro, Solar and wind with a touch of geyser.
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The data centres perhaps, but NZ definitely has a few coal stations according to the default fallback, Wikipedia:
Code: 
0%	8	Oil 
0%	59	Other non-renewable 
1%	518	Other renewable 
3%	1456	Wind 
7%	3079	Coal 
11%	4542	Geothermal 
20%	8385	Gas 
57%	23962	Hydroelectric 
100%	42010	Total
 
milomak said:
UPS is not a generator.

The question may be how long a specific UPS solution lasts after power outage.

But it is not meant to outdo generators for instance.

if you are in a situation where power goes go out, why was your laptop not connected? Because you could have been charging it. Clearly not the domain of UPS.
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Agree, not replacing generator, but main purpose to give pretty enough time to start up one, that's why batteries required. When generator starts up to full power (depending on type/size, it may take from few seconds to minutes), system is not supplied and data lost/faulty. Specific time depends on battery capacity, they usually install for capacity that allows enough + excess time for generator start up/switch. I heard that some geeks used car/truck battery and was enough for several hours for one desktop.

Also nice function UPS have, is protection from electricity blinking that causes automatic computer restart. :)
 
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Jagtiger said:
Agree, not replacing generator, but main purpose to give pretty enough time to start up one, that's why batteries required. When generator starts up to full power (depending on type/size, it may take from few seconds to minutes), system is not supplied and data lost/faulty. Specific time depends on battery capacity, they usually install for capacity that allows enough + excess time for generator start up/switch. I heard that some geeks used car/truck battery and was enough for several hours for one desktop.
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Guys that replace utility power with solar, run exclusively from UPS power at night, the trick is not to drain the batteries more than 30% (so that the batteries can cycle up to 1500 times), draining any more than that significantly reduces battery life.... meaning that you have dozens of deep cycle lead acid VRLA (car like batteries)

if you want to see green, look up the google data centre in the USA on google earth, even the parking area roofs are generating electricity.

D
 
Just go nuclear !!! Nuclear powered UPS :) I'm waiting for Fallout 3 to become reality
 
fluffy54 said:
Just go nuclear !!! Nuclear powered UPS :) I'm waiting for Fallout 3 to become reality
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Don't joke, the US military is looking at Fuel cell batteries with radioactive elements, some of them can even last 10 years plus.

Imagine that a battery that doesn't need to be charged for 10 or 20 years
 
psc said:
Like a betavoltaic powered pacemaker (tritium based) ?
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Yep but bigger, I cant find the article now but they had ones in the fields powering satellite communication equipment and was looking at even using the tech for the targeting laptops used in the field.
 
Didn't read the article in depth since it was sounding like a lot of hurf blurf to me.

Can't power a laptop directly off a UPS? Splice up a male kettle plug to a female 3-pin and observe plug polarities for your laptop's transformer and you should be good to go without an inverter, no?

Furthermore, why use a UPS for the purpose? What are you achieving over running the laptop straight off the mains? It has its own built in battery that acts as its UPS, so what's the problem here? If you're wanting to power a laptop off of an external battery at night and run it by solar power by day, you could utilize 12v sealed lead batteries paired for 24v or more as required and make or use a custom made transformer to power your laptop if you really want; batteries like those allow for charging while in use, after all.

And the National Geo thing about laptops 'saving' you up to 50% of power is bull. They're not taking into account the amount of time you're spending waiting for something to complete vs how quickly the desktop equivalent processor or graphics processor could do using, when scaled, a similar or lesser amount of power for what's achieved.


And then again, why are we so concerned with UPSs? Did I miss something in the article by skimming it? How are 'transformer based UPSs' inefficient if they're not doing much with their batteries at all a lot of the time? A UPS is there for power smoothing in an area with brown electricity and to protect against power surges or brownouts, they're not designed to run computers off of directly - for that you want a proper battery based capacitor system and your choice of 'natural power'.
 
Green computing is just a fashion thing in Africa

I SA where very few homes or offices use any form of solar heating, it is just plain fashionable to say"I'm green"

If a data centre has to spend say R 1M to go green can reduce consumption by "x" kWH they could sponsor solar water heaters for the same amount and achieve "100 x" kWH saving. They could sponsor solar water heaters for their staff.

keep it simple first solar heating then after that tackle the rest.
 
voipnow said:
I SA where very few homes or offices use any form of solar heating, it is just plain fashionable to say"I'm green"

If a data centre has to spend say R 1M to go green can reduce consumption by "x" kWH they could sponsor solar water heaters for the same amount and achieve "100 x" kWH saving. They could sponsor solar water heaters for their staff.

keep it simple first solar heating then after that tackle the rest.
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I was driving to Uitenghage the other day and saw that all the low cost housing was fitted with Solar heaters. I dont know about the other parts of South Africa but surly that's an indication that its not just a fashion item anymore?
 
Elimentals said:
I was driving to Uitenghage the other day and saw that all the low cost housing was fitted with Solar heaters. I dont know about the other parts of South Africa but surly that's an indication that its not just a fashion item anymore?
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Solar water heater are not fashion, but photovoltaic cell are fashion. They are very expensive and you need many to generate enough power for single home computer.
 
Elimentals said:
I was driving to Uitenghage the other day and saw that all the low cost housing was fitted with Solar heaters. I dont know about the other parts of South Africa but surly that's an indication that its not just a fashion item anymore?
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Alot of new developments are coming std with solar heating and gas stoves...
 
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