Green Notes

When we think of vibrant open source software communities, we think of active collaboration, open and free exchange of latest practices and enhancements and a collective, unified approach to innovation.  A new group announced this week called Open Source Data Centre Initiative is working on applying these open source principles to data center design. It will act as a “repository and test bed for mechanical and engineering advances in data-center design” and will play an educational role for customers.  The knowledge base is expected to be enriched by small engineering firms, graduate students doing research with federal grant money, and others who will contribute by sharing their projects and publishing real-world statistics on design and construction specifics and testing. Manufacturers could submit their technology solutions that could be put together in different ways as a part of the user’s unique end design. In return the contributors would benefit from access to resources that would make them more competitive in the market place especially as compared to bigger players. Special attention would be given to green and sustainable designs from the end-user perspective as opposed to merely the manufacturing side. Latest advances in data center engineering related to energy efficient cooling practices and power conservation will be made accessible allowing customers to customize their own design. The venture also hopes to increase awareness and participation among construction companies so that they would be educated on what they are getting involved with instead of merely implementing the designs handed out to them from the engineering firms at the last minute.

The founder of the group, Dave Ohara who also writes the Green Data Center Blog has partnered up with University of Missouri and ARG Investments on this initiative .The alliance says it does not intend to compete with groups like the Green Grid Forum and the Uptime Institute, but would like to accelerate the rate of progress. 

For a professional consultation on cutting edge breakthroughs in energy efficient data center practices, contact us at Green Rack Systems/ 408-213-8144.

Once we have proper systems in place at our data centers, it becomes equally important to maintain the infrastructure to ensure seamless delivery without any bottlenecks that might hinder the services provided to clients. The advanced nature of computing which our data centers currently provide us with further complicates not only mere maintenance but also quality assurance. Depending on functionality and targeted usage, the priorities of a co-location facility change. For example an IT data center servicing the needs of bank or governmental agency would have to mitigate constant security risks in terms of confidentiality of data processed. A data center catering to a high energy social networking site would want to maintain the constant fluidity of the site. How many of us get fed up of waiting endlessly for our updates to show up or photos to be uploaded on some of our popular networks. Apart from the main concerns in a set segment for upkeep, there are other related risks to be managed and avoided. Once you take all precautions to reduce the risk, data centers usually conduct regression tests to recreate threat scenarios with realistic data feeds and test environment. Disaster recovery plans once in place should be tested and updated constantly. A full scale testing environment with all the hardware, networking equipment etc can be hard to re-create for smaller data centers. Also there is additional risk of leaking of sensitive information during these tests and current budget cuts due to macro-economic conditions might not provide the resources to design elaborate testing scenarios. Our complete data center services at Green Rack Systems can assist you in quality assurance, security and testing by creating application relevant production environments outside of your facility for reliable performance testing to pinpoint areas that need improvements. Our professional testers skilled in this specific arena can take the pressure off you for not only investing in a test lab but also training and breeding a test team. In this way your data center will be able to run smoothly without running into routine errors, crashes, inefficient downtimes, security threats etc that could be damaging to your reputation vis-à-vis clients.

Please contact us at Green Rack for a one time inspection or ongoing quality assurance and risk mitigation services for your data center.

At Green Rack Systems, we have been saying for a long time how this emphatic shift towards clean energy is inescapable. A November study by AFCOM finds that “greening of the data center is no longer just a concept – it is actually taking place”, and on a large scale, with 71.3% of all survey respondents indicating that they are actively engaged in Greening. Now, thanks to Executive Order 13514 requiring rigid energy efficiency targets, even Federal agencies have to follow what they preach by taking the lead on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Further, they will have to divert 50% of their waste by 2015 and arrive at a net-zero energy building requirements by 2030 for all of its 500,000 buildings. This will be made possible by key changes made in their massive IT departments, servers and data centers. The laudable target of net-zero for their buildings would be impossible to achieve without adopting efficiency strategies that we have been discussing about in our previous blogs, such as virtualization, renewable energy, alternative cooling methods, energy tracking technology etc. The new initiative also dictates that 95% of new acquisitions must be Energy Star or Federal Energy Management Program compliant, be EPEAT certified, contain recycled content, or otherwise be more sustainable than other products

  Some specifics of the order include:

Procurement preference for EPEAT- registered electronic products;

Policy implementation to enable power management, duplex printing, and other energy-efficient or environmentally preferable features on all eligible agency electronic products;

Environmentally sound practices in case of agency excess or surplus electronic products;

Procurement of Energy Star and FEMP designated electronic equipment;

Best management practices for energy-efficient management of servers and Federal data centers.

Cost-effective, innovative strategies, such as highly reflective and vegetated roofs, to minimize consumption of energy, water, and materials;

Reduction in the the consumption of energy, water, and materials, and identifying alternatives to renovation that reduce existing assets’ deferred maintenance costs.

Find opportunities while procuring real estate to consolidate and dispose of existing assets, optimize the performance of the agency’s real- property portfolio, and reduce associated environmental impacts

Rehabilitation of federally owned historic buildings utilizes best practices and technologies in retrofitting to promote long- term viability of the buildings.

In addition to the above, the directive advices employees to consider alternatives to traditional commuting and business travel such as telecommuting, web meet technologies etc.

The above practices are implementable for any office or data center outside of the governmental offices that it meant for. Now with Washington setting definite, targeted goals for itself in the green department, commercial enterprises who have lagged behind would very soon have no choice but to follow the lead.

The commercial IT vendors make a constant pitch to sell new, better and improved versions of their hardware and software every quarter. But as there is no real motivation for them to promote reuse, apart from the odd brand that exchanges older models for an upgrade or volunteers to recycle for you, we hardly get to hear much on that note.

At Green Rack Systems, we promote reuse of old equipment, as a means to not only lower the stress on landfills but also save some money in the bargain.

Eric Geier in Wi-Fi planet had some great ideas recently about the reuse of old wireless routers. He says:

Don’t throw away your old 802.11g routers just yet. The new slick-looking 802.11n routers may provide higher speeds and performance, but there are still many ways your old gear can help out, including extending your wireless coverage, improving a new network, assisting in offering public Wi-Fi, providing network authentication, or enabling secure remote or site-to-site VPN connections.

Some of these ideas consist of moving the old router around to serve a different purpose. However, most make use of the neat features that replacement firmware projects offer for the popular WRT series from Linksys and many other vendors and brands. Nevertheless, all the ideas can be quite helpful and save you a lot of money.

1) Extend coverage by using it as an AP

Though wireless routers are designed to connect to and distribute an Internet connection, they can be used just for their Wi-Fi capabilities. In other words, you can use it as an access point (AP) instead of a wireless router. If you have a small network with only a single wireless router, this can just about double your wireless coverage—and it’s essentially free.

Like a regular AP, you want to place the makeshift AP in a thoughtful spot to provide the best coverage. You want the wireless coverage boundaries of each router to overlap some. Then you have to run an Ethernet cable from the network’s router or switch all the way to the makeshift AP.

The trick to turn the router into an AP is to turn off the router’s DHCP server and to hook the Ethernet cable to one of the switch ports instead of the old router’s WAN port. For more help with this project, click here.

2) Relieve 802.11n routers from supporting 802.11g

When using 802.11n (or Draft N), it’s best to allow only 802.11n connections on the router. If 802.11g clients connect, they can slow down the newer clients. However, you can set up the old router again, just to support the old clients. You’d use the router as an AP, such as discussed above, except you could place it right next to the new router since you aren’t trying to get more coverage.

So you can better differentiate between the 802.11g and 802.11n signals, you should use different SSIDs or network names. To make sure someone loaded with a 802.11g card doesn’t accidentally connect to the new router, you can change the default wireless mode to 802.11n only.

3)Make it a repeater to take the signal further

Another way you can use an old router to extend your Wi-Fi footprint is to turn it into a repeater. Instead of having to run an Ethernet cable out to an AP, a repeater gets its network connection by listening to the airwaves and retransmitting the Wi-Fi signals between the existing wireless network and the users out of the main coverage area. This is great if you can’t or don’t want to run wires.

Though this range-extending technique doesn’t require running cables, it does require flashing your router with replacement firmware. That’s because routers don’t come with the repeater feature out of the box. If you have a supported router, you can use the DD-WRT, Tomato, or Sveasoft firmware replacement.

4) Use it as a wireless bridge

If you have computers or other network devices that need to be connected to the network but only have an Ethernet port and aren’t close enough to the router, you could convert your old router into a wireless bridge. In bridge mode, the old router would communicate with the new router via the airwaves. Any computers connected to the old router’s Ethernet ports would be just like they were wirelessly connected with the new router themselves.

Like with the repeater mode, to get this bridging capability, you’ll have to use a firmware replacement: DD-WRT, Tomato, or Sveasoft.

For more on wireless bridges, read Ask the Wi-Fi Guru, Episode XVI.

5) Offer VPN connections or connect offices together

Another feature provided by some firmware replacements is a built-in VPN server and client. This lets you set up the router for secure remote connections, so you can access files and services or secure your Wi-Fi hotspot connections. Plus if you have multiple locations, you can securely connect them via the Internet. You can find this functionality in the DD-WRT or Sveasoft firmware replacements.

6) Turn it into a hotspot

If you have a business, you could convert your old router into a hotspot gateway. Though you can simply plug in a regular wireless router to offer wireless Internet, you should implement the hotspot features. A captive portal makes users see a disclaimer or advertisements, or make payment, before getting Internet access. Plus some hotspot gateways can manage user accounts if login is required.

Both DD-WRT and Sveasoft include hotspot features. You might also want to check out the CoovaAP firmware replacement and all their free services. Sputnik offers a modified version of DD-WRT along with their paid services.

7) Make it a RADIUS server

If you want to use the enterprise mode of WPA or WPA2, but don’t have a RADIUS server to do the authentication, you may be able to convert your old router into one. If you have a supported router, you can flash it with the TinyPEAP firmware replacement.

Do your own brainstorming

We’ve discussed many ideas on how to use your old gear. Now you can review the features and documentation of the firmware projects to see if there are even more features that interest you. If all else fails, list your equipment on eBay…

Great points! For some more fresh ideas on recycling and reuse of your older datacenter hardware, please contact us at sales@GreenRackSystems.com