Matt Deacon's digestive blog : sustainability

Four reasons to go Green!

matt deacon — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:08:00 GMT

So by now we all pretty much know that we need to take significant action on climate change but the question is how do you get others to act?

Here's my paper that spells out the four arguments to use in arguing for change within your organisation:

The Environment
The Customer
The Government
The Money

Enjoy and let me know your thoughts ... I am really keen to flesh out more on the customer argument in particular and examples would be great.

Sustainability from Datacentre to cloud

matt deacon — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:20:00 GMT

Here's a copy of the deck I presented at the Architect Forum in Bradford yesterday. Great event with lots of great discussions especially about green IT.

"Gen 4" Modular Datacentres

matt deacon — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:47:00 GMT

We've been talking about container DCs for a while now but this announcement today formalises this into a pretty compelling vision of how DCs might look in the future ...

"The concept behind the modular data center builds on the learnings and innovations garnered from our research and data centers like the Chicago facility, which was designed to house hundreds of shipping containers packed with up to 2500 servers each. From our experience in designing Chicago and exploring the benefits modularity can provide, we have developed our vision for the future. Our “Gen 4” modular data centers will take the flexibility of containerized servers and apply it across the entire facility, which will be composed of modular “building blocks” of prefabricated mechanical, electrical and security components, etc. in addition to containerized servers. These facilities can be built incrementally as capacity grows and deployed in only 3 to 6 months, reducing capital costs and construction wastes, packaging and energy, etc. Modular data centers will enable smart growth and efficiency that is scalable and sustainable, ensuring that our global footprint is only as big as capacity demands that it be."

For full background on our modular data center vision, take a look at Mike Monos' blog, as well as this video posted at Soapbox.

Hyper-Green virtualisation tool

matt deacon — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:24:00 GMT

Hyper-Green is a fun tool that allows you to measure the cost and environmental savings through virtualisation. It also provides a neat benefits report that lists energy costs per US state ... shame it doesn't do the same for other countries ... yet

Sustainable IT: From datacentre to cloud

matt deacon — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:06:00 GMT

Just realised I'm speaking next week at the QCON in Finance Exchange on the 8th October:)!

Sustainability @ Microsoft

matt deacon — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 11:34:00 GMT

Deck I recently used at the HP Innovating for a sustainable future event last week.Full of fun pictures if nothing else ...

Social networks and saving the planet

matt deacon — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:22:00 GMT

I got the following link to Obama's campaign from a friend over the weekend and while I am not sure how true this example really is it made me think about the web is driving behavioural change in relation to the environment.

Everywhere I look environmental issues are taking centre stage across the events I attend, the analysts I talk to and the web sites I visit. It maybe all too late, or it might not change the way we behave ... or could it?

There are many names I keep hearing repeated some of which are reasonably obvious like that of Jonathan Porritt whom I remember idolising as representative of Friends of the Earth while I was a student. He's now Programme Director of Forum for the Future and Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission and his blog is a must read IMO. However, the guys that have got me most interested are Rob Hopkins and Ben Brangwyn who together set up the Transition Towns which describes a model for responding to the twin challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change. Now Peak Oil is worth further exploration (excuse the pun) and if you don't know the concept then it's worth reading up on. According to wikipedea since 2006 the number of towns taking part is now at over 50 and not just limited to those in the UK. What I like is that the program encourages communities "to seek out methods for reducing energy usage as well as increasing their own self reliance" - all of which plays to the power of social networking and collective intelligence in finding real and practical ways to make a difference rather than waiting for the inevitable but lethargic response of government.