Data Center Alliance Road Show Overview

Data Center Alliance’s First Event Provides Innovative Ideas for Increasing Data Center Efficiency

Speakers from PG&E, ENERGY STAR, and industry leading data center companies share valuable insights

The Data Center Alliance (DCA) today announced that they successfully hosted their first event, titled “Winds of Change: Creative Concepts for Increasing Data Center Efficiency,” on July 27th at the Biltmore hotel in Santa Clara, California. The event explored solutions for data center efficiency challenges to an audience of CIOs, facilities managers, data center managers, IT managers and system administrators.

The Data Center Alliance event was sponsored by DCA members Digi International, Elliptical Mobile Solutions, Minicom, PDI, and Wright Line. Together with other alliance partners, these companies have joined forces to leverage the core strengths of each organization, and to fill the information gap in the marketplace by providing a centralized, comprehensive source for building successful IT infrastructures.

Digi’s presentation about their integrated console management platform made a compelling case for centralized access control as a driving force in helping data enters run more smoothly. It was hard not to be convinced by Elliptical Mobile Solutions’ concrete value proposition for their modular data centers: their “Data Center in a Box” offers operational expenditures savings for clients from 40% to 65%. Minicom demonstrated how remote access management increases operation efficiency while maintaining security. Equally exciting was PDI’s talk about their power solutions, and the innovations they have introduced in order to track and reduce data center energy use. Wright Line’s erudite explanation about how to eliminate chaos cooling gave participants a road map for creating predictability in their data centers.

William Dunckel, Senior Project Manager at Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), captivated the audience with his keynote speech on “Myths and Facts Driving Data Center Energy.” Bringing charts and statistics to life, Dunckel drove home the necessity of reducing the carbon footprint of data centers, and outlined strategies for making it happen.

“It’s encouraging to see the dedication of the data center community to this important initiative,” Dunckel said. “The existence of this event bodes well for the future of the environment.”

Kathy M. Diehl, Regional ENERGY STAR Program Manager, spoke about the hot topic "ENERGY STAR for Data Centers." Her talk addressed the development of the "Guiding Principles for Energy Efficiency Metrics for Data Centers," giving a colorful context to the standards that are now used. Diehl's speech highlighted the reality that most stand-alone and larger buildings housing data centers have the means for tracking and curbing energy use.

“With ENERGY STAR’s help, it is easy to establish an energy management program that will benefit both your company’s bottom line and the environment. I am happy for the opportunity to inform the attendees of this event about ENERGY STAR's efforts to support energy efficiency for data centers,” said Diehl.

“The DCA is proud to host an event with such relevance and substance. After hearing all our speakers, attendees have the tools to make major positive changes in many aspects of their data centers, such as scalable designs for rack enclosures, data center mobility, lowering cooling costs, remote access management, power management, and facility design. We are already planning the next DCA event!” said David Zucker, Executive Director, DCA.

Here are some photos from the set up:

Minicom Demonstrates How Vendor Neutral Remote Access Management Plays Vital Role in Data Center Efficiency

Along with IPswitch, Talariax, and Orsenna, Minicom hosted a seminar entitled “Supervision and Administration of Information Technology”” at the Bedford Hotel in Paris on July 1st. The focus of the seminar was on how companies can meet the challenge of monitoring their IT networks and systems to avoid unplanned downtime.

Denis Adda, Minicom’s Associate Vice-President for EMEA, and Thierry Destombes, Minicom’s Sales Manager for France, highlighted the value of remote access management for IT infrastructures, and gave a live demonstration of how it works.

Weren’t in Paris on the first? Check out our new white paper on the value of Remote Access Management.

PG&E Senior Manager to Deliver Keynote Address at the First Data Center Alliance Road Show

Come hear William Dunckel speak about “Myths & Facts Driving Data Center Energy” in Santa Clara, CA on July 27, 2010. It’s the first Data Center Alliance event, and it’s going to be a lot of fun: great speakers, networking opportunities, and free breakfast.

William (Bill) Dunckel works as Senior Project Manager in the Customer Energy Efficiency division of Pacific Gas & Electric Company. Dunckel also serves as the Energy Committee Chairman of the Critical Facilities Roundtable, a consortium of data center and critical facilities owners and operators in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has been improving quality and efficiency of manufacturing and high tech service processes since 1980. Dunckel, a licensed professional industrial engineer with degrees from UC Berkeley and San Jose State University, has also been a graduate engineering professor and a member of SJSU’s Center for Manufacturing Excellence.

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