Climate Savers Computing Targets Seamless Interaction between Power Management and Software Apps
ORLANDO, Fl - July 6, 2011 - Climate Savers Computing Initiative (CSCI), the global consortium focused on reducing the energy consumption and carbon footprint of computing equipment through power management and more energy efficient computing technologies, today announced that it will bring power management experts and software developers together in Orlando for a July 26 round-table at the IEEE Green Computing Conference.
The event will serve as a forum for interested participants to address areas where software applications may interfere with power management on PCs and networked computers, and to collaborate on solutions. The round-table is sponsored by the CSCI Computer Power Management Workgroup and will be hosted by Abhishek Agrawal, senior software engineer, Intel, and George O. Goodman, executive director, CSCI.
"The use of computer power management within organizations and homes is growing and is an important tool for reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions," said Goodman. "Developers invited to participate in the CSCI round-table will take a leadership role in helping to ensure power management and software applications can always work together."
CSCI is holding the round-table after members learned of potential power management performance issues when used in conjunction with various software applications. A call for input was issued to CSCI members and the global IT industry to get more information about how software may affect power management. The call for input remains open at http://bit.ly/jyANP3
Software developers interested in receiving an invitation to the July 26 round-table are encouraged to contact Goodman through his blog at http://bit.ly/jyANP3
About Climate Savers Computing Initiative
CSCI is reducing energy consumption by increasing the energy efficiency of computing equipment, increasing the adoption and deployment of power management, and providing education about the financial and environmental benefits of energy efficient computing. Nearly 680 members have joined SCSI since its launch in 2007, and more than 10,000 people have joined as individuals by pledging to use power management and purchase energy efficient computing technologies. CSCI is led by Cisco, Emerson, F5 Networks, Google, Intel Juniper Networks, Microsoft, Samsung and World Wildlife Fund.
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Climate Savers is a trademark or registered trademark of WWF, the international conservation organization. Used under license.
Contact:
Russ DeVeau
e-mail - russdeveau@comcast.net
mobile/text - 908-251-1549
CSCI Newsletter for June 2011
Beware the vampires
Another reminder that bears repeating is to eliminate "vampire" power consumers in your home and office. Is your laptop fully charged? Unplug the AC adaptor and you'll kill a vampire. Your tablet is all full up on the battery meter? Drive a stake through another vampire and unplug the charger. Look for opportunites to eliminate these small-but-numerous users of power that serve no purpose.
July will see CSCI represented at the IEEE International Green Computing Conference in Orlando, Florida (see below for more info), where we'll have a roundtable-style engagement with software developers around the topic of software interactions and interference with power management. We're putting increasing focus on whacking all the reasons that folks have for not using power management and the real and perceived problems with these interactions are a big one of those reasons. Look at the Call to Action below for a reminder of how you can help...and help spread the word!
As always, if you've suggestions or would like to provide material for a future Newsletter, please contact me!George O. Goodman
Executive Director, CSCIUpcoming Events
New CSCI Website and Product Catalog design
launching in July at ClimateSaversComputing.org.
IEEE International Green Computing Conference 2011(IGCC'11)
July 25-28
The Holiday Inn at Disneyworld
Note: The CSCI Roundtable is on July 26
Workgroup Updates
AC-DC Workgroup: Work continues with the 80+ folks, looking at more aggressive efficiency targets to push beyond Energy Star.
Marketing Workgroup: We're preparing for two Roundtable venues on the topic of interactions between software apps & power management and pushing out CSCI's power management messages through traditional and social media, in support of the upcoming roundtables.
Networking Workgroup: The three subteams are moving toward complete drafts on their outputs, with the power-supply unit (PSU) team closest to buttoning things up, the Energy-Efficiency Guide group is working through their full document to make it consistent and clear, and the Networking Power Management folks are likewise working to refine their paper to be clear to the intended audience. All three efforts are shooting for getting material to a reviewable state in July.
Power Management Workgroup: As June ends, the PM Workgroup is in the final days of content creation and polishing for the upcoming roundtable sessions with software developers.Samsung joins CSCI's Board of Directors
In June we issued a press release announcing that Samsung has become a member of the CSCI Board of Directors. Samsung joins representatives from Cisco, Emerson Network Power, F5 Networks, Google, Intel, Juniper Networks, Microsoft, and the World Wildlife Fund on the CSCI Board. Check out the press release at this link.
Jim Elliott, Vice President of Memory Marketing and Product Planning at Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. will serve as the Samsung CSCI Board representative. You can learn more about Jim on our website.
In CSCI, Samsung expects to work with other member companies to drive the increase of power efficiency for servers, notebooks, desktop computers, and a range of other equipment. We offer a big welcome to Jim and the Samsung team!
Software Applications and Power Management: your examples are great!
Last month, we talked about the sometimes contentious relationship between the software applications that make your computer useful and the power management features that can make it friendlier to your energy wallet and the environment. We asked you to send in your examples (a request reinforced below in this month's Call to Action!") and you did it.
The "offenders" span a range of software categories and types, including:- Commercial software and open source community-supported software
- Applications and device drivers
- Applications running on Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, and Linux distributions
CSCI won't be keeping these examples to ourselves. They'll be part of what we discuss as we engage software developers and software development organizations in the coming months.
Thanks for what you've sent in!
CALL TO ACTION!
Keep it coming: examples of sofware interference with power managementWe're repeating this Call, because the specific examples you're providing add realism to the conversations we have with software developers. Are there software applications you just know are interfering with power management on your computer(s)? Do you have friends who have complained about this kind of problem? Tell us about these issues by sending a description that includes:- Name of application
- Developer of application
- Version/Release of application
- Your Operating System and version (e.g., Windows7, OS x 10.5)
- A description of what happens -- or doesn't -- when you try to use power management
If you don't know what's interfering, give us #4 and #5 with as much as you'd feel comfortable telling about the applications you generally use.
Pass this request along to your friends, or just point them to this link to our blog entry on the topic.
Send your info to george_at_climatesaverscomputing. org (change the "_at_" to "@") and CSCI's Power Management Workgroup will include your information in our discussions internally and with sofware developers. Help us to help applications and power mangement to get along!
July will see CSCI represented at the IEEE International Green Computing Conference in Orlando, Florida (see below for more info), where we'll have a roundtable-style engagement with software developers around the topic of software interactions and interference with power management. We're putting increasing focus on whacking all the reasons that folks have for not using power management and the real and perceived problems with these interactions are a big one of those reasons. Look at the Call to Action below for a reminder of how you can help...and help spread the word!
As always, if you've suggestions or would like to provide material for a future Newsletter, please contact me!
Executive Director, CSCI
New CSCI Website and Product Catalog design
launching in July at ClimateSaversComputing.org.
IEEE International Green Computing Conference 2011(IGCC'11)
July 25-28
The Holiday Inn at Disneyworld
Note: The CSCI Roundtable is on July 26
AC-DC Workgroup: Work continues with the 80+ folks, looking at more aggressive efficiency targets to push beyond Energy Star.
Marketing Workgroup: We're preparing for two Roundtable venues on the topic of interactions between software apps & power management and pushing out CSCI's power management messages through traditional and social media, in support of the upcoming roundtables.
Networking Workgroup: The three subteams are moving toward complete drafts on their outputs, with the power-supply unit (PSU) team closest to buttoning things up, the Energy-Efficiency Guide group is working through their full document to make it consistent and clear, and the Networking Power Management folks are likewise working to refine their paper to be clear to the intended audience. All three efforts are shooting for getting material to a reviewable state in July.
Power Management Workgroup: As June ends, the PM Workgroup is in the final days of content creation and polishing for the upcoming roundtable sessions with software developers.
Jim Elliott, Vice President of Memory Marketing and Product Planning at Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. will serve as the Samsung CSCI Board representative. You can learn more about Jim on our website.
In CSCI, Samsung expects to work with other member companies to drive the increase of power efficiency for servers, notebooks, desktop computers, and a range of other equipment. We offer a big welcome to Jim and the Samsung team!
The "offenders" span a range of software categories and types, including:
CALL TO ACTION!
Keep it coming: examples of sofware interference with power management
Reminding you of our Call to Action on software interfering with power management
Have you seen problems between software apps and your own power management?
- Name of application
- Developer of application
- Version/Release of application
- Your Operating System and version (e.g., Windows7, OS x 10.5)
- A description of what happens -- or doesn't -- when you try to use power management
Getting serious about how power management and software apps work together, CSCI call-for-input continues!
Samsung Electronics Joins Climate Savers Computing Initiative
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CSCI's Newsletter for May 2011
The light is coming
We're heading into a relatively quiet month or two as regards conferences and such. However, CSCI's Workgroups are very busy (check out what's up, below). If your company or organization is a member at the Sponsor or Board level, all you need to is start attending Workgroup meetings to participate. If you're an Associate member, drop me a line and we'll talk.
As always, if you've suggestions or would like to provide material for a future Newsletter, please contact me!
easier-to-navigate CSCI website by the end of June.
- Flash won't let my computer Suspend.
- My anti-virus program seems to keep my computer awake.
- Ever since that last software update, Hibernate doesn't work.
Have you seen problems between software apps and your own power management?
- Name of application
- Developer of application
- Version/Release of application
- Your Operating System and version (e.g., Windows7, OS x 10.5)
- A description of what happens -- or doesn't -- when you try to use power management
Reflections on The Uptime Institute's 2011 Symposium
- There are some solidly established data center infrastructure design and implementation best practices that will reduce energy use -- and, thus, carbon emissions -- of that infrastructure. These best practices are most often used in new, large data centers and use of them has not broadly extended down into smaller or older centers. So, there remains room for carbon and energy improvement at that level.
- Data center operators and the organizations that actually run the IT equipment in the data centers are almost always in different organizations or even companies. In the case of co-location centers (where the IT organization has a Bring Your Own Servers model and effectively rents rack space & power) there is an even more tenuous connection between infrastructure and IT. This tends to result in a lack of clear motivation for the IT folk to reduce their energy use (e.g., through energy-efficient servers and adopting the power management features now appearing in servers) since they don't see the energy bills in terms of their use. Further, the data center operators have no visibility into what the IT systems are doing and, so, don't see the opportunities for improvements.
- Progress made in the past decade on PC power management outside the data center is starting to find its way into the data center. When combined with techniques like server consolidation and virtualization, server power management stands ready to help achieve real reductions in data center server energy use. CSCI member company 1E was at the Symposium and talking about this topic; their "Nightwatchman Server Edition" product is one of the early entries in this move from desktop power management into the data center.
- Just as is true elsewhere in the enterprise, the lack of connection between those paying the energy bills and those using the energy is blunting a potentially strong motivation for reductions in energy use. The company departments using desktop systems in office buildings have no visibility into the fact that their on-all-night computers are costing the company money; neither do the IT folk with underused or unused servers using energy and HVAC in the data center. There were a few case studies presented during the week that showed how this lack of connection and visibility can be addressed.
The Climate Savers Computing Initiative is a nonprofit group of eco-conscious consumers, businesses and conservation organizations dedicated to improving the power efficiency and reducing the energy consumption of computers. By producing and purchasing power-efficient products, our goal is to achieve a 50 percent reduction in power consumption by computers by 2010. For more information, visit www.climatesaverscomputing.org.
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