I love it when a small discovery causes me think about the big picture.

I’ve been researching water-related factoids for this week’s Data Center Deconstructed video on hydropower.  Along the way, I uncovered this tidbit from the U.S. Geological Survey: Read More »

Tags: alternative energy, Cisco, coc-data-center, dams, data center, datacenterdeconstructed, Green, hydro, hydroelectricity, hydropower, Water

When I worked as a newspaper reporter, there was one type of story my fellow writers and I always dreaded.

Weather stories.  I’m not talking about covering a major event like a tornado threatening the region or about investigating the impact of a drought on the local agriculture industry.  Those are compelling stories and we were glad to do them. Read More »

Tags: alternative energy, Cisco, coc-data-center, data center, datacenterdeconstructed, financial incentives, wind, wind turbines, windmills

What would you do if the next time you drove your car, you noticed a small amount of fuel leaking from it?  What if all cars on the road had similar leaks?

Read More »

Tags: AC, alternating current, Cisco, coc-data-center, conversion losses, data center, datacenterdeconstructed, DC, direct current, Energy, power

Rebecca Jacoby, Cisco Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, discusses Cisco’s journey to the cloud. Cisco is running a private cloud as a utility and is moving toward an inter-cloud approach. This capability will give Cisco the business process opportunity to source services from multiple places and deliver them seamlessly to employees in a flexible, cost-effective manner.

To view the complete interactive, please visit http://www.cisco.com/go/ciscoit

For more information on Cisco IT’s journey to the cloud:
Cloudy With a Chance of Data Center Savings
Parting Clouds and Being Real About Virtualization
ITIaaS Clouds Over ITIL

Tags: aaron chiles, Borderless Networks, CIO, cisco on cisco, cloud, coc-business-of-it, coc-data-center, data center, inside cisco it, private cloud, Public Cloud, Rebecca Jacoby, virtualization

If I become hiring manager for a Data Center team, I’m asking candidates whether they have Tetris skills.  Anyone who can neatly fill a space with odd-shaped blocks falling at ever-increasing speed can oversee the rack-and-stack activities in my Data Centers.

I talked in my last two posts – on preparing for and then executing a Data Center move – about planning where you want to place your Data Center hardware.  That’s a good idea even if you’re not moving your server environment, because how you deploy your equipment affects how efficiently rack space is used, airflow patterns and more. Read More »

Tags: Cisco, coc-data-center, data center, datacenterdeconstructed, hardware, hardware deployment, relocation, Servers, space planning, Tetris