Microsoft steps up its green datacenter campaign

By | June 4, 2007, 8:08am PDT

Summary: Green computing is a hot topic these days. And “Big Green” (a k a Microsoft) wants to make sure its next-gen Windows Server products are among the greenest of them all.

Green computing is a hot topic these days. And “Big Green” (a k a Microsoft) wants to make sure its next-gen Windows Server products are among the greenest of them all.

As a result of power-management tweaks it has made to its software, Microsoft is expecting Windows Server 2008 systems to use about 20 percent less power than existing Windows Server systems. Windows Server General Manager Bill Laing mentioned Windows Server 2008’s power-saving capabilities in a recent interview I did with him for Redmond Developer News:

We’ve done power management by default in Longhorn Server. And we think average machines will see maybe 20 percent reduction in power use. You kind of slow the clock down when it’s not busy. And it’s dynamic enough that you can literally slow the clock down across a disk I/O. If you’ve got nothing to do while you’re doing a disk I/O, it actually drops the power use for that short period of time. It’s not like sleeping [for] the laptop; this is really short, what they call P-state for processor state.”

And during the next couple of months, it sounds like a few Softies will be focused on carving out an official “Green Datacenter Strategy” for Microsoft. Microsoft blogger Lewis Curtis mentioned that he is part of a team scheduled to provide an internal presentation on Microsoft’s datacenter-energy-consumption plans in July. Curtis blogged at the end of May:

“This presentation will focused on having a energy consumption strategy in the datacenter, what the industry is doing, what customers expect from us and ideas for Microsoft for the future.”

Any thoughts to share with Microsoft regarding green datacenter strategies and products?

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Mary Jo has covered the tech industry for more than 25 years for a variety of publications and Web sites, and is a frequent guest on radio, TV and podcasts, speaking about all things Microsoft-related. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008).

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Mary-Jo Foley

Freelance journalist/blogger Mary Jo Foley has nothing to disclose. WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). I do not own Microsoft stock or stock in any of its partners or competitors. I have no business ventures that are sponsored by/funded by Microsoft or any of its partners or competitors.

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Mary-Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 25 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She has kept close tabs on Microsoft strategy, products and technologies for the past 10 years. In the late 1990s, she penned the award-winning "At The Evil Empire" column for ZDNet, and more recently the Microsoft Watch blog for Ziff Davis.

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Talkback Most Recent of 10 Talkback(s)

  • Looks like a step in the right direction..
    i wish their software wasnt such a resource hog.. then i wouldnt need huge servers to perform single tasks.. maybe i could go with a smaller server which would consume less energy.

    To their credit.. based on the core article.. they maybe doing just as much!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Been_Done_Before
    4th Jun 2007
  • Right, like the NAS provider that switched from Windows to Linux and went
    from 256 meg down do 64 meg, and a 20 percent reduction in price. I am sure it used a lot less energy too, considering they needed a lot less memory.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    DonnieBoy
    4th Jun 2007
  • Here's a thought
    How about all data center operators can build their data centers anywhere in the US, but they ought to buy some land in the desert and put solar panels. The power generated by solar panels ought to be equal to power consumed at the data center.

    Generating more power than consuming, is always welcome.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    zzz1234567890
    4th Jun 2007
  • headless servers
    Strip out anything not used in the task at hand. Web servers and Database servers don't need a GUI, so build then without graphics cards and run a headless windows server, sort of like a UNIX without X wink Back to the future!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    shis-ka-bob
    4th Jun 2007
  • GUI doesnt take cpu cycles if it is not used
    If you know a little about memory management you'd realize that GUI doesnt take cpu cycles if it is not used.


    One can write applications that dont use GUI. Services are good examples.


    However having GUI present in the OS, would let any programs use it if required.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    zzz1234567890
    4th Jun 2007
  • ???
    There is a graphics processor running on any PC with a GUI. On a headless server, you don't need (much of a) graphics processor. This can save energy.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    shis-ka-bob
    4th Jun 2007
  • but why have one at all?
    Build a simple cli and you don't need to wast the memory consumed by the Gui as well, leave the choice up to the customer!
    ZDNet Gravatar
    Suicida|
    4th Jun 2007
  • The VILLAGE IDIOTS trying to tell us how to save power in the data center??
    Don't they know how STUPID they sound??? I mean really, slowing the CPU during a disk read??? They never heard of multi-threading processors that have another thread ready to go when another is waiting??? Think more about turning off complete CPU cores when the demand goes down. These comments just make them look STUPID, like they have no idea what a data center is.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    DonnieBoy
    4th Jun 2007
  • ZDNet Gravatar
    ballmerrules@...
    13th Jun 2007
  • RE: Microsoft steps up its green datacenter campaign
    Excellent document. I carefully concur mulberry bags with almost every tiny matter you may have generated.
    ZDNet Gravatar
    jackson1984-24316069205748857739440257893812
    10th Oct

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