Thoughts from the raised floor. Lewis Curtis Blog site

Silicon Architecture will change the way we work

2009-02-26T21:10:00Z

I've been exposed recently to some incredible developments in the silicon world. Some that I cannot mention. However, I do want to share with you an opinion about how this world will impact our world. Over the years, servers, storage and network systems have become faster and been repackaged into more interesting components. Yet, for the most part it hasn't changed various n-tier architectural patterns. However, that's about to change. Comprehensive multicore systems on a chip with extreme ultra...(read more)

Green IT Predictions for 2009

2008-12-15T11:30:58Z

It is that time of the year when we forecast environmental issues for the New Year. There have been some important new developments that happened in 2008. · A new U.S. Presidential Administration was elected that is passionate about the Environment · Environmental regulations are increasing from many countries · The economic health of the world is in significant crisis 2009 and 2010 will see the start of IT organizations investigating Environmental Regulation strategies and increase environmental...(read more)

interviewing Michael Manos about Datacenter Leadership

2008-10-27T22:12:30Z

At the last TechEd in Orlando. I interviewed Michael Manos about Datacenter Leadership and energy issues for IT. Michael is leading Microsoft’s transformation into massive scale data center environments for Web 2.0 and online services. See the interview below: ARCast.TV - Michael Manos on Datacenter Leadership...(read more)

The Trojan Horse of Server Virtualization

2008-10-22T01:49:14Z

Server Virtualization for commodity systems has become a pervasive answer in the enterprise datacenter for good reason: it is an opportunity to consolidate systems thereby reducing the number of servers in the datacenter, increase efficiency on each physical server, reduce energy consumption in the datacenter and hopefully, reduce operational deployment time for new systems. There is no doubt that the initial virtualization effort can lead to all of these promises and many more. However, there...(read more)

Heros will always ruin your it organization

2008-07-28T08:58:00Z

Working in an IT organization can be challenging. There are exhausting late night emergencies and deadlines, unpredictable technical complexities as well as executive management commonly suffering from extreme ADD. As this leads to countless hours away from family, friends and your own precious solitude, you find those few who stand out willing to sacrifice everything to accomplish success. "We're saved" you utter to yourself as disaster is averted once again or that cool project suddenly comes together....(read more)

Datacenter Leadership

2008-07-24T20:16:04Z

At TechEd Orlando, I had an opportunity to interview Michael Manos (who is in charge of all the datacenters for Microsoft) about Leadership in the modern datacenter today. Datacenter Leadership Interview....(read more)

Enterprise ARCHITECTURE TEAMS FINALLY RECOGNIZING THE VALUE OF infrastructure ARCHITECTURE LEADERSHIP

2008-07-17T16:59:24Z

Forrester recently published a report: Infrastructure Architects Link Technology Strategy With Long-Term EA and Business Goals It’s a decent article. For far too long many enterprise teams have viewed infrastructure architects as too low level not impacting or as close to the business. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve always promoted that many times, infrastructure architects can make a more substantial business impact on an organization than...(read more)

TechEd Orlando 2008 - environmentally sustainable architecture panel now we are starting to have discussions with developers. yeah.

2008-07-16T01:18:37Z

I organized and participated on a Environmentally Sustainable Architecture panel last month. There was some very interesting participants on the panel: moderator: George Cerbone Panelist: Michael Manos, Beth Humphreys, Kathy Malone, David Platt and myself. This was the first panel to start including developers in the discussion with developers. I invited David Platt to come in discuss. He had some very interesting ideas and concerns to contribute. Also, Kathy Malone...(read more)

My Vacation in April: 1 solid week without my laptop in Venice...

2008-06-27T12:24:51Z

I spent a week vacation in Venice in April. It was a beautiful place. It was also the first time I went on vacation without my laptop (my wife's request). Loosing the connection with the Web Collective... This is more difficult than I thought. I started going through withdrawal trying to enable my email to work on my GSM Windows Mobile phone via international roaming (it worked easily, although my wife was not pleased about it). I just find it hard to disconnect....(read more)

Microsoft's new environment website

2008-06-23T01:53:33Z

I hope you had a good weekend. http://www.microsoft.com/environment/ As you know, I've been heavily involved promoting architecture best practices for sustainability. Microsoft has established a new environmental site which has a lot of promise. Some highlights from the site for me: Windows Server 2008 Power Savings Datacenter best practices However, this good site is only as good as the those passionate about the subject continues to contribute best practices and insights. ...(read more)

Environmental ratings and analysts

2008-05-07T19:22:00Z

The demand for environmental impact information from organizations have increased significantly this last year. and for good reason. Customers, regulators, investors and partners are very concerned about carbon footprint, overall pollution and ecological impact. This has put more companies under the microscope for their impact to environmental sustainability. As a result, the Environmental / Greenness critic / analyst market is a lucrative field today. And there is no shortage of critics on websites...(read more)

What's so different about the environmental Sustainability Movement today...

2008-04-20T00:02:43Z

From conference presentations, customers meetings, political activity and internal debates, I would like to clarify how the "green" Environmental Sustainability movement is different from the seventies and early eighties. In the seventies and early eighties, the green / environmentalist movement was focused on saving the earth from humans. Popular publications like Gaia, Earth First, Greenpeace and the Worldwatch Institute consistently communicated negatively impacting...(read more)

Seeing the industry focus on Four areas of Green IT

2008-04-19T23:06:20Z

As the "Green" revolution is taking hold of the IT industry, I'm noticing four core areas of execution in the market. Most organizations focus on one (perhaps two areas) which showcases their strengths. However, I discovered today, it takes paying attention to all four areas in your Environmentally Sustainability strategies. Environmentally Sustainable Optimization: Reducing energy consumption and carbon footprint by optimizing the operating and development platform as...(read more)

Datacenter energy consumption is rarely a operating cost issue.

2008-03-17T21:04:00Z

From a chat with Dave O'hara today, I thought I would blog some thoughts around datacenter energy consumption and some common confusion concerning costs. Do organizations with dedicated datacenters save money when they install more efficient servers and reduce energy consumption? Short Answer: Rarely Why? It all is associated with how most dedicated datacenters negotiate energy consumption with utility companies (operating cost issue). Usually, they negotiate rates at blocks of energy consumption...(read more)

Thinking about Eric Janszen's article: the Next Bubble

2008-03-10T14:35:00Z

In Feb 2008 edition of Harpers, Eric Janszen wrote an article titled "The Next Bubble" where he descibed the wave of investment in altnerative energy as the next bubble. http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/0081908 While I aggree, there is good probability of bubble investment in alternative energy, this will hopefully drive down costs of alternative energy solutions. But there is more to think about with this article. I could see his point. Yet, there are two economic bubbles happening. One raising...(read more)