Green IT and Green Computing

 

What is driving Green IT or Green Computing?  Probably cost reduction (lower TCO) through virtualization and consolidation, resulting in Green IT.  There were several articles published a year ago as Green IT starting gaining more attention.  Here are a few:

Green IT- Corporate Strategies from www.businessweek.com

5 Steps to Green IT from www.eweek.com

Top green-IT users and vendors from www.computerworld.com

Whether your company has a Green initiative or sees Green Computing as a positive bi-product of cost reduction effort, especially with server consolidation and virtuallization.  Windows EBS helps companies lower total cost of ownership and increase productivity, which may  companies believe are crucial for surviving or even thriving in today's economic conditions.

The three primary benefits of Green Computing or Green IT, regardless of company size or location are: lowering total cost of ownership, reducing energy consumption, maximizing resource efficiency.

EBS Partner Training and Resources

Localized Partner Training on EBS should be available in early March in French, Germany, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Brazilian Portuguese.

Partner Tools and Training for Windows EBS can be found on the MSPP.  Resources support:

1. Migration from SBS to EBS
2. Windows EBS Jumpstart Online Kit
3. Market Ready Customer Campaigns
4. Additional Information and Resources:

Identify issues with your current network environment

Whether or not you try or buy EBS, you can download and use the Windows Essential Business Server Planning & Preparation to identify issues in your current network environment.  The Preparation Wizard scans your network environment and identifies issues that you need to correct to be able to deploy Windows EBS. The tool runs about 100 environment checks and provides data and documentation (KBRs) links to address the issues found.  The Planning Wizard collects information about the network settings that you will need to install Windows EBS. 

You will get a feel for the best practices used to develop EBS and its infrastructure optimization.  It's free and does not require you to download EBS.

EBS virtualized on one Sun server

Sun is delivering EBS virtualized onto one sever. This speaks to the solution, HW cost savings, energy savings (green IT) and their Try and Buy promotion where you get up to a 40% discount.

Guest bloggers

I am inviting a few current customers to blog about their experience with Windows EBS.  Please remember that comments to blogs are not moderated, so please fee free to ask them questions.  Ask about cost benefits and how EBS lowered their infrastructure TCO and increased productivity.  EBS enabled some customers to take 100% of their employees to Windows Mobile like Collegiate Housing in this post.  Others have realized significantly lower TCO.  While there are 12 EBS case studies posted here that support increased end-user and IT staff productivity, ask actual IT Professionals and Business Decision Makers who have switched to EBS.

Windows EBS 2008 downloads available on MSDN

Windows EBS 2008 is available for download on MSDN:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/default.aspx?pv=36:347

Sun Microsystems providing service and support for EBS on one physical server

Sun Microsystems is marketing Windows EBS Standard as virtualized on one physical server.  Sun Microsystems has published a Sun for Windows EBS Solution Brief and Microsoft Windows EBS on Sun Microsystems x64 Systems Hardware Requirements.

From Sun's Place for Small and Medium Businesses site:

 

Our Solution: EBS on Sun

Instead of the three servers required by other platforms, Sun enables you to manage your entire Windows environment with one affordable, virtualized, and massively scalable system.

• Sun Fire X4150 or X4250 servers: Featuring Intel Xeon dual- or quad-core processors, our servers provide exceptional performance in a compact, energy-efficient package.
• J4200 storage arrays: Each array supports up to 16 fast SAS or high-capacity SATA or high-capacity SATA disk drives and a built-in capacity of more than 2 TB.
• Supported configuration: Microsoft, a Sun technology partner, has validated our integrated software, hardware, and storage solution for EBS on Sun.

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Key Benefits

Lower your total cost of ownership with Sun's cost-efficient, compact and eco-friendly EBS solution.
Why strain your IT budget when one powerful Sun server can do the work of three? With EBS on Sun, you could:

• Save 84% in energy costs over three years.
• Realize overall savings of 10% per year.
• Reduce the footprint of your EBS solution in the data center by 50%.

Meet the surging demands of your business and employees.
Our solution scales easily as your business grows, enabling you to:

• Manage a Windows environment with up to 300 concurrent users.
• Add more storage quickly with Sun Storage arrays that reduce storage costs to about $1 per gigabyte.
• Run EBS with just one virtualized Sun server instead of the three physical servers required by other platforms.

Increase your IT professionals' efficiency and productivity—and their peace of mind.
EBS on Sun dramatically reduces IT complexity by combining management, messaging, and security software in one integrated solution. Sun's reference configurations and Microsoft's best practices for small and mid-sized businesses make EBS simple for IT specialists to deploy and maintain.

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Service and Support

Get the assistance you need when you need it: Sun's award-winning service and support helps keep your systems running.

EBS is gaining market traction

I am seeing EBS gaining traction in the market.  I expected sales to pick-up in January and February, following the holiday season and at the beginning of many fiscal years.  Whether credit is opening up in some markets or customers are leveraging SmartPay promotion from Microsoft or other credit offered by Microsoft Finance for software, hardware and services, I am optimistic that the first full week in January is an indicator for the next few months.  The market is confirming the value of EBS, where increased productivity and lower TCO are essential especially in today's global economy.    Here is an article from CIO Insight on IT Productivity.  Is this book worth the read?

Where is EBS on the technology adoption life cycle (TALC)? EBS is currently establishing the beach head and preparing for the tornado effect.  Where do you want to be on the EBS TALC?

EBS Myths

This quick, impromptu, 5-minutes video informally discusses a few myths of Windows Essential Business Server (EBS). Please let me know topics you may be interested in and who you want me to interview in the future.

First thing Monday morning without coffee, ugh.

Congratulations for our first two EBS MVPs

Amy Babinchak (US) and Oliver Sommer (Germany) are the first two EBS MVPs.

Congratulations!