Cisco's TechTV to air Data Center Efficiency Episode

(Note: If you want to skip what I say and go right to the sign-up page, here's your link)

Otherwise, fasten your fun-belts!

Cisco's TechWise TV is set to "air" an episode called "Energy Efficiency in the Data Center," this Thursday, August 21 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern, which ought to be enough of a reason for a blog post.

It took a little bit of digging for me to figure out exactly what TechWise TV is, and apparently I'm a little bit behind on the subject, because it's been running since September of 2006.

It's a TV-show style web broadcast produced by Cisco and covering a range of technology topics. Most of the time it deals with Cisco products, but apparently not always.

I think I was tipped off about this particular episode because it's especially relevant to the hosting community. Anyone who reads the WHIR regularly knows we've put a lot of energy into covering green technology and its place in the data center - with our "green issue" of WHIR magazine, among other things.

Cisco is keen to get its energy efficiency message to hosting providers, which could be good news for hosting providers, depending on how effective that message is.

There's a lot of information on offer from the company regarding energy efficiency, and part of the episode is given over to a discussion of the company's efficiency assurance program, which includes planning and assessment tools for determining the efficiency of your facilities, as well as a ton of video content relating to efficient data center design. There's a lot of material on this section of the company's website, but check the "access interactive tool" link in the far right column of the page to pull up most of it.

There's a trailer for the episode hosted on YouTube. It's short, but it gives you a sense of what to expect from the episode.

In particular, the episode (I've previewed a good chunk, but haven't had time yet to watch the entire thing) discusses the fact that energy efficiency is a goal in IT operations not simply for altruistic reasons, but for the sake of its bottom-line impact. We've discussed this before - server power and cooling together make up most of the ongoing cost of operating a data center. And employing more efficient technology can reduce that cost considerably.

The program covers some key steps that data center operators can take to increase the efficiency in their businesses immediately without an overwhelming amount of investment - virtualization (in the network, in the storage area and of course on the server) being a key element in efficiency.

Overall, it's good advice, but nothing you haven't already heard if you're attuned to the problems of energy efficiency you face as data center operators. The real value in the episode has to do with some of the specific solutions (from Cisco, and from a variety of other companies) that are addressed. Might give you something to think about.

Of course, nothing is specifically for sale at this point. It's a free presentation. And along with the "live" airing next Thursday morning, there will be experts on hand answering user submitted questions via the website.

You can sign up for the session by visiting this link.