Roundup: EPA on Energy Star, Scalent, 3PAR

EPA's Power Usage Effectiveness. The EPA Energy Star program will focus measurements on energy rather than power. The new Energy Star certification will be a rating for data centers and will be based on Energy Usage Effectiveness (EUE). A data center's EUE, normalized for a variety of the facility's characteristics will calculate the 1-100 rating for that facility. Data centers in the top 25 percentile will qualify for Energy Star certification. EUE is calculated by dividing the total source energy by total UPS energy. Some factors will not be a part of the calculation, such as heating and cooling degree days, data center type (traditional, hosting, Internet, etc) and UPS utilization. The EPA plans to launch the new rating system in April of 2010.

Scalent granted patent for virtual data center. Infrastructure provisioning software company Scalent Systems announced Tuesday that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted the company a patent "a system and method for implementing a virtual data center." This is in reference to the way that Scalent V/OE Infrastructure Manager software automates the provisioning and management of data center infrastructure. The software rapidly provisions what servers are running and how they are connected to networks and storage, without the need to make physical server, cable or SAN changes. Scalent has OEM agreements with Dell, EMC and Unisys for the V/OE Infrastructure manager software.

3Par chosen by Horizon Data Center Solutions.  Utility storage provider 3PAR announced Tuesday that 3PAR Utility Storage had been chosen by by Horizon Data Center Solutions (HDCS).  Horizon will use 3PAR to enable their FlexSafe Cloud. Vice president and Chief Marketing Officer at HDCS Chuck Smith said “Since deploying our virtual datacenter, 3PAR has delivered everything we need from a storage platform—industry-leading performance, high availability, virtual private arrays, disaster recovery, tiered storage capability—all within a single, consolidated array that is both cost-efficient and easily scalable.”

Australian data centers. Gartner announced Tuesday that nominations are open for the inaguural Gartner Green data centre excellence award which will be given at the Infrastructure Operations and Data Centre Summit in Sydney in March 2010.  The award is meant to promote excellence in "green IT" and will recognize organizations in the Asia Pacific region.   In a related note,  the Minister for Finance and Deregulation Lindsay Tanner announced the five companies that will make up an interim panel for data centre facilities and services.  “The Government has consulted widely with industry in the development of this strategy and we are confident that through it, we will achieve further efficiencies and improve our ability to provide reliable and sustainable services.”