THE GREEN GRID Technical Forum has been generating a fair bit of hot air this week in San Francisco.

The Green Grid now boasts some 150 member organisations, dedicated they say, "to advancing energy efficiency in data centres and business computing ecosystems." It says its mission is to provide "industry-wide recommendations on best practices, metrics and technologies that will improve overall data center energy efficiencies".

For a "Green" conference they seem to be moving in the right direction, " inching forward" according to Renato Crocetti, ADP, corporate VP.

Throughout the conference there were buzzwords and phrases such as: industry collaboration, escalating energy costs, eat our own dog food, energy star is better than nothing and if you can't measure it, you can't improve it.

To translate for you, the industry is struggling through a sea-change of different expectations from customers, different costs, and a different mind-set. They're actually talking to each other so they can move forward with a standard that might be sensible and usable for most everyone involved. And, with relief we report that they know they need to walk the talk, or practise what they preach to have any type of green rating system mean anything over time.

There were some interesting case studies and a number of companies that offer a range of services for the data centre manager in attendance.

ADP's Crocetti made an excellent comparison to the auto industry. For so many years more horsepower - or more megahertz - was what people wanted. But now the focus on efficiency is driving things in the other direction in the IT industry and maybe Detroit could learn a thing or two.

Said Croceti: "Technology needs to lead the way, consensus, standards, methods, and good management will enable better decisions."

ADP moved from over 20 data centres to two. Why? The drivers were fragmented operations and old, nefficient centres. It provided them with better safety, efficiency, a higher quality data centre and their business model drove the effort because of the cost savings.

He reckons the business case for efficiency was the easiest part of the process. Business leaders are finding that it makes them more competitive. A number of questions from the audience about making the business case leads to a need for metrics and standards.

Jim Miller of Enterprise Rent A Car,said "Green" is a corporate initiative not just an IT need for his business. He outlined how the firm integrates corporate responsibility throughout the business with alternative and flex fuel vehicles with a fleet mgp average of 28. It sponsors scientific research for renewable fuels and has a carbon offset intitiative.

The firm consolidated into only three data centres with variable speed motors in airhandling systems, careful air containment, virtualisation and consolidation and running thin clients in branch offices. He says that it's provided a net reduction of 37KW of electrical load. µ