thinkASG’s Green IT – Earthday 2009 Event was a great success.
The Presentations by thinkASG on the merits of IBM’s x3650 M2, which utilize the Intel Xeon 5500 (Nehalem) Series Processors, along with Cisco’s presentation on Unified Fabric, demonstrated to our attendees the ability to run cutting edge technology solutions while simultaneously making great strides towards achieving Green objectives in their datacenter. Key areas of the presentation revolved around the Dynamic Infrastructure :
Cost Reduction:
• Containing Operational Costs
• Reducing Complexity
• Unparalleled Productivity Gains via Virtualization and Optimization
Service Improvement:
• Providing High Availability across the Infrastructure
• Exceeding End User Expectations (both Internal Business Units and External Customers)
• Dynamic Access to Innovative Services
thinkASG demonstrated that these objectives can be met utilizing Green IT Solutions. Fewer more powerful IBM servers utilizing VMware’s virtualization technologies, connected through Cisco’s Unified Fabric, allow the business to reduce the cost of the data center by lowering the capital expense for the equipment, providing greater savings on power and cooling, and realizing the return on investment more quickly.
Key Components of the Green Datacenter
IBM x3650 M2: 
• 2U Chassis
• 2 Intel Xeon 5500 (Nehalem) Processors
• Up to 128 GB of high-performance DDR-3 memory (planned availability this quarter)
• New energy-efficient design 675W power supplies are up to 92% efficient
• VMware ESXi 3.5 embedded hypervisor support
Intel Xeon 5500 (Nehalem) Series Processors:
• Up to 2.93 GHz and up to 1333 MHz front-side bus
• Up to 2.25 times the performance of the 5400 Series Processors
• Integrated power gates to control the power usage based on the actual activity.
• Turbo Boost Technology to ramp up processor speed demanded by consolidated workloads.
Cisco Nexus 5000: 
• High-performance 10 Gigabit Datacenter Ethernet
• Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)
• Virtual-machine-optimized networking
• Up to 40 fixed wire-speed 10 Gigabit Ethernet Ports
• Up to 2 expansion ports that support optional connectivity modules, such as 1/2/4 Gigabit Fibre Channel or additional 10 Gigabit Data Center Ethernet and FCoE.
The event was concluded at Edwards Cinemas for an advanced showing of Disney’s nature movie “Earth”.
