IBM Previews Project Big Green in Hollywood

IBM | charts | news | PowerRating -- At the recent Hollywood Goes Green conference, IBM announced it is applying its Project Big Green initiative to address energy efficiency for the media and entertainment industry.

The company detailed its vision to help businesses that operate some of the world's largest, most powerful data centers -- with massive banks of computers that fuel special effects, animation and new, rich media entertainment -- significantly reduce the environmental impact of their IT operations and dramatically improve their bottom line by the end of the decade.

"Consumers can have a significant impact on the environment if they do simple things like use energy efficient light bulbs or drive hybrid vehicles. But just think, if businesses are as savvy about how they operate their data centers, they could have massive impact," said Tom Burns, director of post-production infrastructure, Technicolor. "At Technicolor, we are always looking for opportunities to reduce our power footprint. It makes good business sense, and we look forward to hearing from IBM on how we can improve efficiency in our data centers worldwide -- both to reduce our environmental impact and to support our global service offerings to the media and entertainment industry."

IBM also declared a vision at Hollywood Goes Green today to design new technologies as part of Project Big Green that will use 50 percent less power by the end of the decade and increase compute capacity by a factor of 10 -- dramatically increasing performance without the need to build new datacenters, conserving resources from trees to gasoline. IBM will also introduce new server designs and extend the use of its patented liquid cooling technologies to eliminate the need for air conditioning in data centers altogether, greatly impacting bottom line energy costs.

For media and entertainment businesses 'going green' means more than just turning off the lights or recycling soda cans. Blockbuster films that attract millions of moviegoers around the world and generate billions of dollars in revenue, as well as the rapidly emerging online game market, are two examples of key industries that rely on high performance technologies to power "virtual backlot studios," transforming the way next generation digital entertainment is created and delivered. Rich 3D-game experiences and digital imagery that sweep film-goers into imagined worlds have become more vivid and life-like than ever before and rely on data centers with vast pools of computers that devour energy resources to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

IBM's Project Big Green includes technologies and services to sharply reduce data center energy consumption, helping to transform the world's business and public technology infrastructures into "green" data centers.

Some of the technologies Project Big Green delivers today include servers, software, specialty microprocessors, and IBM research innovations, such as:

-- IBM Blue Gene Supercomputer: the world's most powerful computer that delivers the most performance per kilowatt of power consumed and was recently ranked on the Green500 list of the world's most energy-efficient supercomputers. The new Green500 list shows IBM Blue Gene supercomputers capturing 26 of the top 27 spots.

-- IBM Cell Broadband Engine: a microprocessor that can deliver extreme performance compared with conventional processors.

-- IBM Rear Door Heat eXchanger: patented liquid "cooling doors" that can reduce server heat output in data centers by up to 60 percent by utilizing chilled water to dissipate heat generated by computer systems.

-- IBM Mobile Measurement Technology: a technology from IBM Research that measures 3D temperature distributions within data centers. The mobile measurement machine includes a position monitoring system with a network of up to 100 sensors used to gather thermal data at a granular level, with unprecedented speed and accuracy as it travels through the data center.

-- IBM Active Energy Manager: an energy management software tool that can provide clients with a view of the actual power used, as opposed to benchmarked power consumption, and can effectively allocate, match and cap power and thermal limits in the data center at the system, chassis or rack level.

-- IBM Global Asset Recovery Services (GARS): can help data center owners simply and efficiently deal with the proper environmental disposal of all of their old IT equipment consistent with local, state and federal regulations worldwide. In addition, IBM GARS can help enterprises protect and keep confidential the data stored on hard drives slated for disposal.

"IBM clients around the world are increasingly expressing concern over their growing need for energy and the associated costs, but the issue is becoming particularly acute for media and entertainment companies because they rely so heavily on high performance technologies to deliver their content," said Jim Gargan, Vice President, Brand Management, IBM BladeCenter and System x. "IBM as a company has made strides in addressing this need, but Project Big Green will allow IBM to further help the media and entertainment industry support sustained business growth with zero increase in consumption and environmental impact."

Project Big Green is a $1 billion investment to increase the efficiency of IBM products.

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