Plenty of inaugural balls are going to be held in the next four or five days, but the Web site of only one is powered by "extreme green" technology with a zero carbon footprint.
The
Green Inaugural Ball is one of many balls not officially associated with the inauguration, but that is celebrating Obama's presidency. As the name implies, it focuses on green technologies. Among its sponsors is Discovery's Planet Green.
The ball itself is green in numerous ways, but for IT folks, the most intriguing element is that the ball's Web site's hosting company claims that hosting the site has no carbon footprint.
AISO.net powers its entire data center with solar power and uses a variety of green techniques for building its data center and network.
The actual hardware doing the hosting is quite green as well --- the IBM Blade Center with IBM blades. The chassis itself is an IBM Blade Center E, and the servers are IBM AMD-powered two-socket LS21 blades. The servers use 60% less energy and generate 50% less heat than typical servers with comparable power.
What does this kind of "extreme green" Web hosting have to do with you? Plenty, according to Alex Yost, IBM Vice President for the Blade Center line.
"The same kind of 'extreme green' technology can be used by small and medium-sized companies, and by enterprises as well," he said in an interview. "IBM has a variety of tools and technologies to help companies get similar green benefits. We can take an extreme green implementation and show how it can help companies of any size."
