28 November 2010

Is moving the power hungry equipment to another building a fair way to meet gershon green savings?

| justwondering
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I hear a government department got an award for being green when all they really did was move power hungy IT equipment to another building?

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la mente torbida8:31 am 29 Nov 10

Another agency built a nice, green building (within gov’t guidelines) – left the data centre behind so the green rating wasn’t threatened. (Maybe we’re talking about the same organisation)

ConanOfCooma8:06 am 29 Nov 10

BTW, I’m in Symo, and yeah, we use A LOT of power.

ConanOfCooma8:02 am 29 Nov 10

Sigh. I guess someone needs to provide some more info on this.

The building in question is the large Centrelink building in Greenway – The CCC. It was built with being “fully sick green” in mind, but as the OP states, resulted in the power hungry teams being left in Woden. When the Woden building was shut down, the power hungry teams were sent to the facilities in Symonston.

So yes, the only thing that makes it a “green” building is the lack of dual screens, testing facilities and large server rooms. Just don’t ask anyone about falling glass panels.

Kinda related: ACT DET (Education and Training), in an effort to streamline efficiency (ie cut jobs) started centralising school servers last year, from being cabled networks in individual schools to a fibre-connected “farm” in Macarthur House. In doing so, they have achieved the impossible – slowing down light… with the added benefit of having a server collapse involve nearly every Public School, instead of just the affected one. But I’m sure they know what they are doing… afterall, it isn’t like Schools need their own IT Officer to, you know, maintain the hundreds of computers they house…

I hear that with the advent of the Internet, you no longer have to cite sources for your stories, and in fact you can just skip most of the details too. DSLRs banned in Kuwait! Unnamed government department gets green award by doing stuff!

sexynotsmart9:16 pm 28 Nov 10

Power hungry IT equipment… that would be Senator Conroy.

This is Canberra, home of spin and double speak. I know which new buidling the OP refers and had heard the same story last week from someone who should know.

georgesgenitals7:36 pm 28 Nov 10

I heard that someone in a government department did something naughty once.

I heard that an employee in a Govt. Dept. showed up to work drunk! Not only was this employee not charged with misconduct, they were also promoted.

Entirely possible. It is a bit like departments who declare they have cut staffing numbers but in fact increase contract labour which comes under a different heading.
Strange but true. Appearances are everything with some APS agencies, reality another thing altogether.

Probably true – the green ratings encourage it. With a data centre in a building without 12 months of separate metering you have no hope of getting a decent NABERS rating. most governments are wanting 4.5-5 ratings now.

Moving a number of small server rooms (each with their own dedicated cooling systems) to a single larger dedicated location (like a purpose built datacentre) will save power – quite a significant amount in fact.

Then again, you provided SFA in the way of details, so nobody knows what it is you’re complaining about.

Bosworth said :

pics or lies

+1

dvaey @ 3 has a point – give us the name of the agency, the award details and some facts.

Still, I wouldn’t be at all surprised

pics or lies

I hear you can get a post on RA approved, with no details, no story and a criticism of a government department (even if you dont name them or even name what they did or where).

sounds like something the government would do

troll-sniffer12:04 pm 28 Nov 10

If is true is very sad and funny and pretty f***ed all at the same time…

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