April, 2009
Reviewed by Stephen R. Guendert, PhD
Steve is a PMI certified Project Management Professional (PMP), and he has an MBA, and a M.S. in Management Information Systems. He is a well regarded FICON consultant and is one of the industry’s experts on the subject. He lectures and consults regularly on FICON technology as well as business case justifications for migrating from ESCON to FICON. He is currently a Ph D Candidate and is writing his doctoral dissertation on Enterprise I/O Subsystems.
About the Author
Dr. Steve Guendert, Global Solutions Architect, Brocade Communications
CRC Press, 2009
ISBN-13: 1-4200-8666-9
I must admit that I have been slightly skeptical at times, when it comes to what the true value is behind all of the discussions on "green" technologies in the data center. As someone who has seen both the end user and vendor side of things, I think my skepticism gets heightened more than it normally would be. This book really helped dispel my skepticism.
Greg Schulz is a highly regarded analyst and author in the storage industry. He is a frequently sought after speaker and source for expert level analysis and quotes for industry articles. This book is a follow-up to his 2004 book "Resilient Storage Networks."
As I said, I was a skeptic when it comes to "green." Personally, I do not buy into the whole "global warming" or climate change thing. I remember growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, during the 1970s when everyone was trying to tell me that the next global ice age was upon us, and we were going to freeze to death after being buried under repetitive 20 inch blizzards.
This book eliminated (most of) my skepticism. The author does a fantastic job in the very first chapter dispelling a lot of the myths out there. He sets aside the political aspects of what is, or is not, considered green. The next ten chapters focus on showing how the end user can take advantage of the myriad of virtualization technologies available, combine them with an understanding of energy efficiency, and create a true data center for the 21st century.
Topics covered include material on cloud computing and cloud storage, energy avoidance and efficiency, energy and data footprint reduction, intelligent power management, and a comprehensive look at tiered architectures and virtualization (server, storage, and networking).
The book is extremely well organized and easy to follow. Each chapter has a very good introduction and comprehensive summary. This book could easily serve as a blueprint for organizations to follow when they look for ideas on how to design new data centers. It's a great addition to an IT Bookshelf.