Spotlight on Green Schools
Schools are focusing more and more heavily on cutting back on the energy they use and trying to reduce their impact on the environment. The articles on these pages spotlight individual campus energy conservation programs, energy initiatives, solar installations, energy-related technology, HVAC, research, grants, policy, and other topics related to green campuses.
Open source server distributor Red Hat Inc., which is carving out a virtualization path unique in the industry, added another arrow to its quiver Thursday with the acquisition of Qumranet Inc.
University of California, San Diego is taking a novel approach to generating sustainable energy on its campus by transforming its parking garages into solar power plants. With the help of Envision Solar, the university is "planting" Solar Trees on the roofs of two of its parking structures to generate electricity for the campus and provide infrastructure for supporting electric vehicles.
Sun Microsystems this week rolled out version 2.0 of its xVM VirtualBox. The product is a cross-platform, open source hypervisor that supports hosts ranging from Mac OS X and Windows to Solaris and 18 varieties of Linux.
The open source hypervisor Xen has a new version, 3.3, that includes a number of upgrades and enhancements that make it more enterprise-worthy and start to move it beyond the datacenter.
When students come back for classes at the University of Miami (UM) this month, a new transportation option will be available to them. Zipcar is a car-sharing program that allows members to reserve cars online or via phone or mobile device for an hourly rate of $8, which includes gas and insurance.
Arizona State University has signed an agreement with Modavox to Webcast the Sustainability Summit the school is hosting in Washington, DC September 17, 2008. Modavox will facilitate the delivery of streaming audio and video.
More campuses in the United States have shifted their focus to environmental and sustainability programs, but funding and staffing issues have prevented them from implementing green initiatives on the scale campus administrators would like, according to a new report released recently by the National Wildlife Federation.
Microsoft has made substantial changes to its virtualization licensing program, changes that will lower the cost of using virtualization for many customers.
As the summer heats up, and icebergs melt, maybe it's time for system admins using Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager 2007 to consider adding a little eco-friendliness to their networks.
vmSight has announced the availability of its Connector ID platform for thin clients used in virtual desktop environments. The solution is intended to help IT administrators manage virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments, as well as provide detailed virtual desktop user tracking.
IBM made several announcements Tuesday at the annual LinuxWorld conference, introducing a new series of products, services and initiatives that the company says will "further expand IBM's commitment to Linux and open source by enabling the next generation of Linux."
Information technology leaders in colleges and universities are more concerned about environmental issues than their counterparts in every other sector--corporate, state/local, federal, and higher education. But they are also least likely to have formal policies in place for addressing energy efficiency, according to a new survey released Monday by CDW Government (CDW-G).
Researchers at MIT announced last week that they've cracked the solar power nut by finding a method to squirrel away energy for use when the sun isn't shining. Unlike existing techniques, this new one is efficient, inexpensive, and clean, researchers said, relying on resources that are abundant and lend themselves to easy manufacture.
Bentley College of Waltham, MA is deploying Infor EAM Asset Sustainability Edition software to monitor and reduce energy consumption throughout its campus. The school currently runs Infor's EAM Enterprise Edition, which monitors the maintenance and repair of the college's assets.
Colorado State University-Pueblo soon will be the home of a solar electric system in excess of one megawatt, one of the largest such systems for an education facility in the United States. Under an innovative arrangement with Black Hills Energy (formerly Aquila) and BP Solar, the system is estimated to contribute at least 10 percent of the University's electricity needs. Installation of the ground- based solar array begins this summer with full operation scheduled for late fall.
