Upon arrival, a sustainable energy IT suite was noticed on the way from the car park to the reception – a clear sign that UoH are working hard to achieve a sustainable university.

We were introduced to Chris Hill, UoH’s Systems and Applications Manager who delivered an excellent presentation on the server virtualisation work that has been achieved over the last 3 years. Taking his audience through everything from the proof of concept (particularly important as virtualisation software in 2006 was still in its infancy) to the cloud operation that is running across both campuses now, the comprehensive talk and Q&A session was well received and consequently overran the scheduled agenda.

The presentation was followed by a visit around UoH’s newest data centre at College Lane. Cramming 9 adults into a small lift was cosy but it was worth it to see the infrastructure and organisation of the consolidated servers.

A superb lunch was consumed after a trip over to the de Havilland campus where the data centres are in a state of refurbishment which between them demonstrated fantastic planning and thought for a retrospectively organised (aka extremely difficult) sustainable data centre. All visitors will be keen to see the finished space.

The key points shared in day two of the exchange mean that UEA should be able to utilise the experience and knowledge of their counterparts at UoH in terms of hardware reduction (for decreased power consumption), consolidation and recycling of existing infrastructure and improved resilient services all under the title of server virtualisation.

A massive thank you to UoH for hosting the second day and fingers crossed all future assemblies will continue to be as useful.

Helen Bear

First a visit to the primary and oldest computer suite (CS1), this is where power monitoring has had to be retrospectively fitted to an already operating infrastructure without disruption to services, and rack movements have had to be scheduled to permit downtime to minimise impact on users. A trip around the suite via the operations room included information sharing by means of an open discussion/Q&A session about what could be seen in front of us. This covered AHU (Air Handling Units), server racks, consumption and environmental monitoring boxes, power supplies, generator modules, humidifiers in addition to system and safety monitoring (CCTV, smoke and fire etc).

This was followed by a short walk across the campus to visit the new second computer suite (CS2) at UEA. In contrast to CS1, CS2 was only completed at the end of 2007/start 2008 and as such the power and environmental monitoring was integrated with the planning of the new suite. This provided a new set of challenges and opportunities to contend with as opposed to the retrospective fitting of CS1. A walk around with more open discussion and Q&As gave more information sharing and the passing on of experience tips!

This was all completed before a trip to UEA’s Top Floor restaurant for a cooked lunch!

Lunch was burned off with a walk to see UEA’s CHP (Combined Heat and Power) Biomass generator before a split between participants to discuss desktop provision monitoring systems and options, and wider issues affecting computer suites.

The key points shared in day one of the exchange mean that UoH and BU should be able to learn the lessons of UEA and utilise their experience to further improve the sustainability of their computer suites, particularly the differences between retrospective fitting and rack organisation and the pre-planning and design of new computer suites.

Day two of the exchange assembly is scheduled for 17 June 2009 with Helen Bear, Steve Mosley, Ian Yates, Pete Andrews, Steve Phipps, Richard Stern, Darrell Slater-Smith and Josie Fraser and will focus on server virtualisation at UoH where their experience is ahead of those at UEA and BU.

Helen Bear

h.bear@uea.ac.uk