Like many others, I am very excited to be attending the Uptime Institute's 2011 Symposium next week in Santa Clara. I have been to a number of symposia before and know that the educational content will be second to none. The Uptime Institute, the organizers of this event, has long been known for its contributions to the industry, much of it based on data contributed by members of its Uptime Institute Networks.

The Uptime Institute is perhaps best known for developing the Tier standard, which has so penetrated the industry that everyone uses the vocabulary of standard, even those who are not fully aware of its provenance. In addition, the Uptime Institute audits facilities for compliance to the standard and recently issued a followup standard on Operational Sustainability. <p>

The Uptime Institute has managed to created a vein of continuity throughout the years in its events. Each charette building on the previous one, and each Symposium following up on previous years findings. For instance, when Ken Brill took the stage to discuss the "Coming Meltdown of Moore's Law," he opened an industrywide discussion i about space, power, and cooling availability that continues to this day. The Uptime Institute continued to look at this theme in its events. <p>

This year's event will have a somewhat different focus: "The Disrupted Data Center: Cloud, Cost, Capacity and Carbon." I'm hoping this event will kick off an industry-wide discussion about the nature of the cloud and its ramifications for energy and carbon. If their track record holds, the Symposium presentations will be based on good data from real-world experience. <p>

I'm pleased to be moderating a panel on Wednesday. The panel illustrates my point about continuity, as the Uptime Institute gathered five 2010 Green Enterprise IT award winners to answer the question: What Happened Next? The panel includes: 

• Christian Belady, general manager for Datacenter Advanced Development, Global Foundation Services, Microsoft

• Herman Chan, director of Power and Management Solutions Business Unit, Raritan

• Julio Cezar De Conti, director, Superintendency of Engineering and IT Infrastructure, Itaú

• Charles Monteith, principal member, Technical Staff, Verizon

• Shawn Patrick, director of Global Engineering and Management Services, Savvis

During our session, I'll help these industry professionals examine the projects that led to last year's recognition and also to explore what happened in the following 12 months to justify the high expectations accompanying these projects. I also hope to explore what these industry leaders expect to do in the future. We're anticipating a lively question and answer period.

For more about these projects, please follow the hyperlinked project titles below.

• (Belady) Microsoft (Audacious Idea):  Containerization: An Evolution in Data Center Efficiency  

• (Patrick) Savvis (Facilities Innovation): NJ2 HVAC Upgrade Project

• (Cezar De Conti) Itaú (Joint IT and Facilities Innovation): An Integration Tool between IT and Facilities Departments in a Large Bank

• (Monteith) Verizon Wireless (Outstanding Facilities Product): Orangeburg Data Center: Data Center Intelligent Cooling Controls

• (Chan) Raritan (IT Product): Data Center Energy Efficiency Improvement