IO Joins Experts from Stanford University, Bloom Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs to Address Data Center Sustainability at VERGE San Francisco 2013

PHOENIX, Oct. 1, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The digital world has been positioned as both an environmental savior and a power-wasting beast. Which is it? IO, a global leader in software-defined data centers, will join sustainability experts from Stanford University, Bloom Energy, and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs to discuss this very issue. The experts will examine the challenges of data growth and a sober view of global data center energy usage at the VERGE San Francisco panel, "How the Data Center Model Must Evolve" on Wednesday, October 16.

"The data centers that run our digital lives account for approximately 1.3 percent of worldwide electricity use and 2 percent of U.S. electricity use," said Dr. Jonathan Koomey, panel moderator and Research Fellow at Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University. "Conversely, the data center also enables smarter cities, medical breakthroughs, the flattening of education and streamlined supply chains. We'll discuss all of these issues during this expert sustainability panel."

According to IDC, 68 percent of all the information in the digital world is created and consumed by consumers, watching digital TV, interacting with social media, and sending smartphone images and videos to one another. Facebook users alone share 684,478 pieces of content a minute. These apps, emails and cloud-based content all need to live somewhere—and that place is a data center.

"Today, data centers must be responsive and efficient while consuming less capital. Their growth trajectory requires that they shed the limitations of the commercial construction industry," said Patrick Flynn, Group Leader of Applied Intelligence & Sustainability at IO, a panel member. "As an industry, we need to better understand the true environmental performance and impact of the data center, so we can enact positive change for the industry and the planet."

Panel Details

"How the Data Center Model Must Evolve"
Moderated by Dr. Koomey, the session's panelists are:

• Dale Sartor, Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs
• Patrick Flynn, Group Leader of Applied Intelligence & Sustainability, IO
• Peter Gross, Vice President of Mission Critical Systems, Bloom Energy

When/Where
VERGE San Francisco 2013
Wednesday, October 16 from 3pm-4pmPT
Palace Hotel
2 New Montgomery St.
San Francisco, CA 94105

To attend VERGE 2013, please register at:
http://www.greenbiz.com/events/verge/2013/10/san-francisco/registration

If you are a member of the press or analyst community and are interested in setting up a meeting with IO at the conference, please contact Katie Watson, [email protected].

About IO

IO is a global leader in software-defined data centers and has pioneered the next generation of data center infrastructure technology. IO's integrated hardware and software data center technology platform offers enterprises, governments, and service providers an innovative way to deploy, provision, and optimize data center capacity anywhere in the world. IO technology lowers the total cost of data center ownership compared to traditional data centers, enabling dynamic deployment and intelligent control based on the needs of IT equipment and applications in the data center.

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