The City of Bath and its Attractions

The Roman Baths (Thermae) of Bath Spa, England. This is a 6 segment panorama taken by myself with a Canon 5D and 24-105mm f/4L IS lens. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The beautiful city of Bath in the South West corner of England is a mecca for tourists now as it has been across the millenia. As a world heritage site with a rich history dating to pre-roman times, there is plenty to both see and do for the 3.8 million tourists that flock to the city every year.

Bath is located in the northern tip of the ceremonial county of Somerset near the border with Wiltshire and just 13 miles from the important trade port and cultural centre of Bristol; but it is its position in the valley of the River Avon, right on the edge of the Cotswolds that is the reason for its existence as it is the site of the hottest natural geothermal springs in the UK.

The establishment of Bath and its subsequent prosperity throughout the ages can be traced back to the discovery of these three hot springs. From prehistoric times the site was important as a place of worship with people investing the springs’ waters with healing powers whilst honouring the pagan god Sulis. With the arrival of the Romans in AD40 the new town of Aqua Sulis sprung into life and the spiritual importance of the springs was embraced. They were the first to build permanent stone structures around the springs, from 60-70AD onwards, channeling the naturally warm waters into classic Roman bath rooms. In doing so they began the site’s transition into a prosperous spa town and a destination where travellers would come from far and wide searching for the healing properties of the waters.

The unique spa and baths meant that the city remained a popular destination for the great and good of society throughout the near history from Elizabethan to Georgian to Victorian times - bringing to the town a rich mix of culture and high society living which lives on today in its traditions of theatre, music and the arts.

The Baths
Whilst we may no longer assign such spiritual significance to the springs, the baths are still a draw for visitors who still come to take advantage of their perceived healing or, at least, relaxing powers. The Roman Baths themselves have been rebuilt, along with much of the city, during Georgian period and in the classical and Palladian styles although some of the original buildings have been preserved. The complex now consists of the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House and a museum, and although they are no longer used for bathing, they are a fascinating historical attraction to be toured, providing a great insight into the history and the heart of the city.

For those wanting to take a dip in the famous waters, the new bath complex, the Thermae Bath Spa, was opened in 2006 with the New Royal Bath at its heart, featuring two spring fed baths, an open top pool with views of the city centre and extensive spa facilities. It also incorporates the older Hot Baths and the open Cross Bath which were again rebuilt by the Georgians but can still be used for bathing nowadays.

Bath Abbey
Adjacent to the Roman Baths is Bath Abbey. The abbey was first founded as a monastery by the Anglo Saxons and has been rebuilt by successive Bishops of Bath & Wells starting shortly after the Norman conquest and finishing with a major rebuild in the Elizabethan period. For a time in the middle ages it served as the seat for the Bishops of Bath and Wells and it is an excellent example of gothic architecture, particularly noted for its fan vaulted ceiling.

Georgian Architecture
The popularity of Bath during the Georgian era led to great expansion and left us with the famous and distinctive architecture associated with the city today. Built using the distinctive bath stone - limestone from surrounding hills - much of the Georgian architecture was designed by father and son John Wood the Elder an John Wood the Younger in a classical revival and Palladian style. The most notable examples of the period are the majestic Royal Crescent and the unique Circus (some of the most sought after addresses in the country), although the architecture also continues through many of the adjoining streets spreading west from the city centre. The layout of the Georgian streets and the ornate decorations on the building themselves are said to contain nods to masonic and occult references and it is thought, for example, that the layout of the Circus, Gay Street and Victoria Square represent a masonic key symbol.

Bath is also home to Pulteney Bridge situated on the River Avon. Again it is constructed in the Georgian style whilst being influenced by bridges such as the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. It is one of only four bridges in the world to carry shops.

Shopping
Bath is now a major shopping centre catering for tourists and locals alike. It has a healthy mix of high street names, particularly in the new shopping area of SouthGate, high end boutique shops (Milsom Street) and quirky independent shops in the back streets and alleys leading away from the Abbey. The city also has plenty of eateries dotted about the town centre from leading Vegetarian restaurants to the famous Sally Lunns bakery and cafe which is seen as the home of the Bath bun.

For thousands of years, Bath has been a popular destination for travellers and tourists still come from across the world to stay in the unique city. Whether you want to take in the splendour of the Georgian streets, take a relaxing dip in the thermal waters or simply do a bit of Christmas shopping, Bath has plenty to offer.


© Stuart Mitchell 2011

If you are looking for legal assistance in Bath then visit Solicitors Bath.

A Simple Guide to Legal Professions - Part 1

English: Statesmen No. 616: Sir J Rigby QC MP. Caption read "Mr Solicitor". (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many of those who do not work in the legal professions here in the UK often use the terms lawyer and solicitor interchangeably without every truly understanding the distinction between the two concepts. One might refer to their divorce lawyer and/or their divorce solicitor when describing the same role. This two part article therefore aims to clarify what the actual distinction is between the two titles as well as explain how the concepts of barristers and attorneys fit into the equation. The first instalment focuses on lawyers and solicitors in particular.

Lawyer
The term lawyer is a generic name for a legal professional. In the UK the term is retained for this use to describe any individual that is qualified to practise the law, although in Scotland it’s technical use is reserved for solicitors and advocates (see below) only, whilst in some other countries it can also be restricted to describe specific legal professions. All UK lawyers fall into the two general categories of legal professional, solicitors or barristers/advocates.

The responsibilities of a lawyer can include advocacy (legal representation/argument) in courts or administrative hearings, criminal prosecutions or defence representation, the drafting of court documents, providing advice during legal proceedings or within the day-to-day operations of an organisation, conducting legal negotiations, the agreeing and drawing up of contracts, conveyancing (facilitating property transactions) and probate work (administering the estate of deceased individuals). Depending on the type of lawyer and the responsibilities they have they can operate as individual practitioners, within legal partnerships or as in-house employees within businesses or organisations.

Solicitor
A British solicitor is, therefore, a type of lawyer. Solicitors can cover a broad range of the practise areas mentioned above, but in general the distinction with barristers is made on the fact that solicitors primarily deal with litigation rather than advocacy (the realm of barristers). That is they liaise directly with their clients, providing advice, preparing documentation, processing their instructions and making court applications for example. A solicitor also has the capacity to act as a client’s attorney in that they can legally represent client in legal proceedings and carry out litigation on their behalf. Acting in their stead they have the authority to perform tasks such as the signing of documents or performing negotiations with opposing parties and their legal representation.

Solicitors can however take on advocacy roles in the lower courts (i.e., Coroner, County, Magistrate, Sheriff & Tribunal Courts). What’s more, since the 1990s, the boundaries of distinction with barristers have been blurred further with the introduction of the role of a solicitor advocate who is also permitted to represent a client in the higher courts - previously a privilege reserved for barristers only. The relatively new solicitor advocate role is granted based upon specific qualifications and training and the nature and extent of their previous roles and experience within the profession.

The second instalment of this article provides further explanation as to the idea of advocacy and how that relates to the role of barristers, as well as the concept of an attorney in the UK legal system.

© Stuart Mitchell 2012
To find out more about the services offered by law firms and their professionals you can visit Clinical Negligence Solicitors London.

What is a Stocks and Shares ISA?

The Junior ISA scheme was launched at the start of November 2011 and has since become a popular way to save for a child’s future. For those who haven’t yet investigated the option it is worth reminding oneself what exactly an ISA is and in particular, the definition of a Stocks and Shares ISA (SSISA). This article focuses on SSISAs but to give a full overview on the product we will also need to look at the full gamut of ISA options and the context in which the product fits into the financial spectrum.

An ISA is a financial product in which people can save and invest money with the benefit of certain tax breaks. They were launched at the start of the 1999/2000 tax year with the aim of providing the wider public with a more accessible tax beneficial savings solution than the existing Personal Equity Plans (PEPs) and Tax-Exempt Special Savings Accounts (TESSAs).

The main attractions of ISAs are that they carry tax exemptions on the income generated by the products whilst still allowing savers to instantly access their funds. They also allow savers to invest in stocks and shares as well as just storing their funds a cash. There are however restrictions which apply in that there is a limit (or rather limits - see below) to the amount of money that savers can put in each tax year.

There are currently two types of ISA available to the UK saver: the Cash ISA (CISA) and Stocks ad Shares ISA (SSISA). As the names suggest the CISA is primarily designed to hold cash whilst the SSISA is primarily designed as a vehicle for investing savings in stocks and shares.

Stocks and Shares ISAs are available to over 18s (Cash ISAs are open to over 16s) and can hold a range of investments including, amongst others, cash (as long as it is deemed to be awaiting investment), collective investments (Units Trusts, OEICs and Investment Trusts. Subject to certain criteria), company shares (listed on recognised stock exchanges and debt securities (corporate bonds, government bonds. Subject the term having at least 5 years to run). All of the non-cash investments must also be deemed to have the potential to lose 5% of their value to be permitted. Any that are not, may in theory be held in a CISA but it is rare to find a provider that offers the service.

A contribution to an ISA is termed a subscription and all ISA subscriptions must be made in cash. The limit that savers can subscribe to ISAs in total for the current tax year is £10,200. All of this allowance can be paid into a Stocks and Shares ISA or up to half, £5,100, can be paid into a Cash ISA with the remainder of the unused £10,200 allowance going into a SSISA. These limits are set to rise in line with inflation each tax year (with increments rounded to the nearest £120), with the figures for 2011/12 being £10,680 (SSISA/Total) and £5,340 (CISA).

Subscriptions cannot be spread between multiple ISAs of the same kind in the same tax year, although subscriptions can be made to both a Cash ISA and Stocks and Shares ISA concurrently. There is also no limit on the number of ISAs that an investor may hold from previous tax years.

Funds can be transferred between ISAs although there are restrictions to ensure savers can’t oversubscribe. The transfers must occur directly between ISA providers; if the money is withdrawn by the saver with the intention of placing it back in another ISA it effectively becomes a subscription and therefore affects their allowance for that tax year.

If a saver is transferring monies that are current year subscriptions from one Cash ISA to another CISA they must transfer the entire sum of current year subscriptions to ensure that they have not subscribed to two separate CISAs in the same tax year. However, a saver can transfer only part of their current subscriptions from a CISA to a Stocks and Shares SISA as the allowances of the two products can be adjusted accordingly (the transfer would then count against the SSISA allowance not the CISA).

Neither the Stocks and Shares ISA or the Cash ISA are subject ot Capital Gains Tax (CGT) although that does also mean that any losses made on the SSISA cannot be used to offset gains elsewhere and reduce an individual’s CGT obligation. Both ISAs are exempt from tax on dividends,the SSISA is exempt from tax on interest on bonds whilst the CISA is also exempt from tax on interest from cash.

Stocks and Shares ISAs are still subject to other charges though such as Initial Management Charges (IMCs), Annual Management Charges (AMCs) and transaction charges by the ISA provider or fund manager, however, these charges are often heavily discounted or removed for commercial reasons. Any charges on Cash ISAs will most likely be incorporated into the interest rate calculations.

Although ISAs were designed to supersede the existing PEPs and TESSAs when they were launched in 1999, both products were maintained alongside the new ISAs - that is they could still be held although no longer open to new subscriptions. TESSAs allowed savers to invest £9,000 across a 5 year term during which the saver could draw down the interest on the capital but not the capital itself, which could only be withdrawn when the account matured. For those maturing after the introduction of ISAs, the TESSA-Only ISA (TOISA) was created to allow the saver to reinvest the capital. The last TESSAs matured on 5 April 2004. However, at the start of the 2008/09 tax year the decisions was taken to re-classify the PEP and TOISA to fit into the ISA structure; PEPs became de jure SSISAs and TOISAs became CISAs.

The structure of the ISA was slightly different when it was launched as it is today in that there two main types available, the mini and the maxi ISAs. Mini ISAs were further categorised as Stock or Cash ISAs, although an individual could subscribe to one of each within a given year (even with different providers). The limits were set to £4,000 for the mini stock ISA and £3,000 for the mini cash ISA, with a total subscription limit therefore of £7,000. The alternative maxi ISAs combined the cash and stock elements into one product although the limit to cash subscriptions remained at £3,000 and the total allowance at £7,000; any of the £7,000 not invested in cash could be invested in stock. The switch the current structure of Cash ISAs and Stocks and Shares ISAs with no mini vs maxi distinction came at the start of the 2008/09 tax year.

Going forward the UK Government have announced that they are to launch a Junior ISA for the 2011/12 tax year which will replace the outgoing child trust fund. The Junior ISA will allow guardians to subscribe to an ISA on behalf of a minor who will then have access to the funds when they turn 18. In all other aspects the ISA will follow the conventional structure and rules.

With the clock counting down to the end of the tax year now might be the last chance to take advantage of this tax year’s ISA allowances or to do your research ready for the advent of the next set of allowances. Either way, it might be a good time to investigate opening a Stocks and Shares ISA or ISA investment Trust.

© Stuart Mitchell 2012

How Charities Can Embrace Technology - Tools for the Disadvantaged

Many technologies can be employed by the people, who the charities are supporting, themselves to solve some of the obstacles that they face in their everyday lives and charities are vital in increasing the awareness of these technologies and their benefits as well as rolling them out to those who will make use of them.

Accessible Tools
There is a growing awareness in technological circles of the concept of accessibility for example - making technology usable for those with disabilities - and as more and more websites, mobile phones and computers become usable by such groups these individuals are gaining a rich medium through which to access the world around them. Examples of accessible technologies include the use of screen readers with compatible websites to provide content to the visually impaired, large button/display mobile phones, intelligent zoom functions on any type of device and voice activated controls.

These technologies can allow individuals to communicate with friends and family where they may have struggled to in the past, become more self sufficient (e.g., maintaining jobs or simply doing their own online shopping) and reach the support they need more readily, whether it be their carer/charity worker contacts or valuable online support groups and communities which they can use to share and received advice and counsel.

Mobile Tools
Beyond accessibility there are many other uses for cutting edge technology in helping disadvantaged individuals improve their own quality of life, whether as a result charities finding ways to utilise the technology that the individual already owns or introducing new solutions that can also be of benefit. Accessible digital technology can be used for self monitoring (e.g., events, symptoms or medication) either in cloud based calendars or specially built applications, for accessing advice and support on tap (as above), for interactive, accessible, intuitive and engaging learning and education or for mobility. In particular the burgeoning smart mobile phone market with its internet capabilities (using WiFi, 3G and soon 4G), plethora of apps, built in cameras and video recorders and touch screens has delivered a pocket sized solution that combines so many of the latest technologies and makes them available in an accessible medium and free of location ties. In a format which can therefore be taken to those who most need it wherever they are.

More specific examples of how these possibilities have been realised to support those most in need include mobile apps which use in-built cameras to read QR (quick response) barcodes on packets of medication to take the user to a web page with all the information and guidelines that they require, and one touch mobile devices which can be used by victims of domestic abuse to alert the authorities when they are being abused and record the event as evidence (e.g., Vodafone’s TecSOS service).

Thanks in part to the mass market adoption of mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, it has never been more affordable for charities to make use of such integrated high technology or for that technology to be adopted by the individuals themselves that they are looking to help. And as the market moves forward at such a pace it is just a question of “watch this space” for the possibilities that lie ahead in the next few years.

The History of Family Offices - What Are They Now?

The world of family offices is one that is still understandably obscure to the general public. They are by definition the realm of extremely wealthy families and well out of the reach of the vast majority of the population. However, they do also have a long and rich history dating back hundreds of years and which not only frames what we think of as a family office to this day but can be considered to influence many of the wealth creation models that we have now come to rely upon.

What Are Family Offices?
The concept of a family office is a fairly broad one. In essence they are organisations which manage the wealth of a particular family, or families, where that family has substantial assets. Their purpose or aim is to sustain and/or grow wealth of these high net worth (HNW) families so that it may be passed down the subsequent generations. In practice, therefore, a family office (FO) can be involved in managing any element of an estate that impacts on that family’s wealth and so, in their various incarnations, the services they offer may include expert financial advice, estate management and practical administration.

These services can be supplied in a number of different arenas. Where families own business interests, a family office may be integral in overseeing those interests or even managing their operations directly; whereas other families may demand advice and administration services to maintain and/or grow investment portfolios. Others may simply need specialist administration and management services to facilitate the smooth running of all aspects of their estates, from tax administration to farm management.

Family offices can generally be assigned to one of two categories: those that are created and dedicated to managing the estate of just one family - single family offices (SFOs) - and those specialist companies that provide services on behalf of a number of family clients - multiple family offices (MFOs). SFOs often operate as in-house teams to allow for the more hands-on management of the estate/wealth of the family. MFOs can be standalone specialist companies with a portfolio of family clients or they can operate from within larger organisations, particularly financial institutions such as banks.

The idea of a family’s estate can also be manifold in terms of incorporating any of their possessions from fixed property (land and buildings) and chattels to business interests and financial investments. Consequently, some family offices, particularly SFOs - one stop shops - can have a diverse brief, and skill set, needing perhaps to execute share trades on the one hand and oversee land management on the other. Meanwhile, there can also be a large variety in the focus and specialisation of MFOs, some focusing on financial advice and management, whilst others provide estate management services. This varied portfolio and application of differing business models represents the divergent history of the services that we now bracket as family offices.

In the next part of this article we will focus more on how the concept of a family office has evolved down the ages, and across the world, to provide us with the organisations and services that we have today.

How the Cloud is Fundamental to Smart Mobile Computing - Popular Apps

Image via CrunchBase

Having looked at how the cloud has facilitated new ways of communicating via our mobile devices, the second part of this article examines a few other areas and types of mobile app which have been enabled or enhanced by the use of the cloud.

Documents
The ability to store documents and files in the cloud has been available for a while on traditional PCs but it is now a growing area for mobile phones and particularly tablets. With the spread of tablets in the last few years, more and more consumers have not only wanted the ability to view their documents on their mobile device but to also work with them. Consequently, combined services, such as Google Drive (incorporating Google Docs), which provide office productivity software as a service (i.e., SaaS) integrated with cloud storage, have become increasingly popular. Even without this, cloud storage allows the viewing, uploading, downloading etc of files, from work documents to personal notes, on the go. It can be utilised for productivity in conjunction with file editor apps and is particularly useful for managing and sharing multimedia files such as photos.

Browser Sync
Although not all internet browsers are available across all mobile operating systems, each device’s operating system will allow a choice of browser and almost all include the facility to synchronise your bookmarks, browsing history, search history and browser settings between all your mobile devices and fixed PCs. With the leading examples in the market such as Google Chrome, Firefox and Opera, the data is encrypted when stored in the cloud so that it is unidentifiable and secure but is still accessible when the user logs in from any device and wishes to synchronise their settings.

Maps
Whether it's the big players in the market such as Google maps and the newcomer Apple maps, or smaller rivals, most mapping applications pull their mapping data, including the image tiles that they use to construct the maps, from the internet. With the sheer quantity of data that would be required to display maps, even for one country (bearing in mind various zoom levels, using different imagery, e.g., satellites, street maps etc), it is not feasible to store all the information locally on small mobile devices and so it is downloaded on demand when the user makes a request to view a certain location or access directions. Consequently, although the software is installed locally, the use of the cloud for providing on demand access to content is fundamental to the mapping apps that so many of us rely on.

Music & Video
Since their inception, smart mobile devices have had the idea of portable music at their heart although for much of their existence the music has simply been stored on the device and manually synchronised with a single PC.

Some music services now rely on the cloud to offer content on demand via streaming with the an obvious example of this being Spotify. However, due to the demand to listen to music without the expense of high transfer rates across 3G or when phone networks are unavailable, total reliance on the cloud for music services has been checked a little - even Spotify has an offline feature to store selected tracks on the device itself.

Probably, the most familiar example of a music app on a mobile device is iTunes. This too has recently embraced the cloud to allow users to store their entire digital music library so that it can be accessed from any device and from any location (provided you are online). Again this service also has the ability to make files available for offline use when a suitable internet connection is not accessible.

Phone Back Ups
Many of the cloud based synchronisations and storage solutions that have been mentioned so far are available through overarching cloud services such as iCloud provided by Apple on their iPhone and iPad devices. However, this service also allows a back up to be created in the cloud of the whole device in question including documents, files, apps and settings so that if the device is lost or corrupted, or if the user upgrades, they can restore everything from the cloud to their phone. Back up functions to individual PCs have been available before (and still are) but this cloud based solution means that users don’t have to wait until they get home and connect to their PC before they have peace of mind that their information is safe or before they can access it if it gets lost when they’re out and about.
© Stuart Mitchell 2012
If you want to find out more about the benefits of hosting your infrastructure in the cloud then visit Infrastructure as a Service.

How the Cloud is Fundamental to Smart Mobile Computing - Communications

A large number of the apps that we all use on our mobile phones and tablets incorporate a variation of cloud computing in some sense, because many of them fundamentally rely on the idea that they are providing us with a packaged-up experience of what are essentially web applications. This approach to mobile apps allows the user to access an array of content and functions which they could not physically store on their mobile device. Therefore, cloud computing on mobile devices has fairly specific benefits for mobile users in comparison to users of PCs to the extent that cloud computing is core to the development of computing itself on such ‘smart’ devices, particularly since the launch of 3G networks and the ability to transfer data that that offers. What’s more, with the advent of the higher bandwidths of 4G upon us, the concept of maximising mobile data and processes within the cloud - and minimising the amount stored on individual devices - is only set to carry on expanding.

The list of the categories and types of applications that use and/or rely on cloud computing is extensive to say the least but the following looks at some of the primary examples of how the cloud has revolutionised our mobile lives.

Email
Beyond business use, the vast majority of email users access their email from webmail services - that is, email services where the information (the emails and contacts etc) is stored on the remote servers of the email provider. Most users simply log on to this service; others synchronise a desktop client with it whilst a few may opt to download their data fully to their desktop. However, the data essentially originates, and for the most part is stored, in the cloud. Therefore, such services are primed for use across multiple devices and locations, including mobile use. Mobile operating systems come with built in email clients which allow users to synchronise their email so that they can work with it on their mobile/tablet and any changes they make will be synchronised with the service provider’s servers and, consequently, any other devices that access that email account (and vice versa). In other words, users can for example draft an email on their phone on the way in to work then finish and send it from their desktop once they are in work.

Contacts/Address Books
With the use of email becoming so popular on mobile devices many email services allow users to synchronise their email contacts with their mobile too so that their email and phone and social contacts can be unified in one place with the underlying data being stored in the cloud. If they update the details on one contact record the update will appear on all of their other synced devices when they view that record.

Unified Communications & Social Networking
Mobile computing is at the forefront of both the social networking revolution and a communications revolution called unified communications (UC) - the idea that multiple channels of internet based communication such as email, voice over the internet (VoIP) and video conferencing, are integrated into one service. Both social networking and UC fundamentally rely on the use of the cloud to store data and communications and the internet to transfer them so that they are accessible across devices and locations.

Instant messaging (IM) is an integral facet of both and in many cases can be purely cloud based so that conversations can be continued across different devices and on the move as an alternative to more traditional mediums such as email and text messaging - the latter of which is particularly restricted to individual devices. Apple, for example have even integrated instant messaging into their default text messaging app so that messages are sent as IMs when sent between two iPhones. On the other hand, a prime example of UC within the personal space is Skype, a multi channel communications service which provides access to your account from any device and will sync conversations across each.

Social networking services such as Facebook, Google + and Twitter are an often overlooked but powerful example of cloud computing as all of the information you share on them is stored and accessed via the cloud including communications, recommendations and shared media (photos, videos etc). As such, they have become one of the primary communication platforms for users of mobile devices as they are able to share their experiences with their friends and see what they are up to whilst they are on the move. For many people, mobiles have, thanks to cloud computing become the primary way of accessing their social networks because of the ease and flexibility with which they can be used.

© Stuart Mitchell 2012
If you want to find out more about the benefits of hosting your infrastructure in the cloud then visit What is Cloud Hosting.

How Charities Can Embrace Technology - Working With Tech

In the first part of this article we looked at the ways in which technology such as mobile communications, computing and the internet can help charities spread their messages and reach their potential sources of funding and aid. However, all of these technologies can also have more direct applications for some charities by actually assisting the work that they carry out.

The speed with which data can be shared between, not only fixed locations over extensive wide area networks and virtual private networks, but also over wireless technology, smartphones and 3G connections from remote locations and on the move, has unleashed numerous possibilities for charities to become more effective and efficient in the work that they carry out. Charities that reach out to the vulnerable can be more responsive and can more easily take their work to these individuals rather than waiting for them to come to the charity. Furthermore technological advances can be employed and promoted by charities as solutions to help the vulnerable become self sufficient, empowered and integrated into society.

Efficiencies in Health Care
One particular field in which many charities operate is healthcare and, although technology in this area is often at the forefront of technological advances in general, such high technology as scanners and robotic surgical devices, which are revolutionising the effectiveness of both diagnosis and treatment, can be very costly.

However there is massive potential for technology, particularly mobile technology, to overcome many of the obstacles faced by carers and healthcare workers, especially where there are issues relating to location. A great idea of how creative combinations of existing technologies can be used to increase efficiencies in this area can be taken from the recent adoption in some hospitals of robots on which tablet computers are attached providing video conferencing facilities. These mobile face to face communication tools, which can be used at the patients bedside, allow consultations to occur between patient and doctor even when the two parties are in different hospitals. This not only makes the hospital efficient (the cost is not small but is less than employing extra staff), to the benefit of all its patients, but also ensures that the patient receives the best possible care, and in good time too, even when the most appropriate doctor for their ailment is located in a different hospital.

Mobile Devices in the Field
As mentioned in the previous instalment of this article, mobile devices can be vital tools for in the field to provide a commentary on the work being done and the conditions being faced by charity workers, but these channels of communication can also be invaluable in allowing charity workers to share information between themselves instantaneously and on the go so that the demands of the vulnerable and in-need can be responded to most effectively and speedily. For example, international charity workers who are treating patients in the field can communicate symptoms to colleagues based in a central location, using mobile phones, text messaging, instant messaging email and even video, so that the diagnoses and treatments can be determined remotely but then implemented on location, straight away. Alternatively workers can use these mobile technologies to arrange and change logistical planning whilst in the field, to respond dynamically where the need is greatest by communicating and researching the information they need as they go.

Corporate Giving
When any technology is employed or purchase by a charity, it is worth that charity approaching the original provider (or any other big business that has charitable links) to see whether there are any cost savings to be had due to their charitable status. Many providers will offer concessions and discounts whilst some will even provide services gratis, such as staff time and expertise, digital services or computing resource (e.g., hosting in the cloud) as part of their corporate giving schemes.
© Stuart Mitchell 2012

How Charities Can Embrace Technology - Publicity and Fundraising

Walk for Cancer - it's raining! (Photo credit: miamism)

The missions of charities are as wide ranging as the number of issues that different societies face across the world, however any cause can benefit from embracing the advances in technology that are taking place all around us. Whether it be communicating their message to the general public and boosting their funding or carrying out the work to help the disadvantaged that lie at the heart of their objectives, technology can help charities become much more efficient, effective and dynamic in all aspects.

The Internet
One of the biggest challenges facing charities is in publicising their cause and the work that they do, and ultimately raising the funding that they fundamentally rely upon. The internet has been a godsend in that respect and it has never been easier to create a web presence to inform the general public and potential donors and volunteers about a charity does and why. What’s more, charities can even use their online channels to obtain their funding or services directly from their donors whilst they are imparting this information to them.

The internet provides a vast array of possible mediums through which charities can communicate their messages such as standalone web sites - incorporating engaging rich media including charity videos, games, blogs and infographics - or sometimes the more effective social networking sites. What’s more, there are plenty of off-the-shelf e-commerce systems, such as PayPal and WorldPay, which can be integrated into a charity’s web site to allow them to receive donations via the internet or raise money through other initiatives such as online charity shops.

Virtually any computer literate charity worker will be able to create a simple site or blog, but for those charities looking to provide a rich online experience to its users it is worth forming a relationship with a digital development or web design agency to deliver that content. Some agencies will specialise in working with charities, using flexible agile methods to do so and possibly offering special concessions (e.g., discounts, free resource etc) so it is important for each charity to find the right agency for them.

Social Networking
The boom in social networking has given charities a way to reach out to the communities that form on these networks and communicate directly with them. The premise of sharing that drives networks such as Facebook or Twitter means that if a charity can engage effectively with users on these sites they will be shared and recommended across the communities (and sometimes the general public too) more readily, thus spreading their message in a way and at a speed previously not possible. A charity’s reach can be greatest, therefore, when it combines its own website channel with social media channels to provide a broader online presence. Information and updates that are posted on a charity’s own website can reach a much wider audience if they are also promoted through social media outlets and shared across those communities. In particular, social media can be invaluable when organising fundraising events as participants buy into the cause and actively share it with their communities to raise awareness, sponsorship and encourage other participants to volunteer.

Furthermore,, the integration of blogs and/or social media updates together with online donation facilities, for example, means that charities can provide running feedback on the success of their fundraising activities as well as on the effectiveness of the work that is being carried out with the funds that have been donated thus far. Consequently, donors (and prospective donors) are able to see exactly where and how their money is being used and, assuming they see value in it’s application, be more motivated to provide further funding.

Mobile Internet/Apps
Through the use of mobile browsers and apps, another dimension can be added to all these benefits in that the charities can provide updates whilst working ‘in the field’ and the public can access information and donate from wherever they are. For example, a charity worker providing aid in the wake of a natural disaster can tweet from their mobile device as they are on the scene or even record an on location video diary to bring the extent of the crisis to the attention of the public. In particular, when charities workers are operating in scenarios where other forms of communication can be difficult, mobile devices being used on location can be the only way for the workers to get their message out until they return back home.

Furthermore, the possibility of being able to donate, not just access the charity’s message, via a mobile app, browser or via text messages (with the money being taken from your mobile bill) means that members of the public are more likely to donate when they get the urge/motivation and have the means to do so at their fingertips. They no longer have to wait until they get back home or to the nearest bank, by which time they may have lost that urge. In addition, there is a likelihood that members of the public will be more generous with their money when it is being transferred in an digital ‘virtual’ medium as opposed to a more tangible one.

© Stuart Mitchell 2012

The History of Family Offices - Through the Ages

Having briefly described the incarnations that family offices in the present can take, the second installment of the article looks at how we have arrived at these business models through centuries of evolution.

Ancient History
The concepts behind family offices have developed independently across the world, especially in Asia where there was a strong tradition of family dynasties in countries such as China and Japan. These dynasties required the means to preserve their legacies and power and significant facet of that would have revolved around their wealth. Some of the earliest incarnations of family office-type teams can be traced to these roots, with evidence of people being employed to preserve the wealth and welfare, for example, of the Shang dynasty in China as long ago as the 17th century BC.

Early European History
In Europe, the idea of a family office can trace its financial history back to the inception of the concept of banking for the sake of sustaining and preserving wealth; in contrast to money lending. One of the earliest examples of this practice can be attributed to the age of the crusades when a need arose to place wealth in trust whilst noblemen were away fighting in foreign lands. The demand for trusts to conserve wealth remained throughout the many conflicts that affected the continent down the subsequent centuries.

Generally speaking, family office-type and trust services were provided by traditional banking operators such as the Jewish communities, the protestant Swiss and Scottish bankers. However, prominent, sometimes ruling, European families from the middle ages - those that we now think of as dynasties like the Medicis of Florence and, more latterly, the Rothschilds family who spread across western Europe - also created their own banks and would have provided similarly styled services, They would have managed wealth creation on behalf of their own families but then, in turn, would have also offered services to the other prominent families of the time; effectively acting as forerunners of what we would now think of as private banks or specialist banking for HNWs. The lines for such families would no doubt have been very blurred, between entities that we would class as family offices and their banking services - because the family wealth would have been inextricably tied up with their banking activities. The families who were creating these early banks, and providing financing for others, were also likely to be those with the wealth to warrant a need for family office-style services.

Away from the financial management, land owners, from the middle ages onwards, also employed people to run their estate and the workers who would have toiled on their lands and serve the family in their day to day lives. Through the feudal systems of medieval Europe (for example, after the Norman invasion in England), ownership of land became focused within the minority nobility who in turn could give access to that land to vassals in exchange for their loyalty and labour. These labourers evolved through time, beyond the breakdown of feudalism, into teams of land workers and servants. These workers were free citizens and simply employed by the wealthy land owners to maintain the estate - lands and properties. The concept of these servant classes arguably reached its zenith in the Victorian era but as relative wealth declined the larger teams became the preserve of the ultra-wealthy only, creating the footprint for family offices.

Modern US History
The modern European incarnations of family offices in particular can therefore trace their lineage back to the medieval estate managers and family banks but the modern concept is also heavily influenced by the resurgence of family offices as financial management organisations in the US. In fact term itself, “Family Office” originates from modern US usage.

The American resurgence occurred at the end of the 19th century and start of 20th when private offices were established by wealthy US families in response to a lack of third party financial services, such as private banks, which targeted ultra-HNW individuals. The banks were prohibited by US legislation from offering joined-up services and so it was left to teams of advisors and other financial firms, such as accountants and legal partnerships, to provide the services associated with family offices, often creating family trusts in the process.

The specialist companies that started to appear focused on managing the financial elements of multiple wealthy families in contrast to the in-house offices that had existed before and that were previously popular across the pond. Latterly, relaxation in the US laws has allowed for the integration of family office services back into private banks.
© Stuart Mitchell 2012

A Glossary of Networking Terms - Part 3

English: wireless access point (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the final instalment of this trilogy of articles highlighting some of the more common computer networking terms, the three terms concerned are all common and integral to small home networks as well as enterprise levels. As such they are terms with which it is useful for many people outside of the IT industry to be familiar.

Firewall
The concept of a firewall in computing takes its name from the idea of the physical construct used to prevent fire spreading between buildings and rooms or compartments. In computing therefore, firewalls perform an analogous function preventing packets of data that may harm a computer or network from passing through - an obvious example of such packets would be viruses. In practise firewalls are therefore software applications or hardware based systems which sit on the connection points between LANs or individual devices and public WANs like the internet. They will monitor all traffic attempting to enter or leave the LAN/device and grant or deny access to it based upon rules that the user is able to predefine and control.

Gateway/Router
What is now referred to as a router was originally, and in some contexts still is, termed a gateway. It can be thought of as the hub at the heart of a network through which all communications (data packet transfers) pass. The routing element describes the process of receiving data packets from one device, determining its destination address, comparing that to a list of known devices, whether it be games consoles or dedicated hosting servers fro websites, and then forwarding the packets to that destination. Whereas the term ‘router’ has become more commonplace, the term ‘gateway’ is used more specifically to describe devices which allow communication between networks/computers/programs that use differing protocols.

Routers can take the form of physical devices or software applications and in practice many, like those used in home networks, can also provide the functions of a number of network elements such as network switches, modems (to connect to the rest of the internet), firewalls and wireless access points. They therefore also act in the more generic sense as ‘gateways’ to the local networks that sit behind them for any traffic being transferred to or from wider networks such as WANs and the internet.

Wifi/Wireless
Wifi is short for wireless fidelity and is used in general to describe technologies that deliver digital communications between devices using radio waves. Networks that utilise WiFi can interchangeably be referred to as wireless networks or wireless local area networks (WLANs). As with the wired Ethernet, the technologies are standardised by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE), however the actual term “Wi-Fi” is a trademark of the Wireless Alliance, who are the trade association that certify that products adhere to those standards.

WLANs are created using a Wireless Access Point (WAP) which takes wireless data and forwards it, through a wired connection, to or from a router - often WAPs are integrated into routers themselves. The areas in range of WAPs are called a wireless hotspot and are now commonplace in peoples homes as well as throughout business premises and public spaces. Often in the latter two areas, WAPs can be positioned so that hotspots overlap to provide extensive networks. The Wi-Fi standards ensure that any enabled device will be able to connect to a WAP, and, although transfer speeds across wireless networks will generally be slower than wired counterparts (and can be disrupted further by interference where competing signals use the same frequency channels) newer standards are still capable of delivering data thirsty services, such as streaming for video conferencing, without the restrictions of fixed wiring.

One of the major concerns with WLANs is security because any device within range of a WAP can see the network and pick up the signal. Consequently, there are a number of measures that are used to restrict access to private WLANs and to keep transmissions on those networks secure. Initially WEP (Wireless Equivalent Privacy) and latterly WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) and WPA2 have been implemented to this end to ensure that transmissions are encrypted and passwords are required in order to connect to the network. In addition, networks can be configured to only allow connections from predefined devices by using their unique MAC (Media Access Control) addresses.

A Glossary of Networking Terms - Part 2

The second instalment in this trilogy of articles explaining some of the more common terms found in networking jargon introduces two terms which may already be familiar to many computer users as technologies they make use but without necessarily a full awareness of their definitions: Ethernet and VPNs.

Ethernet
The term Ethernet is most frequently used to describe a type of network cable, common in our homes and workplaces, but actually applies to the protocol which defines the cable and its associated technologies (e.g., computer ports) that can be used to connect computer devices to each other within a network. As a result the term can even be used in some contexts to refer to the networks (predominantly LANs - Local Area Networks) themselves that they form.

The Ethernet protocol is standardised by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE) and is the most common such network connection used in the IT industry. The original Ethernet standard delivered a data transfer rate of 10 megabits per second and utilised copper coaxial cables (i.e., inner cable which carries signal is insulated by secondary sheet material) to do so. With the advent of successive standards such as Fast Ethernet (100 Mbit/s) the transfer rates have risen significantly up to the highest at 100 Gigabits a second. The Ethernet cables used t0o achieve these speeds have developed to include fibre optic and twisted pair (usually copper) cables alongside the original coaxial forms, with the most common and familiar cables in the home and workplace being twisted pair.

VPN
The abbreviation VPN is short for the term Virtual Private Network. This concept covers a broad array of technologies, including EVPN (Ethernet VPN), but essentially describes a secure connection between computers or LANs made across a public network such as the internet. VPNs allow communications between separate networks to be kept private and secure with no-one intercepting them and/or viewing them in transit. Whereas secure WANs may have previously relied (and in some cases still do rely) on dedicated physically distinct leased lines to ensure that the information being transferred is done so outside of the public domain, VPNs create what is called a tunnel to provide the same effect. VPN tunnels are a virtualised equivalent ‘through’ which encrypted data packets are transferred - essentially representing the idea that the data packets are cloaked to appear as though they are normal public network data transmissions without providing any visibility of the data they contain. The packets containing the core data are encrypted and encapsulated within outer packets which are further encrypted and which simply display information on which network gateway they are intended. The encrypted packets of data can only be unencrypted to view the contents when they reach the predesignated destination computer.

VPNs are a vital tool in business to allow workers to work securely off-site (as if they were in the office), to connect disparate branch offices, reduce physical business travel and to allow networks to incorporate and utilise varying types of computing device (e.g., tablet vs desktop). In turn, these opportunities all allow businesses to increase efficiency - reducing costs and boosting productivity - as well as improving flexibility and employee morale.

A Glossary of Networking Terms - Part 1

local area network (Photo credit: benschke)

Nearly every part of our lives these days will be affected, influenced and often facilitated by the use of computers and more to the point, networks of computers. Whether it be the wireless networks of PCs, games consoles and phones sharing internet connections in our homes or the vast business infrastructures that provide so many of the services we take for granted; even the internet itself. As with all areas of technology though, the world of networking is thick with jargon and so can appear very esoteric to those that don’t work within the field. This article therefore aims to summarise a few of the terms that people might stumble across in their everyday encounters with networks.

Packets
Data packets, sometimes simple referred to as packets in a computing context, are to some extent self explanatory in that they are pieces/units of digital data which are formatted into ‘packets’ in order for them to be transferred across networks. There are two elements to these packets, the information that is being transferred (sometimes called the payload) and the control data, which contains information to help it reach its destination. The control data can include details about the destination and source addresses, error checking, information about the size and type of packet (which protocols it follows) and information to help reconstruct bigger units of data where they fragmented into smaller packets. A helpful analogy is that of a letter which can contain all of the information it needs to reach its destination and be interpreted by the reader correctly, recorded before and after the content itself.

LAN vs WAN
LAN is the abbreviation of Local Area Network; WAN is the abbreviation of Wide Area Network. LANs and WANs are to some extent defined in contrast to each other.

In simple terms LANs are small networks which connect devices in one location. They are usually constructed using Ethernet cables (and their compatible technologies) and/or Wireless protocols to connect the localised devices, all behind one firewall. As a result of the proximity of devices and therefore the technologies that can be used to connect them, LANs are able to offer high speed data transfer rates between the interconnected devices. They are commonly deployed and utilised in single work locations such as offices but over the last decade or so have also become common in peoples homes to enable their computers and entertainment devices to talk to each other and share an internet connection. They are, by their nature, private networks (with communication possible between local devices behind a firewall) and usually have a single gateway to public networks such as the internet.

WANs, on the other hand, are networks which span multiple locations to interconnect individual devices or separate local networks. The term can therefore be applied to the entire network they form (including LANs) or the just the connections made between the separate localised networks. WANs can employ a variety of technologies to this effect. They can take the form of private networks where dedicated leased lines or virtual private networks are used to securely connect disparate private LANs together, or they can simply form open communication networks which the public can use to share information. In the latter sense the internet can be considered to be a variation of a WAN. Private WANs are integral fro businesses working across multiple locations to ensure that each location can interact and communicate securely and to offer the economies of scale that arise from the centralisation of infrastructure such as the use of central servers for business hosting.

The Data Centre Arms Race - US & Asia

Image via CrunchBase

The final part of this trilogy looking into the growth of data centre facilities around the world focuses on the existing power house of data centre construction, North America, in particular the US, and the emerging contenders within Asia.

US
There are currently thought to be five data centres that are as large or larger than that in Newport, Wales and four of them are to be found in the US. The smallest of these is the NAP of the Americas data centre, located within the urban sprawl of Miami in Florida. Matching the Newport facility for floor space at 750,000 square feet, it is not only a key installation for both the US military and global DNS infrastructure, but is a vital hub for IT Operations in the south east of the US and Latin America beyond.

The next up the chain is the home of Twitter’s servers amongst others - the QTS Metro Data Centre in Atlanta Georgia - with a square footage of 990,000. The building which originated as a Sears distribution centre and, like many of the other contenders, was repurposed into a data centre, now houses its own substation to support its vast power consumption.

The single largest data centre building in the world is the Lakeside Technology Center. The only centre over one million square feet at 1.1m, it can be found in another re-purposed ex-Sears building, this time in Chicago (a city also home to Microsoft's largest facility at 700k sq.ft). The size of this facility can be illustrated by the fact that, within the Chicago area, the data centre consumes more power than any other facility excluding the city’s airport, being fed with 100MW of energy. This consumption is tempered however by the innovative use of a shared 8.5million gallon reservoir of chilled brine. In common with most of those reported here the facility is multi-tenant, offering colocation and business hosting to an array of clients. It is housed within a building, complete with gothic architecture, that Sears once used for its printing presses.

Although not a single building, the US’s largest data centre complex can be found in Las Vegas, Nevada with the expansion of the SuperNap 7 facility. The project currently has over 2m square feet of floor space and continues to grow. In total, this behemoth requires an energy capacity of a whopping 500 MVA.

Asia
If you were to believe the headline figures, Hebei Province in China is home to a data centre which would blow all of the world’s other largest facilities out of the water. The data centre being built as a cloud computing city by American IT firm IBM in conjunction with Chinese company Range, claims to have a gigantic 6.2 million square feet of floor space; nearly six times the Lakeside facility in the US. However, in actuality a large proportion of this space will be used for other purposes, such as office space, and the true footage of the data centre itself is considered to be in the region of 300,000 to 650,000.

Instead the largest data centre on the continent is considered to be the Tulip Data City facility in Bangalore, India with a floor space of around 900,000 square feet. In common with the Hebei Province centre above it has been built with IBM and also offers 80,000 of office space for customers. Although, due to its scale, it consumers 40 MVA of electricity, it can still classify itself as being a green facility as, at 1.9 PUE, it sneaks under the industry standard of 2.0 PUE.

As mentioned previously the challenge facing the data centre industry is to build big and to build green. Cloud computing and other new technologies are creating the demand for extra data centre capacity but this capacity can only be achieved in a sustainable and cost effective manner by finding smarter ways to manage the environments, primarily the temperatures, in which servers run to reduce their vast power consumption. However, with innovation such as the use of hot and cold aisles, thermal energy stores and the use of environmental resources, including external air and water, companies are opening up the possibilities for larger scale green data centre development.
© Stuart Mitchell 2012

The Data Centre Arms Race - UK & Europe

The following installments of this article look at the progress of this data centre arms race and a few of the new generation of large data centres that have been built across the world. There are, no doubt, some facilities which would warrant a mention that don’t appear below because of a lack of available data, particularly regarding those run by online application giants such as Google and Facebook for purely their own use. Information is more plentiful for data centres run as leased hosting and/or colocation facilities as they are looking to actively advertise their specifications.

When looking at the world’s largest data centres, there are a number of ways in which their sizes can be measured, including the scale of their operation, based on power consumption, the number of servers in use or the total digital storage capacity; or their potential capacity taking into account the number of units and total rack-space available in each facility including un-utilised capacity and potential space for colocation purposes.

This article focuses on the latter idea of capacity by comparing the floor space of each data centre’s buildings to get a scale of the actual facilities themselves rather than their technical capacities.

UK
Using this metric, the UK’s capital, London, is the largest data centre market in Europe. In other words it has collectively more data centre floor space than any other European city or single location. This statistic, however, reflects the high number of individual data centre facilities that are to be found within the confines of the M25 and not necessarily the size of any individual building. The legacy of early data centre adoption has left London with an advanced data centre ecosystem despite the costs of real estate in the area. This cost though has prohibited the growth of the largest facilities.

Consequently the UK’s largest individual data centre can actually be found nearly 150 miles away in South Wales, in Newport. Not only is it the UK’s largest but also the largest in Europe with 750,000 square feet of floor space. The scale of the centre means that it consumes 90 MVA of electricity and therefore incorporates its own electrical substation which has the incredible capacity to power a city of 400,000 inhabitants. It is also notable for its advanced security measures including exSAS guards, 3-skin walls, perimeter fences and biometric identification. The data centre offers enterprise customers of varying sizes the ability to rent isolated suites, units and/or colocation space to fulfil their hosting requirements from business hosting to managed hosting resellers for example. The first tenants of the data centre were BT and Logica.

Europe
Beyond the UK, the next largest data centre in Europe is still to be found within the British Isles. The home of Microsoft’s cloud operations in Dublin, Ireland is not only a behemoth of a data centre with 550,000 square feet of floor space, but is also a pioneer in green computing using a power consumption of a meagre 1.25 PUE. This energy efficiency is achieved without chiller units by combining the circulation of cool external air with smart containment of heat producing equipment.

© Stuart Mitchell 2012

How Data Centers Are Becoming Greener

Data Centre (Photo credit: Route79)

It’s all too easy when you’re surfing the net to completely forget the impact that doing so may have on environment. We instinctively know that it’s greener to look up some information online than drive down to the library for example, but that is partly because we tend to think of the internet as somehow ethereal with no physical base and therefore no tangible effect on the environment. However, all of the data that we view on the web must be stored somewhere and the vast majority lives on servers in large data centers which unfortunately do have a significant environmental footprint.


Reports in 2007 found that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) accounted for 2% of the world’s harmful gas emissions with data centers in turn culpable for 14% of that figure. As our use of the internet and the trade in digital information grows - and in particular as the concept of cloud computing continues to take off with our data being stored remotely ‘in the cloud’ (i.e., on providers’ vast server networks) for us to access anytime anywhere - the demand for data centers is continually abounding. Providers are therefore increasingly looking for solutions and innovations to become more efficient to meet the twin objectives of cutting their own costs whilst reducing their unsustainable environmental impacts.


All data centers comprise of two key elements which can each provide a number of opportunities for financial and environmental efficiencies. The first is the actual IT equipment. the stuff that provides the core function and purpose of a center, such as the servers themselves and the network switches serving them. The second is all of the infrastructure that is required to house the IT equipment and keep it running efficiently and securely. The infrastructure can be made up of cooling equipment, security devices, lighting etc.

The ratio of energy that is used in the data center’s infrastructure to the energy used to power the IT equipment is known as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and is the industry standard in measuring their efficiency. A PUE score of 2, for example, would signify that for every unit of power being consumed by the IT equipment a further unit was being consumed by the infrastructure.


Renewable Energy
The first step to becoming a greener data center can be to ensure that the source of the energy or electricity being used is renewable. This can be achieved either partnering up exclusively with a supplier of renewable energy or by sourcing energy directly using sustainable methods. Some providers are going as far as locating solar energy farms on site to obtain the energy they need.


Energy Monitoring
It is also important to have accurate and in depth monitoring of the energy that is consumed at each point within the data center so that further efficiencies can be spotted. Most providers will have monitoring in place to calculate the PUE score but the accuracy of this monitoring and the assignment of energy consumption between the IT equipment and infrastructure can potentially vary slightly from one center to another.


Energy Efficiency
It is unavoidable that the largest proportion of energy used by a data center will be used by its IT Equipment, such as the servers, which is the fundamental purpose of the center. However, savings can still be made here, and throughout the supporting infrastructure, by employing the most energy efficient hardware that can be sourced. A significant amount of energy is, for example, lost in inefficient power suppliers before it even reaches the servers. Although this might mean a high initial outlay the power savings, will over the long term translate to financial as well as environmental savings.


Temperature Management
Often the biggest consumer of power, aside from the IT equipment, is the equipment used for cooling the data center.


There is a slight myth in that conditions inside a data center need to be kept at a low temperature. In reality they can operate efficiently at temperatures up to 80F, so providers can make immediate power savings by simply turning down the thermostat. In addition the main chunk of the cost for keeping the interior of a building cool is usually spent on chiller units. As a result, providers are increasingly looking to other solutions to make both energy and cost savings. Amongst these alternative solutions is the choice of locating the data center in naturally cool environments such as Alaska or Scandinavia and then allowing the cool air from outside to circulate through the building. There are also so-called free cooling mechanisms which (although not strictly free) can use pumps to recycle the cool air within the data center rather than chillers.


As well as circulating cool air, many data centers use cold water to reduce their temperatures. Again this can be a cost effective and sustainable option when for example data centers are located by their own source of water and then use purify the water themselves. Cooling water does need to be purified for this purpose but not to the same extent as mains water so the data center can carry out the process with less wasted energy consumption if they do it themselves using a local source.


Materials
As with any manufacturing process, key savings can be made in the production of all of the equipment used in a data center, from the servers to the cooling systems. By sourcing materials locally, for example, the initial carbon footprint of those materials can be cut. Once they have served their purpose, they may also still have a life beyond that; servers which have been superseded for a particular role or function should still be re-purposed within the center in another role where they are still adequately powerful. Those elements which cannot be reused within the data center may still be of use to others and so reselling them may be a further option.


Finally, units which are completely redundant can still be broken down into their components and then repurposed or resold and, failing that, the core materials in the components should be recycled as appropriate. All repurposing and reselling will reduce the demand for new equipment to be built and acquired and therefore as well as saving the data center money from purchasing new equipment it will also reduce the consumption of the raw materials and the energy used in their construction.


Most large data center providers are constantly exploring new and innovative ways to reduce their PUE scores and therefore their energy consumption, keeping costs down and increasing their green credentials. However, the booming demand for services such as cloud hosting and Colocation means that this challenge will never go away.

© Stuart Mitchell 2011