Friday 20 December 2013

Tech Trailblazers voting is now live! We are a finalists and need your help to get more votes

Iceotope has been announced as a finalist in the Sustainability Trailblazer Award Category at the Tech Trailblazers Awards. We need your help, to get more votes, to help us win – vote for Iceotope today!

www.techtrailblazers.com
@techtrailblaze / #TTawards


Monday 16 December 2013

Liquid Cooling gets better the more you think about it

Liquid cooling is a good idea for data centers. We already knew it was environmentally better, and thermodynamically better - but it seems it’s also got some other benefits that aren’t quite so obvious.

Green Datacenter News, Peter Judge (editor of TechWeekEurope UK), 10th December

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Wednesday 11 December 2013

Liquid Cooling – The Gift That Keeps Giving

Besides the obvious benefits, liquid cooling lets you simplify your data centre, says Peter Judge

Tech Week Europe, Peter Judge, 11th December

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DatacenterDynamics EMEA Awards 2013

The DatacenterDynamics EMEA Awards are upon us. Iceotope is delighted to be nominated for the Innovation In The Micro-Data Center Award.

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A cool head for development

Iceotope has developed a patented liquid cooling 
system that can halve the massive amount of energy used by data centres, reducing CO2 emissions and also allowing users to save on space and capital expenditure.

The Star, 11 December

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Friday 6 December 2013

Winners Boost City Growth Prospects

Iceotope are the proud winners of Sheffield Chamber of Commerce Design and Innovation Award.

It was about taking part, winning – and raising the profile of Sheffield to stimulate growth in 2014.

Sheffield Star Online, 6th December

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Wednesday 20 November 2013

Iceotope liquid-cooled supercomputer operates at 95 percent utilisation with near-perfect PUE

Iceotope has announced the installation of its next generation liquid-cooled servers inside the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) in Poland, a 3,200sq ft colocation facility offering shared HPC (High Performance Computing) services to scientists, universities and researchers from around the world.

DCS Europe, 20 November

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Monday 18 November 2013

Iceotope hits low PUE in overclocked IT environment

Puts liquid cooling to the test in Poland as part of the PRACE project.

Datacenter Dynamics, Penny Jones, 18 November 2013

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Iceotope Performs ‘environmental Overclocking’ for €400m Prace Project

Iceotope liquid-cooled supercomputer operates at 95 percent utilisation with near-perfect PUE

18 November, 2013 – Sheffield-based Iceotope, the environmental cooling specialist, has today announced the installation of its next generation liquid-cooled servers inside the Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) in Poland, a 3,200sq ft colocation facility offering shared HPC (High Performance Computing) services to scientists, universities and researchers from around the world. The installation is part of the European PRACE Research Project (Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) and was completed in June 2013. Since then, the Iceotope and PRACE teams have been running the systems on ‘turbo mode’ and collecting data on its environmental performance, the results of which have the potential to substantially reduce the environmental footprint of supercomputing operations.

The PRACE research project is an international not-for-profit association set up to support high impact scientific discovery and engineering research, with a strong interest in reducing the environmental impact of computing systems. Iceotope is one of three winning participants in PRACE’s new liquid cooling research project, which involves testing and comparing a variety of different liquid cooled solutions – with the aim of exploring their environmental benefits compared to traditional air cooling. Iceotope was awarded the tender with PRACE ahead of a rival bid from IBM, and has since installed 46 of its environmentally-friendly and high performance blade modules alongside existing legacy air cooled servers. So far, the results for Iceotope have been impressive – with massive energy efficiency, operational, performance and utilisation benefits compared to traditional air cooled servers, and even other forms of liquid cooling.

Green supercomputers – Iceotope achieves a 1.03 PUE

With the ultimate objective of finding the most environmentally friendly computing systems, each system tested has been given a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) figure as part of its overall environmental rating. Iceotope’s 1.03 figure[1] is on a par with Facebook and Google’s industry leading data centre facilities and means that for every Kilowatt of energy that reaches the computer, 95% is available for computing with no losses for fans etc.

 Three months of ‘environmental overclocking’

“At the PSNC, we are able to overclock the machines and still use minimal power resources for cooling; no easy feat, I can assure you,” said Iceotope founder and CEO, Peter Hopton. “Typically, data centre facilities will run their servers at around 40% utilisation, meaning that 60% of potential compute capacity remains unused. At Poznan PSNC, however, the Iceotope system was set up to run at above 90% utilisation, running a highly demanding ‘Linux Stress’ software programme designed to assess every aspect of compute including memory, CPU, servers and applications.  The system has been running for periods of up to 3 months while undergoing testing of the system, the cooling and the high speed networking.

“Running at such a high utilisation rate, or overclocking as it commonly known, means that IT users can run their systems in ‘turbo mode’ and get higher performance rates. However, this is the complete opposite to how most environmentally friendly IT systems are run as doing so requires the electronics to operate at much higher temperatures.  To avoid damage to the equipment, cooling equipment capable of providing a constant temperature must be used and more often than not this is a power-hungry option. This high utilisation with low cooling cost makes the environmental figures we achieved all the more impressive.”

 Whilst most IT professionals will employ ‘underclocking’ techniques, with very low utilisation rates, in order to minimise power usage; Iceotope’s 1.03 PUE figure was calculated during several two week periods where systems were running full-time at over 90 percent utilisation. The majority of liquid cooling solutions in the market today are unable to operate over such long periods, and many require constant supervision during the periods in which they are running. Iceotope’s system does not. The Iceotope Solution is decoupled at the module, cabinet and data centre level, offering 2N redundancy throughout and levels of reliability only found in air cooled servers until now.

“Acting as a platform to demonstrate this kind of technological evolution is exactly what our project was set up to do,” said Radek Januszewski, IT Specialist at the PSNC. “We set up this research project in an effort to establish the benefits of liquid cooling and the results we’ve seen so far are incredible. I see no reason why people would buy air cooled systems ever again. We’re trying to educate European HPC users of the most environmentally friendly forms of IT and in that regard, the Iceotope project has been a massive success. The environmental rating of the system is incredible and coupled with the impeccable performance and reliability that it delivers - it is a real game-changer.”

“The PRACE project is a fantastic initiative,” continued Hopton. “While the average person may not necessarily realise it, HPC is becoming a bigger and bigger part of our everyday lives. Supercomputers like the one in Poznan are crunching data 24/7, the kind of data which is often forgotten about but is imperative for our ‘always on, always connected’ lifestyles. The environmental impact of processing such vast amounts of data is also largely unseen and PRACE is fulfilling a vital role in educating those operating these facilities as to how they can do so in the most environmentally friendly way possible.”

Iceotope hits low PUE in overclocked IT environment

Puts liquid cooling to the test in Poland as part of the PRACE project
 
DatacenterDynamics, by Penny Jones, 18 November 2013        
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Tuesday 5 November 2013

Iceotope Helps the 3m Buckley Innovation Centre Reduce Its Environmental Footprint

New HPC servers cut energy use and heat on-site radiators

5th November 2013 – Sheffield-based Iceotope, the liquid cooling IT specialist, has today announced the installation of its revolutionary High Performance Computing (HPC) servers at the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre (3M BIC), a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Huddersfield located close to the University campus. As well as requiring roughly half of the overall energy of traditional air cooled systems, these new liquid cooled servers are unique in that they have been looped into the building’s heating system and are actively heating the site via domestic radiators.

“You’d be forgiven for missing the new servers, since they’re virtually silent, but it’s quite remarkable to think what they’re doing,” said Dr Michael Wilson, Technology Director at the 3M BIC. “HPC is often isolated from everyday operations, tucked away in a little sound proof room, but that scenario is far from ideal. Working with Iceotope, we’ve been able to create a wonderfully harmonious working environment at the 3M BIC where HPC has pride of place. We’ve been able to locate powerful computing right next to our users, without detriment to their working procedures. I’m sure our tenants will get quite a kick knowing that the servers are even helping heat the building.”

HPC is of considerable importance to the UK economy and facilitates some of the most pioneering R&D projects in academia and industry. However, while HPC servers and facilities are vital components for any site such as this, they often require a substantial amount of power to run. The state-of-the-art 3M BIC, is no exception and supports the work of a growing number of SMEs and larger companies on site or associated with the centre. Iceotope’s innovative liquid cooled servers are helping the 3M BIC to expand its HPC operations and radically improve the environmental performance of these facilities. Operational since September 2013, the Iceotope servers support business-related activities across a range of fields including detailed mathematical modelling, molecular dynamics, mechanical engineering and physics, while also offering a hands-on demonstration of computational fluid dynamics to those with a potential use for the technique.

While off-the-shelf IT units were once considered suitable for Huddersfield’s research and teaching needs, growing demand and data usage prompted the search for new dedicated systems. Alongside the University of Huddersfield, 3M BIC launched a competitive tender process for such a solution. Iceotope was chosen from three different vendors for a number of reasons including:

·         Substantial environmental benefits – The Iceotope solution uses just 107W to cool 20KW of IT. 3M Novec Engineered Fluids work as the primary coolant with excellent heat transfer performance and exceptional environmental properties.  The fluid can also be reclaimed and reused (extending its life cycle), is non-ozone depleting and has a low global warming potential.  The water used as a secondary coolant in the cooling process can be drawn from ‘grey water’ sources such as rainwater or river water and can also be recycled and used in the central heating system (as demonstrated in the current set-up where the Iceotope servers are connected to domestic radiators).
·         Engineering innovation – To cool IT without traditional fans, Iceotope uses a non-flammable, dielectric liquid coolant which can be in direct contact with electronics, because it does not conduct electricity. Using Iceotope’s unique and patented design, the servers are encapsulated inside metal cases or Iceotope Modules that do not require an elaborate pump to move the dielectric coolant. Instead, the fluid harvests the heat from all components on the server by lively natural convection. All that is required to transport the heat away from the servers is a simple low energy pump and this process allows the Iceotope HPC servers to run with exceptional efficiency and to be located anywhere, regardless of temperature, humidity or air pollution.
·         Virtually silent operations – Traditional HPC servers can be very loud and often need to be located in custom-built facilities where users must wear ear protection. The Iceotope servers, however, are virtually silent in operation and those at the 3M BIC are actually installed inside a small lab filled with academics, researchers and students using the system on a daily basis for its computing power.
·         Low cost – Due to the low energy usage of the Iceotope solution, and it not requiring expensive ancillary data centre facilities such as computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units, humidity control systems or air purification, the Iceotope system is an affordable IT solution for universities, cutting CAPEX and OPEX in equal measure.
·         A hands-on demonstration of computational fluid dynamics – The way in which the Iceotope servers cool electronics allows students at the University to see a working demonstration of computational fluid dynamics. The Iceotope solution is designed symmetrically, allowing for access either side. The transparent cabinet doors show Iceotope’s various connectivity options in front and the highly convective liquid coolant flowing through the system and over the electronics in back. This is a valuable hands-on experience for students that cloud cannot deliver.

“The University of Huddersfield has a long standing reputation for forming successful collaborations between academia and industry,” said Dr Wilson. “Indeed, our work with Iceotope and 3M should be taken as a great case in point. The 3M BIC already houses a range of revolutionary technology on its Innovation Avenue, so it was only fitting that we would install an HPC system to match. Iceotope certainly fits the bill in that respect. Environmental performance was also a major factor when we were researching the HPC options available and we are extremely impressed with the kind of efficiency savings Iceotope’s systems have offered so far.”

“IT is an absolutely terrific generator of heat and a massive consumer of power,” explains Iceotope CEO, Peter Hopton. “Servers can get incredibly warm and at a certain point, everything begins to melt, break or fail. It’s this hardware failure that is the problem, not the heat as such. While most servers will desperately try to remove and dump the heat using spinning fans, at Iceotope, we endeavoured to create a solution that was able to re-use the waste heat while keeping the electronics cool. It always seemed a strange scenario to me, using fans to cool a computer in the same room in which you’ll have the heaters on full blast. Thankfully, the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre no longer has to work like this.”

“We’re thrilled to be working with the 3M BIC and the University of Huddersfield on this project. It’s a great demonstration of Iceotope’s technology, the Innovation Centre, and of course, the University itself.”
 

Liquid-cooled computer provides central heating in Huddersfield

Iceotope, the Sheffield-based liquid cooling system developer, has installed liquid-cooled servers at the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre, owned by the University of Huddersfield.

Electronics Weekly, Richard Wilson, 5th November 2013
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Monday 4 November 2013

The PEA Awards 2013 – Finalists Announced

Iceotope has been nominated for two awards; Business Person of the Year and Best Energy-Saving Idea.

Business Person of the Year
This category rewards the steps taken by individuals in the business world to deliver goods or services in a sustainability-orientated way, demonstrating that financial profit can go hand-in-hand with respect for people and the planet.

Best Energy-Saving Idea, Sponsored by Good Energy
This category rewards the individual who has come up with the best carbon-saving idea, regardless of whether this idea has already been put into practice or is still in the pipeline.

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Wednesday 30 October 2013

EMEA Awards finalists announced

DatacenterDynamics has announced the finalists for its 2013 EMEA Awards, which recognise leadership and innovation in the data center industry.

Iceotope is nominated for Innovation in the Micro data center, for helping the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre reduce its environmental footprint.

30 October 2013 by Penny Jones
DatacenterDynamics  

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Wednesday 9 October 2013

Iceotope Wins Computer Weekly Award!

Computer Weekly European User Awards for Data Centre: Winners

Five innovative IT projects have been chosen as the winners of the Computer Weekly European User Awards for Data Centre.
The data centre awards aim to recognise innovation in the use of data centre technologies, virtualisation, and its ecosystem of products.
CW_awards_datacentre.jpg
A panel of independent judges viewed entries across five categories: Public Sector Project, Best Technology Innovation, Supplier of the Year, Private Sector Project and Cloud Innovation.
And the winners are:

Best Technology Innovation Winner: University of Leeds (Entered by Iceotope) 

A large user of High Performance Computing (HPC) for its research, the University of Leeds was the Iceotope Solution has been installed in a large thermofluid mechanics laboratory at Leeds’ School of Mechanical Engineering, where it is used to perform complex thermal Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. It is also becoming an experimental apparatus for exploring the possibilities of re-using the waste heat from IT systems.
The Iceotope solution of liquid-cooled servers demonstrates a new generation of thinking
Spencer Izard, IDC research manager
While most computer servers use air to cool their electronics, all of the components inside the Iceotope Solution are immersed in 3M Novec Engineered Fluid. The power-hungry fans of traditional computing are replaced by a silent liquid encapsulation cooling process that relies on the natural convection of heat.
At the University of Leeds, the Iceotope solution currently operates contaminant-free in a large thermofluids laboratory, using a total of 107W of pump power to harvest the heat from the IT systems without fans.
Awards judge John Rakowski, analyst and advisor, infrastructure and operations at Forrester Research, said: “The most impressive case study from my point of view here is the University of Leeds using the Iceotope solution. This seems like a great innovation when it comes to green IT and it’s great that the University of Leeds is undertaking this study here.
“Our increasing technology requirements are raising power utilisation levels and, while many organisations talk about green IT, in practice they don't do it because it's costly and means too much change. Projects like this one at the University of Leeds have to be commended as they are investigating real innovative answers to this problem.”
Spencer Izard, IDC research manager and awards judge, said: “As the demands by both academia and business has increased for large compute capability an exponential increase in data center cooling and power management complexity has occurred.
“The Iceotope solution of liquid-cooled servers demonstrates a new generation of thinking and capability in regards to cooling that limits the fallible moving parts of traditional air-cooling fans for a solution utilising cooling fluid for a silent solution utilising natural convection of heat. This in turn reduces power costs as well as providing other innovative advantages not seen in fan based technologies.”
Awards judge Clive Longbottom, founder of Quocirca, said: “The need to deal with heat dissipation in extreme density equipment means that standard forced air systems are struggling. 
“Complete liquid immersion is far more effective, and could well be the future as densities continue to increase.”

Supplier of the Year Winner: Dell (Caterham F1 case study) 

Caterham F1 Team is a Malaysian-owned Formula One team based in the United Kingdom which travels the world around the year for races and pre-season testing. To support the complex technology needs demanded by the highly competitive F1 industry, the company needed a powerful HPC environment; a resilient trackside IT environment, which can travel the world; and user-friendly tablets with global technology support at the time of need.  
The platform is flexible enough to meet the changing demands of a highly mobile F1 season
Clive Longbottom, founder of Quocirca
When the team began its F1 journey, it decided to partner with Dell to support the creation of its end-to-end IT environment and the IT staff at Caterham F1 team. This was no ordinary task though – Dell had to design and deploy an enterprise class environment, including an HPC cluster, in less than 22 weeks.
Following the decision to implement Dell’s HPC solution, Dell consultants held a series of workshops covering the design and implementation of servers, storage, networks and infrastructure applications. This process mapped the team’s short and long-term business goals to its IT strategy. Dell then worked with the in-house IT team to design the optimal HPC environment for Caterham F1 Team. The initial designs were completed on a cloud-based HPC environment provided by Cambridge University, which was later migrated to the Caterham F1 Team’s own HPC platform.
Caterham F1 Team needed the HPC solution to run advanced Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) processing. F1 teams have long relied on wind tunnels for testing parts, to find out if they are going to add performance to the car or not. But the relentless advance of technology has seen those teams increasingly use CFD in tandem with wind tunnel work.
Longbottom said this case study demonstrates a true “trusted partner” relationship between the customer and supplier: “Dell works alongside Caterham, not only to ensure that equipment is available, but also to create a platform that is flexible enough to meet the changing demands of a highly mobile F1 season.”
Izard explained that Formula One puts regulatory constraints on the use of compute cycles when designing the cars, as well having very specific in-field/trackside requirements on race day: “Dell demonstrated a strong and pragmatic approach to designing and implementing a data center solution that was both scalable and flexible to the needs of Caterham F1 while minimising the physical footprint and complexity of the IT solutions.
“A combination of compute, network and mobile systems clearly demonstrated an innovative approach to the clients’ needs in locations where IT operations and connectivity is less then optimal.”

Public Sector Winner: North East of Scotland Shared Data Centre Entered by University of Aberdeen) 

The North East of Scotland Shared Data Centre (NESSDC) is a £1.5m initiative involving the creation of a unique shared primary data centre facility for all four tertiary educational establishments in the North East of Scotland.
Whoever was project managing this transformation should be given a bottle of champagne
John Rakowski, analyst at Forrester Research
The project involved extensively upgrading the aging, operational, live University of Aberdeen primary data centre during term-time.
This was a 10-month, large-scale, complex and high-risk strategic project.  Utilising, through tender, an external company (Workspace Ltd), and specialist University staff, the major objective in the project was to spearhead a shared-service approach, while delivering significant institutional savings by allowing institutions to vacate current environmentally unfriendly facilities which were unsustainable based on current performance and future requirements. The capital funding for the upgrade project was provided by the four partner institutions.
The project involved re-locating all 400 servers in the University of Aberdeen’s data centre, re-locating and re-wiring 100 live network components and two full Janet racks, replacing all flooring and ceilings and major external construction work.
Unbelievably, unplanned outages across 10 months totalled less than 40 minutes.
Rakowski said this project “is an example of a true data centre transformation”.
“Many organisations would suffer from a number of downtime periods but to only have 40 minutes of downtime in incredible especially with the work that was undertaken. Whoever was project managing this transformation should be given a bottle of champagne.”
Longbottom agreed, saying: “The University of Aberdeen entry shows how a proper approach to shared services can lead to a much more efficient and effective data centre being put in place that meets the needs for multiple users.
Izard said: “Like many organisations in the current economic climate, academic institutions are challenged with providing the best IT services at the best operational price point.
“This entry stood out from the others due to its shared services approach, backed by an energy efficient design, a transition that saw minimal service interruptions, and better use of infrastructure to decrease complexity and operational footprint whilst maintaining quality of service.”

Private Sector Winner: Sudlows 

Located on a brown-field site, the BelleVue Data Centre building was set to become an office development but, during the construction phase, was beefed up to enable it to be used as a data centre site.
The physical data centre is the heart of any IT services
John Rakowski
This combination, while first appearing too small a footprint, simply required some inventive space planning to fulfil the company’s IT requirement for web-hosting and cloud-based service provision. Once designed, the facility was capable of punching far above its weight in terms of both capacity and resilience, given its modest 400m2 footprint.
The challenge here was clearly going to be the space limitations within the building and the fact that the server rooms only had a footprint of 400m² over five floors. Not only did the building have to host over 160 racks, but the resilience required meant a number of unique technical design features were deployed; all to ensure the facility achieved the hosting company’s own high standards for resilience and energy efficiency.
One of the major challenges came from the fact that the building itself only had a very small, uncommissioned service lift shaft available to the construction team. Subsequently, every individual item of equipment had to be precisely measured and carefully lifted into position on to each floor, without incident.
The roof holds 33 single-circuit air-cooled condensers with fan speed control, plus two condensing units serving both the basement battery room and server room. Sudlows have managed to design and fit 53 Knurr Miracel server cabinets to form highly efficient cold-aisle containment pods on each of the three data centre floors, providing an impressive capacity of 159 racks.
Longbottom commented: “Sudlows shows how clever design and use of the latest technology can create a usable data centre space from a building that at first glance would appear to be ill-fit for purpose. 
“Attaining a low PUE is a key requirement as energy prices continue to rise – and free air cooling helps to minimise the energy costs.”
Izard agreed by saying: “The challenge of adapting a building from an office development to data centre capable when the building was not designed for that function is a challenging task.
“This entry demonstrated that, through the likes of in-row cooling and high density data centre design, the challenge of providing a top-end data centre in a restrictive space can now be achieved.”
Rakowski said the description of how Sudlows designed and made its data centre enterprise ready is “inspiring especially with the modern technologies they used”.
“The physical data centre is the heart of any IT services and, with technology based services increasingly fuelling the business, it's essential that their design and build is right.” 

Cloud Innovation Winner: Totaljobs 

Totaljobs Group (TJG) is one of the largest online job boards in the UK. Each day TJG delivers over two million page impressions, 4.5 million emails and processes over 200,000 job applications. 
This is a great example of the opportunities of evolving IT operations through the benefits of cloud
Spencer Izard
Following it purchase by StepStone GmbH in April 2012, TGJ was required to vacate its former owner’s data centres by the end of the year. This was looked on by Totaljobs Group management as an opportunity to build an environment designed to meet ever-changing business requirements while minimising implementation and support costs.
Prior to the sale, former owner Reed Business Information (RBI) had already performed due diligence around the security and resilience of cloud providers and had identified Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a suitable host for their business unit’s IT.  Further work by TJG confirmed that AWS could handle their workload without costly re-factoring.
A plan to move the web-facing server estate to AWS while exploiting Office 365 and SharePoint Online for Corporate IT, all in seven months, was approved by StepStone and the fun began.
The work for moving the server estate included upgrading the database environment to SQL Server 2012 and introducing peer-to-peer (P2P) replication, standardising on Windows 2008 R2 operating system and implementing new email, backup and load-balancing solutions.
The new architecture spans two availability zones to improve resilience. Careful design kept additional costs to within 5% over a single implementation, but allowed a full service to be provided if one availability zone fails, and SQL P2P replication allows a failover to be completed in a matter of minutes.
A strong TJG technical team experienced in Agile working practices moved this to a successful go-live in October 2013.
Rakowski believes this case study is a great story of how an enterprise IT organisation can embrace cloud-based technology approaches: “I love the fact that this has not just been a cloud technology implementation but has changed the mindset of the IT organisation.
“Also for such a seismic transformation to have user experience to not be impacted is commendable. Great to see that this cloud adoption does not focus just on cost savings.”
Izard commented: “Combining elements of agile working practices and cloud platforms to evolve a traditional data centre footprint to leverage and evolve into a service-driven cloud system, without a perceivable negative operational impact by the business, while providing noticeable advantages – both from cost and capability perspectives – is a great example of the opportunities, when planned and executed properly, of evolving IT operations through the benefits of cloud.”

The Winners

All winners will be profiled in full case studies on Computer Weekly. Trophies are on their way to all of the projects mentioned above.

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Sheffield-based Iceotope Wins Techworld's Startup Product of the Year

Iceotope’s liquid cooling system, capable of providing 24/7 free cooling anywhere on the planet, is recognised for its impact on the IT industry

17th September 2012 - Iceotope is proud to announce that its liquid cooling solution has been named ‘Startup Product of the Year’ at this year’s Techworld Awards – an accolade determined by an esteemed panel of judges including key members the IT press, industry analysts and experts.

Rewarding all sectors within the IT industry, the Techworld Awards honoured companies, teams and projects across 11 separate categories at the awards ceremony last week. Guests gathered at Dartmouth House, Mayfair, London on Thursday 13th September to celebrate their achievements and the participants represented the very best and most innovative cases within the IT industry today.

This award acknowledges Iceotope’s innovative liquid cooling system, launched earlier in the year, which can provide full-time free cooling for IT anywhere on the planet. Techworld’s ‘Startup Product of the Year’ award is given to ‘the best and the brightest innovators’ and is intended to predict the products and services which will most impact the IT industry in the future and business practices in general.

Iceotope was recognised not only for its current application within the IT industry, but also its capability to address some of the most pressing issues expected to arise in the future – including IT’s rising energy usage, the spiralling costs of running a data centre and the need to find sustainable IT solutions.


“We are thrilled with this win for our cooling solution – years of research and development have been involved, and we have had fantastic support from organisations like 3M™ and the University of Leeds throughout. It’s great to see this hard work being rewarded and knowing that truly innovative and disrupting technology still gets the recognition it deserves,” commented Peter Hopton, CTO at Iceotope.

Wednesday 11 September 2013

Iceotope Selected As Finalist For Elektra Awards 2013

Elektra Awards 2013 – the finalists


ElektraAwards 1These represent the product launches, employee initiatives and business achievements which most impressed a panel of independent judges including Steve Furber, ICL Professor of Computer Engineering, School of Computer Science, University of Manchester, Adam Fletcher, chairman of the Electronic Components Supply Network, Derek Boyd, CEO, National Microelectronics Institute, Markus Levy, president, Embedded Microprocessor Benchmark Consortium (EEMBC), Marco Pisano, programme manager, Intellect and Jon Howes, technology director, Beecham Research.
Engineers of the Future
Educational Support Award
ARM – Code Club Sponsorship to teach programming in primary schools
Axiom Manufacturing Services – Initiative to inspire the next generation of young engineers
Cambridge Design Partnership – Supporting the Bloodhound Project schools student initiative
MathWorks – LEGO Mindstorms NXT robotics design contest
Premier Farnell – Education support at Swallow Hill Community College in Leeds
Rohde & Schwarz – Support for University of Surrey 5G Innovations Centre
Samsung Electronics – UK Academies providing engineering vocational training courses

Rising Star New Engineer of the Year

Sponsored by National Instruments
To be presented to a talented young engineer in their first five years in the industry who has demonstrated a high level of theoretical knowledge and practical skill which has contributed to the business.
University Department of the Year
Sponsored by RS Components
To be presented to an electronic and electrical engineering department within a university or collage which has demonstrated high academic success, world-leading research projects with industrial partners and international collaborations.

Business Awards

Design Team of the Year 
Sponsored by European Recruitment
Amantys – Six month hardware and software design project
Cycle Alert – Design of a safety system that alerts HGV drivers to cyclist’s presence
Nordic Semiconductor – Adding software design expertise to its hardware team
RFEL – Design of a real-time, video processing system defence and security markets
SureCore – Design of an ultra-low power patented semiconductor memory technology
Team Consulting – Design of a system to facilitate liver transplants
Distributor of the Year 
Sponsored by IC Group
Arrow Electronics
Digi-Key
Mouser Electronics
Premier Farnell
RS Components
Silica
Manufacturer Export Award
Optoelectronic Manufacturing Corporation
Plexus
TDK-Lambda UK
TT electronics integrated manufacturing services
Wilson Process Systems
New Company of the Year
Sponsored by Agilent Technologies
GaN Systems
OEMsecrets
Versarien
Environmental Award
Amphenol – Black zinc nickel plating finish for military connector
AVX – Solutions for Hope conflict-free tantalum supply chain initiative
Environ UK – BOMcheck materials declarations web database
Farnell element14 – Global packaging recycling project
Iceotope – environmentally-friendly cooling system at the University of Leeds

Product Innovation Awards
Design Tools and Development Software Award
Cadence Design Systems – Virtuoso Layout tool with electrically aware design
Digia Qt – Qt 5 cross-platform application development framework
IAR Systems – I-scope probe for power optimisation
Mentor Graphics – Tessent Testkompress with cell-aware ATPG
RS Components – DesignSpark PCB versions 4 & 5
XMOS – xTIMEcomposer microcontroller design tool

Passive & Electromechanical Product of the Year
Harwin – Gecko environmentally-friendly connector
Murata Europe – KCA surface mount automotive safety capacitor
Panasonic Industrial Devices – Polymer hybrid capacitor
Peratech – Quantum tunneling composite ink for roll-to-roll printing
Smiths Connectors – Micro Snaptac low profile connector
Versarien – VarsarienCu copper-based thermal interface material

Power Product of the Year
Analog Devices – ADP1051 digital power controller with a PMBus interface
Bytec Medical – Geni-Tec intelligent battery system
International Rectifier – COOLiRIGBT 600V IGBT
Intersil – ISL8225M small footprint 100W switching power module
Power Electronic Measurements – CWT ultra-mini probe
TT electronics – Power module for KTM off-road motorcycle

Renewable Energy Design Award 

Sponsored by International Rectifier
Advanced Technology Institute, University of Surrey – Hybrid nano-carbons for 4G renewable energy systems
Fairchild Semiconductor – FAN324x smart dual-coil relay driver
Maxim Integrated – Zeus smart-meter system-on-a-chip device

Semiconductor Product of the Year – Analogue

Sponsored by Mouser Electronics
Analog Devices – AD9250 high speed 14-bit ADC
ON Semiconductor – R3710 Invisible-in-canal hearing aid device
Linear Technology – LTC2378-20 low noise 20-bit SAR ADC
Microchip Technology – MGC3130 electrical near field 3D tracking and gesture controller
Silicon Laboratories – Si7005 humidity/temperature sensor
STMicroelectronics – cSpin single-chip motion controller

Semiconductor Product of the Year – Digital

Sponsored by Rohde & Schwarz
Broadcom – BCM7445 – Ultra high definition TV decoder
Freescale – KL02 ARM Cortex-M0+ microcontroller in tiny package
FTDI Chip – FT800 Video engine for display, audio and touch operations
Microsemi – SmartFusion2 system-on-chip FPGA
Renesas Electronics – R-IN32M3 Industrial Ethernet controller with hardware acceleration
Toshiba Electronics – Visconti 3 image recognition processor

Solid-State Lighting Product of the Year

Sponsored by Anglia Components
ams – TSL2591 high sensitivity digital light sensor
LED Engin – LuxiTune dimmable LED lighting engine
Melexis – MLX81106 LIN controller RGB LED driver
Power Integrations – LYTSwitch-0 LED driver for non-dimmable GU10 bulbs
Verbatim – VxRGB directional LED lamp
Zeta Specialist Lighting – Spider Light large area chip-on-board LED array

Test & Measurement Product of the Year
Aeroflex – PXI Maestro multiple wireless device test system
Anritsu – ME7873L LTE-Advanced RF conformance test system
EasySYNC – DS60M10 multi-function USB-based instrument
Keithley Instruments – Source Meter 2450 with capacitive touchscreen user interface
Pico Technology – PicoScope 5000 variable resolution USB-based oscilloscope
Tektronix – AWG70001A 50GS/s arbitrary waveform generator

Wireless/RF Product of the Year

Sponsored by MSC Gleichmann UK
Advantech Europe – EKI-6340 self-healing wireless mesh network
CommAgility – AMC-RF2x2 software defined radio RF front end for LTE
Dialog Semiconductor – Smartbond low power Bluetooth Smart device
Lime Microsystems – Myriad RF open-source wireless development platform
Linear Technology – SmartMesh low power wireless sensor mesh network IP
Low Power Radio Solutions – eRIC entry-level embedded wireless system

Product Innovation Award – Readers’ Choice
Sponsored by Avnet Electronics Marketing 
Electronics Weekly editors have selected five intriguing and innovation product technologies. You are invited to vote on the Electronics Weekly website for the product which you believe is the most innovative and/or useful.
Haptic touch device
In-building 4G LTE coverage booster
Audio/video streaming over Ethernet and 802.11 wireless
Cyber-rhino powered by Raspberry Pi
Stereo amplifier for battery-powered Bluetooth loudspeakers
Sir Robin Saxby - Elektra Award winner 2007The winners in each category will be announced at an Elektra Awards Dinner which takes place on Wednesday 27th November at Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane in London.
The established annual highpoint of the electronics industry, the Elektra 2013 Awards will promote best practice in key areas including, innovation, sales growth and employee motivation.
We are now open for table bookings.
To book your place at the Elektra Awards 2013 ceremony, visit our booking page.