“The Liberals are Coming, and They’re Bringing Fancy Coffee” https://t.co/XykfCFYZgVhttps://t.co/exHU6TR2h9
America is changed by flight from miserable Blue States to better Red States—only to import the policies that created the misery they fled from in the first place. pic.twitter.com/OaVVgrTxJr
Today we break down the literature for building, maintaining and supporting the computing infrastructure of education communities. We use the term “infotech” gingerly to explain action for a broad span of technologies that encompass enterprise servers and software, wireless and wired networks, campus phone networks, and desktop computers that provide administrative services and career tech video production. The private sector has moved at light speed to respond to the circumstances of the pandemic; so have vertical incumbents evolving their business models to seek conformance revenue in this plasma-hot domain.
Starting 2023 we break down the topic accordingly:
Infotech 100: Survey of the principal standards developing organizations whose catalogs are incorporated by reference into federal and state legislation. Revision cycles.
Infotech 200: Campus computing facilities for research and education
Infotech 300: Communication networks, wired and unwired at the demarcation point; crucial for defining the responsibilities and boundaries between the service provider and the customer.
As of the date of this post, no proposed revisions to the ASHRAE 90.4 have been released for public consultation. Keep in mind that its normative reference — ASHRAE Standard 90.1: Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings — is continually under revision; frequently appearing in electrical engineering design guidelines, construction specifications, commissioning and O&M titles in our industry and others.
ASHRAE 90.4 defines an alternate compliance path, specific to data centers, while the compliance requirements for “non-data center” components are contained in ASHRAE 90.1 . The 90.4 structure also streamlines the ongoing maintenance process as well ensures that Standards 90.1 and 90.4 stay in their respective lanes to avoid any overlap and redundancies relating to the technical and administrative boundaries. Updates to ASHRAE 90.1 will still include the alternate compliance path defined in ASHRAE 90.4. Conversely the 2022 Edition of 90.4-2022 refers to ASHRAE 90.1-2022; cross-referencing one another synchronously
Links to noteworthy coverage from expert agencies on the 2022 revisions:
This title resides on the standing agenda of our Infotech 400 colloquium; hosted several times per year and as close coupled with the annual meetings of ASHRAE International as possible. Technical committees generally meet during these meetings make decisions about the ASHRAE catalog. The next all committee conference will be hostedJanuary 20-24, 2024 in Chicago. As always we encourage education industry facility managers, energy conservation workgroups and sustainability professionals to participate directly in the ASHRAE consensus standard development process. It is one of the better facilities out there.
Proposed Addendum g makes changes to definitions were modified in section 3 and mandatory language in Section 6 to support the regulation of process heat and process ventilation was moved in the section for clarity. Other changes are added based on comments from the first public review including changes to informative notes.
Consultation closes June 4th
Update: February 10, 2023
The most actively managed consensus standard for data center energy supply operating in education communities (and most others) is not published by the IEEE but rather by ASHRAE International — ASHRAE 90.4 Energy Standard for Data Centers (2019). It is not required to be a free access title although anyone may participate in its development. It is copyrighted and ready for purchase but, for our purpose here, we need only examine its scope and purpose. A superceded version of 90.4 is available in the link below:
It is likely that the technical committee charged with updating this standard are already at work preparing an updated version that will supercede the 2019 Edition. CLICK HERE for a listing of Project Committee Interim Meetings.
We maintain many titles from the ASHRAE catalog on the standing agenda of our Mechanical, Energy 200/400, Data and Cloud teleconferences. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Originally posted Summer 2020.
ASHRAE International has released four new addenda to its energy conservation consensus document ASHRAE 90.4-2016 Energy Standard for Data Centers. This document establishes the minimum energy efficiency requirements of data centers for design and construction, for the creation of a plan for operation and maintenance and for utilization of on-site or off-site renewable energy resources.
It is a relatively new document more fully explained in an article published by ASHRAE in 2016 (Click here). The addenda described briefly:
Addendum a – clarifies existing requirements in Section 6.5 as well as introduce new provisions to encourage heat recovery within data centers.
Addendum b – clarifies existing requirements in Sections 6 and 11 and to provide guidance for taking credit for renewable energy systems.
Addendum d – a response to a Request for Interpretation on the 90.4 consideration of DieselRotary UPS Systems (DRUPS) and the corresponding accounting of these systems in the Electrical Loss Component (ELC). In crafting the IC, the committee also identified several marginal changes to 90.4 definitions and passages in Section 8 that would add further clarity to the issue. This addendum contains the proposed changes for that aim as well as other minor changes to correct spelling or text errors, incorporate the latest ELC values into Section 11, and to refresh information in the Normative Reference.
Addendum e adds language to Section 11 intended to clarify how compliance with Standard 90.4 can be achieved through the use of shared systems.
Comments are due September 6th. Until this deadline you may review the changes and comment upon them by by CLICKING HERE
Education facility managers, energy conservation workgroups and sustainability professionals are encouraged to participate directly in the ASHRAE standard development process. Start at ASHRAE’s public commenting facility:
The ASHRAE catalog is a priority title in our practice. This title appears on the standing agenda of our Infotech sessions. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, CO, USA
Igor Kudelin, et. al
Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
Abstract: Numerous modern technologies are reliant on the low-phase noise and exquisite timing stability of microwave signals. Substantial progress has been made in the field of microwave photonics, whereby low-noise microwave signals are generated by the down-conversion of ultrastable optical references using a frequency comb1,2,3. Such systems, however, are constructed with bulk or fibre optics and are difficult to further reduce in size and power consumption. In this work we address this challenge by leveraging advances in integrated photonics to demonstrate low-noise microwave generation via two-point optical frequency division4,5. Narrow-linewidth self-injection-locked integrated lasers6,7 are stabilized to a miniature Fabry–Pérot cavity8, and the frequency gap between the lasers is divided with an efficient dark soliton frequency comb9. The stabilized output of the microcomb is photodetected to produce a microwave signal at 20 GHz with phase noise of −96 dBc Hz−1 at 100 Hz offset frequency that decreases to −135 dBc Hz−1 at 10 kHz offset—values that are unprecedented for an integrated photonic system. All photonic components can be heterogeneously integrated on a single chip, providing a significant advance for the application of photonics to high-precision navigation, communication and timing systems.
The RELLIS Data and Research Center will be a public – private development with Texas A&M University. The data center will be built on the new RELLIS Campus located in College Station, Texas. It will offer cloud storage and outstanding managed services. The RELLIS Academy and Research Lab offers the ability for Texas A&M University to give real world data center experience to both students and faculty.
Because electrotechnology changes continually, definitions (vocabulary) in its best practice literature changes continually; not unlike any language on earth that adapts to the moment and place.
The changes reflect changes in technology or changes in how the technology works in practice; even how the manufacturers create adaptations to field conditions by combining functions. Any smart electrical component has a digital language embedded in it, for example.
Consider the 2023 National Electrical Code. Apart from many others the NEC will contain a major change to Article 100 (Definitions); the subject of elevated debate over the past three years.
When we refer “language” we must distinguish between formal language, informal language, colloquial language and dialect which may differ the language spoken, language written at the office and language used on the job site. “Terms of art”
Are these terms (or, “terms of art”) best understood in context (upstream articles in Chapters 4 through 8) — or should they be adjudicated by the 14 Principals of Code Making Panel 1? The answer will arrive in the fullness of time. Many changes to the National Electrical Code require more than one cycle to stabilize.
Code Making Panel 1 has always been the heaviest of all NEC panels. As explained n our ABOUT, the University of Michigan held a vote in CMP-1 for 20+ years (11 revision cycles) before moving to the healthcare facilities committee for the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee. Standards Michigan continues its involvement on behalf of the US education facility industry — the second largest building construction market. There is no other pure user-interest voice on any technical committee; although in some cases consulting companies are retained for special purposes.
To serve the purpose of making NFPA 70 more “useable” we respect the Standards Council decision to make this change if it contributes to the viability of the NFPA business model. We get to say this because no other trade association comes close to having as enduring and as strong a voice: NFPA stands above all other US-based SDO’s in fairness and consideration of its constituency. The electrical safety community in the United States is a mighty tough crowd.
If the change does not work, or work well enough, nothing should prohibit reversing the trend toward “re-centralizing” — or “de-centralizing” the definitions.
Public comment on the First Draft of the 2026 Edition will be received until August 28, 2024.
With many non-profit organizations also challenged by the pandemic we are likely to see fewer experts at technology, finance and management gatherings where leading practice is discovered and promulgated. That does not mean that many gatherings will not be offloaded onto the internet but, with fewer paid experts involved, one wonders whether there will be fewer unpaid experts — or will there be more unpaid experts? We shall see.
Since the United States federal government can print money it is likely that more decision-making will be drawn back to Washington D.C. — where the money is. The likelihood that we shall see greater federal control over education facility industry originating at the federal level inspires a revisit of the United States standards system. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is the oversight agency and the American National Standards Institute is the private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States.
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T