Rich Lechner is IBM’s VP, Energy & Environment. I met with him at IBM’s Pulse 09 event and he very kindly agreed to be interviewed on IBM’s Energy, Sustainability and Smart Planet initiatives.

Right after getting James' take on the first day of IBM Tivoli Pulse, I got John Willis'. While he touches on the broader vision plays, he talks mostly about his take on the cloud computing discussion of the day.

Disclosure: IBM is a client and paid T&E to Pulse 2009.

Mid-day during the first day of IBM's Tivoli user conference, Pulse 2009, I talked with our very own James Governor about his quick impressions on the morning's keynote.

He starts out talking about Tivoli's Industry Frameworks, which, as he says, is about IBM Software Group selling applications but not calling them "applications." Indeed, as a Q&A session on that topic later in the day evoked, it's a sort of semantic issues best discussed "over drinks," as one exec put it.

We then get into a short discussion of Tivoli's Dynamic Infrastructure story which, according to James, is all about bringing SOA together with IT Service Management ("ITSM" as he says). I ask how he thinks this fits in with older IBM ideas like Autonomic computing.

Finally, we wrap-up discussing the Tivoli cloud computing story we've been seeing evolve here at Pulse. James is (still) not too happy with the IBM cloud story. That said, he suggests pulling in the OnDemand phrase and discussion from the past, the content of which he liked. I add in that the cloud computing discussion seems to be around what cloud means for operations people, not end-users, where you'd expect to hear more from the Lotus folks (as we did back at Lotusphere this year).

Disclosure: IBM is a client and paid T&E to Pulse 2009.

While at the IBM Telelogic User Group in Austin, I talked with IBM's Danny Sabbah. I take the chance to ask Danny about the integration and intermingling road-map between the Telelogic portfolio and the existing Rational product lines. We discuss how Jazz is being used as a platform throughout the Rational portfolio and also get into a discussion about requirements management.

Disclosure: IBM is a client and sponsored this video.

While at the Telelogic User Group conference down here in Austin I had the chance to talk with RocketGang's Harry Koehnemann. We talk about the evolution, and complexification of the systems market and how the tools for that marketing are chasing after simplifying things. This conversation ranges from how tools can help you avoid bad parts of complexity to a discussion of how workflow processes can address, or make worse, the complexity in systems development.

Disclosure: IBM is a client and sponsored this video.

In this short demo, Sun's Frank Kieviet walks through two scenarios to demonstrate GlassFish ESB and OpenESB in action. First, he builds up a simple zipcode driven scenario to demonstrate using the NetBeans tools to compose a workflow. He then demonstrates integrating in a web-service. Finally, he finishes up by going over the OpenESB ESB community and how to get involved.

Disclosure: Sun is a client and sponsored this video.

In this interview, I talks with Sun's Kevin Schmidt and Suresh Potiny about Sun's Enterprise Service Bus product lines, GlassFish ESB and OpenESB. We start talking about the ESB stack that Sun has built up a provides, including more than just the ESB itself, but the NetBeans based tooling as well. Next, we get into the road-map and plans that Sun has for its ESB stack. Then, we end up discussing the broad market and current context for ESBs, be that fitting into SOA environments, both in the "traditional" sense and then also in the emerging types of SOA architectures Kevin and Suresh are seeing. Finally, we up by discussing some of the additional projects around the ESB like Project Fuji.

Disclosure: Sun is a client and sponsored this video.

Pierre Olivier Carles gave a talk at the it@cork Green IT conference where he discussed two case studies on how virtual worlds can reduce your carbon footprint (and costs). One of the case studies involved Europe’s 2nd largest bank, Credit Agricole.

Sun announced, the other day, the completion of their new data center at Broomfield in Colorado. The data center has a number of notable features including: Greater space efficiency: A scalable, modular datacenter based on the Sun Pod Architecture led to a 66 percent footprint compression, by reducing 496,000 square feet from the former StorageTek campus in Louisville, Colo. to 126,000 square feet; · Reduced electrical consumption: By 1 million kWh per month, enough to power 1,000 homes in Colorado; · Reduced raised floor datacenter space: From 165,000 square feet to less than 700 square feet of raised floor datacenter space, representing a $4M cost avoidance; · Greener architecture: Including flywheel UPS that eliminates lead and chemicals waste by removing the need for batteries, and non-chemical · water treatment system, saving water and reducing chemical pollution; · Enhanced scalability: Incorporated 7 MW of capacity that scales up to 40% higher without major construction; · Innovative cooling: The world’s first and largest installation of Liebert advanced XD cooling system with dynamic cooling controls capable of supporting rack loads up to 30kW and a chiller system 24% more efficient than ASHRAE standards; · Overall excellence: Recognized with two Ace awards for Project of the Year from the Associated Contractors of Colorado, presented for excellence in design, execution, complexity and environmental application. With this in mind I decided to have a chat with Mark Monroe, Sun’s Director of Sustainable Computing to find out more about the data center.

Simon Wardley gives a superb talk on the topics of commoditisation, utility computing and ducks at the it@cork Green IT conference.

George Lee is the economics correspondent for RTE – Ireland’s national broadcaster. In this talk he shows off his Segway(!), talks to global warming, peak oil, CO2 and the pending energy crisis and how they all dwarf the current financial crisis in importance.