Datacenter energy efficiency is a hot topic these days (how to keep thousands of machines cool without consuming too many electrons, etc.), but something that doesn't get quite as much attention in terms of datacenter energy efficiency is the code running on the servers that make up the cloud datacenter—i.e., the cloud applications written by developers.
As developers, you have the power to save power! This is important to realize as we enter the cloud era. Your bosses will be quite pleased if you do your best to not only make sure your code is as efficient as possible, but that the monthly bills from your company's cloud providers are as low as possible. 
We live in a new age. This is a very important topic.
In this developer-focused discussion, Mark Aggar, Senior Director of IT Environmental Sustainability at Microsoft (You've met him before), and Grigori Melnik, Program Manager in the Patterns and Practices group, share insights and recommendations about building energy efficient applications for the cloud.
Grigori's team has made WASABI—an autoscaling application block for Windows Azure. If you're a Windows Azure developer, you should most definitely download this application block and try it out. It could literally save you money.
Related links/Learn more:
http://www.microsoft.com/environment/
IT Energy Efficiency Imperative (download file via link)
Energy smart coding for client
Grigori's blog
Mark's blog
Microsoft Patterns & Practices Dev Center
