The Green Data Center Pays Off

Rakesh Kumar (again!) talks about how to green the DC, with practical advice, including on cost issues.

Green IT is progressing for economic reasons rather than for environmental ones, but this is more balanced in Europe.

Issues at hand are data centre floor space, energy consumption and the IT capacity required.

What is the cost of a green data center? About 17-18% more than a non-green one.

Alarmingly, 70% of US CIOs are not concerned with energy consumption, although the cost is rising rapidly (on a 3 year span, it represents more than the capital costs).

There is not sufficient focus on green initiatives, and on operational energy issues first. The problem should remain in the hand of IT operations.

Negative effects of IT: energy consumption, use of scarce and non renewable resources, e-waste (re-use does not work), hazardous substances, GHG emissions.

Positive effects: transportation optimization, e-business, e-government, environmental control system (e.g. intelligent building), travel substitution.

Enterprise have to assume the energy consumption will go up in the next 10 years). Deja vu;-) However, the slope of growth is not linear. When maxing out, the recommendation is not to build a new data centre, use hosting service instead if consolidation and rationalization is not enough.

From the energy at the production point, about 27% arrives at the data centre. Cooling may consume up to 50% of this, power systems use up to 40%. And the server tends to waste 80% of what is left. Savings cascade back up this stack.

Recommendations:

1. Use energy-efficient systems (lighting, cooling, UPS, power supplies, servers and other equipments).
2. Asset procurement: select equipment wisely on the full lifecycle (HP & IBM are at the top). The problem is the lack of "standard" metrics (SPEC-power may solve this issue).
3. Energy-efficient operations: monitoring and operating in a way to maximize energy efficiency (with formal processes).
4. Energy sources: regulations are beginning to mandate use of renewable and/or locally generated energy, at least for part of the reauired power.
5. Support services and waste management.
6. Building.

Beware greenwash: you better look for short-term benefits. The 6 sins of greenwashing are hidden trade-offs, no proof, vagueness, irrelevance, lesser of 2 evils, fibbing (lying).

Regulation and standards: WEEE, RoHS, REACH, EUCCDC (EU code of conduct on data centres, voluntary, about how to run an energy-efficient DC), LEED (for buildings, not only DCs).

Metrics is the biggest problem. 6 key principles to define the right metrics:

1. Account for systemic losses (procurement).
2. Link the facilities, IT & building components.
3. Measure the effect of workloads on energy usage.
4. Account for the maturity of operational processes.
5. Consistency, integrity and vendor neutrality (pick the right benchmark).
6. Climatic conditions.

On a very agressive design, the PUE reaches 1.28, from 3.0 with an archaic design and 2.0 on conventional designs. The break-off point (where cost goes past value) is 1.7 or 1.8. Be careful when doing comparisons in different conditions, though.

Where to start: cold and warm aisles, remove obstructions beneath the raised floor… Sensors and software tools will enable temperature management.

On new data centres, mix chilled air, chilled water and free cooling.

There is not much efficiency difference between AC and DC.

Recommendations: start measuring and reporting, look at consolidation, virtualization…