Energy Star was a program started initially around residential power use.  As a result, most items that have the Energy Star seal are appliances or electronics in the consumer space.  A check of the EPA website shows fewer than 15 enterprise, server class machines that qualify for the rating.  So while many vendors state that they have Energy Star-compliant equipment, they do not in fact have too many machines that actually went through and successfully completed the process.

Let’s compare some from my data center as examples.  We run an HP shop (this is not an endorsement of their product or a sales pitch, just disclosure that we have them as an architectural standard).  So I have a wide variety of their equipment.  For our Microsoft Exchange upgrade, we installed Energy Star certified HP Proliant DL380 G6 rack-optimized servers.  These are currently the only series of HP machines that have the seal.  For most of my purchasing, however, I prefer HP BL460c G6 or HP BL680c G6 machines that slot into a blade chassis.  What is nice about blades is that they share components like power supplies and fans.  So this reduces the power pull, and reduces the amount of waste in the product.  So from a product life cycle perspective, they are a better choice. 

In spite of our choice to generally rely on the more energy-efficient and therefore more eco-friendly choice of the blade servers, we actually cannot claim the LEED energy star credit because these servers are merely “EnergyStar Compliant” instead of certified.  This is needless-t0-say an unfortunate outcome as we are inching closer to a possible Gold certification and any point that we miss now keeps us from that nearly impossible goal.

I’ve uploaded my APTA presentation about building a sustainable data center to slideshare if anyone is interested.  Clearly NCTD is a pioneer in the transit industry, even if building a sustainable data center is cliche in other industries.  Not one participant in the room had added sustainability as a design criteria when building their data centers.  We’ll see if I made any impression with the community on this issue.

This is a large undertaking for a small entity like NCTD.  While I can justify the project purely on the long-term anticipated Return-on-Investment, the deal was sweetened by meeting all of the requirements for the Federal Stimulus program.

The overall project has several elements that will hopefully qualify it for LEED certification, including:

• The anticipated reduction in power demand and increase in power utilization efficiency in the facility
• The re-use of the building, and materials within the facility for the project (for example, we are supplementing our green fire system instead of replacing it, we’re going to reuse doors instead of purchasing new ones, etc.
• The ability to reset the ambient temperature of the data center much higher – we expect to set it around 80 degrees instead of the 68 we maintain today
• The installation of over 220 Kw solar system onsite to more than offset the power draw of the data center
• The use of in-line cooling instead of the two air handling units currently in the room (these will be recycled for other purposes in the District)

In addition, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the District has been committed over the last two years to slowly introducing greener, more sustainable approaches to our information technology infrastructure, including virtualization and consolidation, switching to blade server technology, replacing older equipment with more energy-efficient equipment, and testing desktop virtualization.

All of these steps make solid financial sense for the District – an especially important consideration given the tight financial times we are currently facing.  I could not in good conscience recommend these investments if I could not show solid ROI for our troubles.  While we want to be an agency with a priority on sustainability as part of our mission, it is logical that we could not choose to make these investments if they required a corresponding reduction in service or positions at the District.  Instead, choosing to follow the more sustainable path will realize direct operating cost savings on a monthly basis for the District.

We of course face some challenges to our ambitious timeline.  One of those challenges is the delay of a system migration project by 90 days after its anticipated completion.  This project is attempting to move our Prime System applications (installed in 1986) from a minicomputer to a client-server web interface.  We cannot risk downtime on this environment and therefore out-of-the gate may see a 90-day delay.  But every IT project faces challenges, and I am confident the team will find an approach that gives us what we need.

Over the next several weeks I will be blogging about the adventures of upgrading our data center.  Hopefully in March I will be able to say that we’ve completed the work and that we are on track with our ROI.

With the incentives still offered at the federal and state level, and working with our local utility company SDG&E, the business case for solar is a viable one.  In a time when my agency – like so many across the State of California – is facing dramatic pressures on our operating budget, any capital investment that potentially decreases monthly operating expenses deserves a serious look. 

We have two phases of this plan – we’ll install solar panels on the roof of the building, which turns out to be an ideal location.  Not every building meets our criteria – we have significant open space, our roof was repaired recently with a material that is reflective, and our utility sheds are relatively short.  These design elements make our roof highly suitable for a solar installation.

The second phase of our project will install carport solar panels in our public parking lot.  Our existing lot was designed at a time when there were fewer requirements for heat dissipation.  Our black asphalt parking lot gets quite hot during most months, and installation of solar panels will mitigate some of this problem.  We are also making good use of otherwise non-revenue generating space.

This project is a stimulus project through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  There is significant pressure on governmental entities to use this money responsibly, transparently, and according to the terms of the intent of the act.  I believe this project meets all of the objectives of the program:  it is a shovel-ready construction project, a long-term capital improvement, beneficially changes the operations of public transit in the community, installs technology that decreases operating costs, provides jobs during the project, invests in green technology, and completes in a timely fashion to stimulate the local economy.

While the solar projects added cost to our data center redesign project, the investment had a solid business case, with a six-year payback period.  An additional consideration was the increasing carbon footprint of the technology resources at the District.  This investment not only pays off from a fiscal perspective, but also an environmental one.

My message to IT people is to think bigger than our data centers.  We have the opportunity to improve our company’s bottom line not only through our core IT investments, but also in how we choose to construct and improve the buildings that house that technology.  Work with your facility managers to become more creative in solving data center problems.

by Angela Miller

So I figure people might take umbrage with my characterization of my data center ‘blower problems.’ Perhaps you think I am again exaggerating. The picture on the left should correct this.

When I say blowers in my data center, I mean just that – a line of 6 vents resembling aircraft engines pointed different directions in the room. People who enter this room do so at their own risk, especially when the blowers are churning at full speed. Smaller people on the team probably should have carabiners and safety lines.

Since my arrival at NCTD, this device has been one of the more discussed items on the team. All kidding aside, this is not the right solution for a data center. Admitedly, we were in a crisis mode when this modification was made. And nothing against the people who chose to install these, because frankly we would be in far worse shape had they not done so. This installation bought us a year … maybe two.

In my mind, this is a good example of the dilemma facing many SMB entities in their data centers — how do we evolve to deal with our ever-increasing energy, cooling, and storage demands? How do we make upgrades to our facilities in a way that meets the burgeoning needs? And should sustainability be a consideration in our design choices.

One thing is certain – choosing the wrong solution is far from sustainable and misses our return on investment. In our case, we are now facing not only cooling problems since the air flow with this device does not address the hot spot problems in the room, but also humidity issues, and power issues since we’ve used almost all the rest of the power in the room on these air handling units. On the plus side, if I installed a wind turbine in the room I could probably dramatically improve my Power Utilization Effectiveness.

Over the next several weeks we’ll look at some of the options we’ll have to choose from in implementing a different approach to the cooling needs. Will we be able to choose a green option given our budget constraints? Stay tuned…