by Angela MillerI’ve been reading the US Evironmental Protection Agency’s (US EPA) latest report to Congress on Server and Data Center Efficiency released earlier this week. This comprehensive analysis of the current trends in energy usage and potential future demands for servers and data centers in the United States projects that in the next five years the demand could double from an estimated 60 billion Kwh/yr to over 120. In five years.In spite of all the other science that precedes it, this study will likely be the impetus for the US to consider stricter rules on energy efficiency for information technology devices. The legislation passed yesterday regarding renewable electricity and new taxes on oil heralds other changes likely to come from the US Congress. Regardless of the whims of Washington, the EPA report confirms the need for companies large and small to substantively change IT strategies.Consider the report’s discussion of power density issues:

Increasing power density can lead to a situation in which companies are forced to build new data centers not because they are running out of floor space but because they need power and cooling beyond what can be provided in their existing data centers. This situation has driven much of the recent interest in energy-efficiency improvements for data centers. If the power consumed (and resulting heat generated) in data centers can be reduced through energy-efficiency measures, the existing infrastructure can continue to meet cooling and power needs, and costly investments in new data centers can be deferred. (USEPA, 2007)

The report highlights simple changes that IT Departments could implement today without significant investment beyond operational changes, many of which echo strategies discussed in previous ecology.IT posts:

• Consolidation
• Retirement of Unused Legacy Equipment
• Enabling current power management tools on all servers and storage devices
• Replacement of equipment with newer, more energy efficient devices through attrition over time
• Shifting of equipment for optimal airflow management

In their estimate, these simple operational changes could result in a 20% energy savings relative to current trends. A 20% change right to the company’s bottom line with primarily operational strategies.Over the next few weeks we will investigate some of the proposed “best-practice” and “state-of-the-art” changes proposed in the EPA study. They assert that by implementing these strategies we could save up to 55% of the current energy forecast.

Dig deeper on the issues:

I relied on the following sites for analysis in support of this post:US EPA Final Report on Server and Data Center Energy EfficiencyNew York Times Article on Energy Bill

by Angela Miller
I had a very interesting conversation with David Merrill today about one of the significant challenges that CIOs face: the economics of energy efficiency in the data center. Mr. Merrill (in my humble opinion) is a thought leader in Storage Economics, and for the last 18 months he’s been blogging about this discipline for Hitachi Data Systems*. He had some interesting tidbits regarding energy usage in data centers, the most compelling of which for me was that the typical enterprise data center now consumes 50% of the company’s electric bill and nearly 50% of that is due to storage. He backed these numbers up with studies from Gartner (March 2007) and ESG (July 2007).

Pondering these statistics lead to a conversation about the economics of energy efficiency and the business case for green computing. From Mr. Merrill’s perspective, the business case for the typical CIO would be built on cost savings from energy efficiency, cooling optimization, and from the floor space savings that could be realized from implementing a sustainable infrastructure strategy.

“CIOs typically choose energy efficiency not for moral consciousness or being chic or trendy, but because it makes economic sense”. — David Merrill

My thoughts went to challenging information technology departments to take green computing further than the straight energy costs and how instead to sell the business case for environmental benefits. His response was realistic: environmental benefits tend to be in addition to the bottom line economics, either through compliance with laws, or certification, or deferring spending on future solutions. In other words, for a CIO, environmental choices would rarely justify a business case on their own.

We talked about hybrid vehicle sales in the United States as a case study: while some individuals invested in hybrid vehicles purely as an environmental statement; the sales of hybrids, especially in states like California, really escalated when the gas prices rose substantially and drove consumers to make practical, economic choices.

In some parts of the world, especially in Europe or in densely-populated small regions like New England, Singapore, and Hong Kong for example, CIOs will start to face the reality that energy prices will drive up their IT budgets substantially. The local energy utility may either charge escalating utility rates or be unable to deliver energy to meet the company’s growing demands.

For these CIOs, the challenges of space, power, and cooling constraints drive them to consider green computing strategies to squeeze the maximum benefit from their infrastructure. So like the substantial growth in purchases of hybrid vehicles accompanied substantial increases in gasoline prices, so too will green computing initiatives likely increase as IT teams strategize to overcome their energy, space, and cooling challenges and their unsustainable consumption model.

Dig deeper on the issues:

Storage.ITworld.com article on David Merrill
*I am a former employee of HDS. This post is in no way affiliated with HDS.

by Angela Miller
Infoworld’s Ted Samson published a story this week about the results of a comprehensive study comparing AMD and Intel on energy efficiency. This of course resulted in a significant number of complaints about study methodology – many of which were indeed valid. At least there are some studies available to benchmark the energy efficiency of components. This highlights to me an area where more information would be needed in order to make a valid comparison – like EPA gas mileage on a vehicle or an energy star efficiency rating on a white good. Unfortunately, in the information technology arena decision makers often rely on marketing collateral, specifications, and white papers from vendors.

So I was excited to see this story and to find links to other analysis performed by Tom’s Hardware and Anandtech. The conclusion of all three: AMD beats Intel on a strict energy efficiency metric. Add heat generation into the mix and the numbers shift more impressively in AMD’s favor.

What is of greater interest to me is how an IT Manager might use this analysis in making the decision on what to purchase if they were concerned about greening their IT department. As a former IT Manager I would find it difficult to make a business case one way or another based on these studies. While the new AMD chips could save you an estimated $90/yr per server, most organizations would not make an investment choice based on this one number.

The Tom’s Hardware study makes a good point:

The CPU is not the only component that makes a PC energy efficient. Choose the wrong motherboard or power supply and the most energy efficient processor in the world won’t do a bit of good.

Dig deeper on the issues:

I relied on the following sites for analysis in support of this post:

Ted Samson’s Infoworld Sustainable IT Blog
Tom’s Hardware
Anandtech

by Angela Miller
Carbon offsets are another solid option for companies that wish to green their IT department. It is possible to estimate the carbon load or footprint generated by the IT department on an annual basis and then invest in carbon offsets through a company or non-profit that sells certified emission reduction certificates. Again these certificates fund investment in net new renewable energy sources that would generate the same amount of electricity required to power the IT department on an annual basis only with zero carbon emissions.

Carbon trading became extremely active over the last two years and carbon offsets are easily available through a variety of reputable sources. An article on AdvancedTrading.com focused on the increased and robust trading in ‘carbon futures’ and how the trend is dramatically increasing.

It is important for companies to realize that purchasing carbon offsets does not provide a tangible and sustainable benefit to their company beyond the ability to market to their employees and customers that they are now ‘carbon neutral.’ But in a climate where customers are growing more concerned about how green their service providers and suppliers are, being carbon neutral could be a differentiator.

I am assuming that simply posting that companies should consider carbon offsets as a valuable tool in their green computing strategy will engender comments both from people who feel that they are nothing more than ‘buying your conscience so you can pollute more instead of addressing the problem’ and those who believe they are a smokescreen and a waste of money that could be invested in other IT improvements instead. I disagree with both of these stances and instead believe that any steps toward investing in new, cleaner technologies will have tangible long-term benefit for all. It is important that companies purchase carbon offsets from entities that are both reputable and that commit to real investment instead of simple futures trading. A few examples include (not a personal endorsement, but a list of entities I’ve researched):

TerraPass
The Gold Standard
ClimateTrust

For a report about the efficacy of carbon offset entities, check out the report information at Clean Air-Cool Planet.

Dig deeper on the issues:

I relied on the following sites for analysis in support of this post:
www.tekrati.com
Advanced Trading
Clean Air-Cool Planet
United States Environmental Protection Agency

by Angela Miller
With the rise of the environmental movement over the last decade, it should come as no surprise that the concept of ‘green computing’ is gathering steam. Now that vendors recognize that from a branding perspective there exists opportunity in being environmentally friendly, many companies are diving into green computing with gusto. But as vendors begin to tout their capabilities, CIOs and IT Managers may find their companies unwilling to invest in these new capabilities simply to meet the objective of being greener.

For most enterprise and small-to-medium businesses, decisions will instead be made on whether the investment presents good return-on-investment (ROI).

To build the right business case, IT decision makers must understand the basics about green computing and how this investment could both improve their corporate social responsibility and their financial bottom line. Armed with the information, implementing changes that positively impact the environment becomes the right ecological and economic decision.

This post focuses on the basic elements that most IT decision makers will find immediately palatable: energy efficiency, reduction in cooling requirements, and consolidation. Future posts will investigate more advanced green computing concepts like alternative energy sourcing, renewable energy credits, carbon offsets, and certification.

Energy Efficiency

According to Dec-2006 IDC study,

“50 cents is spent on energy for every dollar of computer hardware. This is expected to increase by 54 percent to 71 cents over the next four years.”

While many companies do not consider the facility costs as part of the ROI and total cost of ownership (TCO) for IT projects, increasing energy bills may force this issue.

Consider the analysis compiled by Dr. Janathan Koomey at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory on just the estimated server energy consumption for the United States:

“Total power used by servers represented about 0.6% of the total U.S. energy consumption in 2005. When cooling and auxiliary infrastructure are considered, that number grows to 1.2%.”

This analysis was quick to point out that it included only the servers and their required infrastructure, not storage and other IT infrastructure components. Clearly it underestimates the overall resource demand for enterprise data centers. Of greatest concern, however, was his point that electricity demand for servers doubled between 2000 and 2005. Obviously this is not a desirable or sustainable trend.

Tremendous savings could be realized by enterprise data centers if they could deploy more energy-efficient infrastructure. The economics for energy efficiency seem obvious.

Reduction in Cooling Demands

One reality of information technology is that it generates tremendous heat that requires cooling in order to ensure stability in the data center. Even the users’ desktops, laptops, and printers, generate significant heat in the typical office building that requires additional cooling. The cost of cooling are some of the most expensive, energy-intensive demands placed on facilities and significantly reducing the heat load will again result in substantial energy savings.

Consolidation

In my experience, taking a walk through a typical corporate data center never looks like the clean and homogenous picture we see in advertising. Instead, data centers I’ve seen contain a mix of server and storage types, most of which are under-utilized in the name of user performance expectations, poor retirement planning, and changing architectural directions. Almost every CIO for which I have worked has attempted the great consolidation project in the hopes of reducing the complexity and maintenance cost of the infrastructure.

Consolidation also makes good environmental sense if the equipment is chosen wisely, is more efficient than the sum of its replaced parts, is operated in a way that optimizes the energy consumption and performance, and is accompanied by a solid retirement plan for the outdated equipment.

Interestingly many consolidation projects seem to result in new equipment being introduced without the departure of the myriad of servers they were intended to replace.

Also of significant concern – the appropriate recycling and disposal of the retired equipment.

Dig deeper on the issues:

I relied on the following sites for analysis in support of this post:

Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory
Wikipedia “Green Computing” definition
IDC
Gartner
David Merrill, Hitachi Data Systems blog
“Green Computing Picks up Momentum” – ComputerWorld

by Angela Miller
As an both an Information Technology professional and an environmental scientist, I have often found one side of myself having to compromise in order to satisfy the other. For years I’ve needed to ignore the growing energy demands of my different employers’ ever-expanding server rooms in order to bow to the needs of users to have applications and systems constantly in a state of readiness.

It occurred to me as I was working with my previous company Hitachi Data Systems on their RoHS/WEEE compliance initiatives that now may just be the time when IT departments can change the tide. Almost every major server and storage vendor has made a commitment this year to producing equipment that affords the opportunity to gain control of energy consumption in the data center. And most vendors are well on their way to producing equipment more friendly to the environment by at least complying with the interational RoHS/WEEE directives.

But is this enough?

With so much attention on personal environmental accountability today, I thought it would be interesting to focus on corporate environmental responsibility – especially on the concept of ‘green computing.’

Many of the big vendors began publicizing their theories on how their products can help companies green their IT departments. It is interesting that most of the discussion centers around energy efficiency – a concept that was born over 15 years ago through the EnergyStar program. While this program was successful with an individual appliance, it emphasized consumer electronics for the home more than corporate infrastructure. Seems this is about to change as vendors now tout their new alliances with the EnergyStar program and new initiatives to capture the attention of prospective customers through their environmental friendliness, and as the program considers requirements for their standards version 4.0.

But, again, is this enough? Energy efficiency is a great starting point, and RoHS/WEEE manufacturing compliance is a necessary goal … but for the average IT Manager, will simply procuring these items be enough to green their IT? And are IT departments truly concerned about becoming greener? The environmental scientist in me says no — there is more that can and should be done.

This blog will be to investigate the greening of Information Technology – and whether that is an attainable goal without substantial culture shift in corporations.