Published: November 30 2009, 09:15 AM | no comments
by Dhesikan Ananchaperumal

In my last post, I wrote about the basics of understanding energy efficiency metrics, and why they are critical for IT organizations in determining datacenter inefficiencies that can lead to improvements and cost savings.  Today I’d like to share some tips that can help set datacenters on a greener path.

Remember from my last post that a PUE of 1 means that all incoming power to the datacenter is being used for IT load.  Let’s assume that we have done everything we can and achieved a PUE of 1.2 for a datacenter. What does this mean? That means nearly 83.3% of the incoming energy is utilized for IT load, which is pretty good, and a major improvement over the average. Now the question is how do I use this energy most efficiently? The obvious first answer is to implement virtualization. Yes, that is one solution. Then, implement automated provisioning and de-provisioning of virtual servers across multiple geographical locations based on the type of energy source and cost of energy. Implement policy-based server management tools based on energy data based policies and use of Wake-On-LAN and other PoE (Power over Ethernet) technologies.

If we take this to the next step, we can reduce the server power and associated heat generated by taking advantage of dynamic frequency scaling. This is also called “CPU throttling.” Dynamic power is directly proportional to the switching frequency and the input voltage, so if we reduce the frequency and/or the voltage, then the power will be reduced as well.

By following these steps and procedures, we will not only be able to reduce the overall energy consumption and increase energy efficiency at different levels, we will also be able to minimize the environmental impact directly. For every 1kWh of energy spent, nearly 0.6kgs of CO2e is emitted (according to UK standards). So, by minimizing the energy consumption, we will be able to reduce the footprint of the datacenter and related carbon emissions.

As many datacenters host mostly mission critical applications and services, availability is a key factor. Let’s talk about change management for a second. The primary objective of a change management process is to make sure there is minimal service interruption when changes are made in an IT environment. How many IT organizations consider energy data points in their change management process today? Not many. So, if a new server or router is provisioned, and if the rack is already reaching its maximum on the input power, we have a huge problem. Even with the approved change request, there is a danger of bringing the entire rack down. You can enhance availability by adding energy data points into the change management system, as well as other ITIL processes.

Let me share another example that really happened in our datacenter here at CA. Our service desk received complaints from users about intermittent Internet connectivity. When handling this issue, the network team suspected that the power input for the high available routers that act as the default gateway might be the issue. A report of the power utilization for the breakers associated with those routers showed that - yes indeed - the power input was having major fluctuations. This started on a particular late night on both the routers. Referring back to the change requests, they were able to confirm that at that time, there had been a firmware upgrade on these routers, which caused this power consumption pattern. This fact proves that adding energy data points to incident management or problem management can not only improve your MTTR (Mean Time To Recovery), but also can help keep your operations well within any service level agreement terms.

Therefore, maximizing energy efficiency in datacenters can do great things from both the business and environmental perspectives. In the case of a datacenter with a $1M energy spend, if we can improve the PUE from 3 to 1.2, we can achieve nearly $500K in cost savings.  This new found funding can now be added to our operational budget or could be used to help save a few jobs in this tough market.

Share this post:  Email

Share

Published: November 24 2009, 02:45 PM | no comments
by Christine Needles

On Monday, CA Chairman Bill McCracken kicked off CA’s CNBC Carbon Council participation with a live appearance on CNBC's ‘The Call.'  Bill discussed our internal effort to reduce our carbon footprint (headed up by our Office of Sustainability) as well as the efforts of our ecoSoftware business unit, which we've been writing more about here on this blog. 

The CNBC Carbon Council is a gathering of executives discussing environmental and business issues through interviews and blogs leading up to and during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) meeting. CNBC is collecting stories and insights in a special online section called The Carbon Challenge, and conducting on-air interviews with participating executives. 

In the way of brief background on COP15 (learn more about it here, or click here for the latest Google News search), world powers will convene in December in Copenhagen to finalize a global plan to significantly cut back on carbon emissions. The previous agreement – called the Kyoto Protocol – runs through 2012.  Originally adopted in 1997 and entered into force in 2005, 187 UN member “states” (countries) have signed the Kyoto agreement, with the U.S. as one of the most notable exceptions.

At this point, most of the discussion leading up to the event suggests there's little chance for a legally binding deal in Copenhagen.  But, there is general consensus that at the very least the meetings will result in a framework and timeline with a goal to finalize the agreement in the coming months.

At CA, we believe that IT will be the primary driver to solving many of the issues facing energy consumption and sustainability. As Bill McCracken points out in his broadcast interview, “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.”  And while governments and politicians work out the details of a new climate change agreement, organizations can take steps today to address the practical realities of reducing their impact on the environment – including implementing IT solutions to measure energy use and activity that causes carbon emissions, report on those emissions, set targets and take effective action to reduce emissions. 

Be sure to visit CNBC’s site covering The Carbon Challenge regularly over the coming weeks for more insights from CA and other Carbon Council members.

Share this post:  Email

Share

Published: November 16 2009, 09:05 AM | no comments
by Dhesikan Ananchaperumal

If we ask any IT organization about its budget, the common answer you hear is that the budget is cut by XX% for the next fiscal year. At the same time, IT services expected from the IT organization are always on the rise. In addition to the standard OPEX and CAPEX an IT group was responsible for previously, they are also under pressure to utilize the energy efficiently and reduce carbon emissions. This means that the IT group is now forced to monitor their energy utilization and make sure the energy efficiency is high so the operational cost can be lowered. Due to this fundamental change in addition to the rising demand for higher energy efficiency, the need for green datacenters is increasing.

A green datacenter is one in which the energy efficiency is maximized and the environmental impact is minimized. It’s a well documented fact that datacenters are major consumers of energy. Additionally, energy equipment such as PDUs, UPSs, etc. and the cooling units contribute to energy loss.

So, how do we maximize energy efficiency? We must rely on industry standard energy efficiency metrics – such as the Green Grid’s Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), which is the ratio of total power coming into the datacenter to the power used for IT load and Data Center infrastructure Efficiency (DCiE), the reciprocal of PUE in percentage value, or the Uptime Institute’s Site Infrastructure Energy Efficiency Ratio (I-EER) and IT-PEW (IT Productivity per Embedded Watt).

One way to maximize energy efficiency is to adopt one of the standard metrics previously mentioned, and based on that, continuously monitor your energy utilization. Once you understand the energy utilization and associated losses completely, you can determine what changes would most likely help save you both energy and money, and then implement those changes. For example, if a server’s operating temperature is from 0ºF to 120ºF, then you don’t need to run the datacenter at 60ºF. I saw a stat recently that stuck in my mind – it noted that for every 1ºC rise in the datacenter temperature will save nearly 4% energy cost – that’s big savings when we’re talking about typical datacenter energy costs for many large enterprises. Implementation of advanced cooling techniques and economizers can help save a lot of energy and cost associated with cooling.

If we consider PUE as our energy efficiency metric, then PUE is directly proportional to the total power coming to the datacenter and inversely proportional to the power drawn by the IT Load. PUE value should be as low as possible with an ideal value of 1, which means that all incoming power to the datacenter is being used for IT Load. If a datacenter has a PUE of 3 (which is true in many cases), that means only 33.33% of the incoming power is being used for IT load. In other words, if an organization is spending $1M for their datacenter energy, then only $333K is used for the primary objective of IT load/equipment. Remaining $667K is either related to cooling or energy losses. Once we know these numbers, then we can implement necessary changes, best practices, and guidelines to improve the energy efficiency.

Now that we’ve gone over the basics of energy efficiency metrics, in a future post, I’ll share some tips for how best to maximize energy efficiency, helping to move toward a greener datacenter.

Image used under Creative Commons License.

Share this post:  Email

Share