Green Data Center Blog

Citrix Demonstrates Technique to Save Server Power

Citrix has released PowerSmart Utility for Citrix Presentation Servers, enabling idle servers to be turned off during

I am going to contact he Citrix team to see what they have done to create logs to record successful and unsuccessful power down events.  This log could be a simple way to monitor the power on/off events.  They have architected the solution to use one presentation server as the controller, making this the ideal place to monitor the power on/off events.

This same power on/off log would be great for Windows to monitor power management. This will be a long conversation with Microsoft and a challenge to find the right people who would be willing to do this, but it is on my list of things to do.

Appended Jan 3, 2008.

I missed the area of the Citrix FAQ.  Great thinking went into this v1 feature.

What trouble shooting support is included?

By default, some basic information such as when the tool decides to power on/off a server will be logged in the event log of the server running this tool. The servers being shutdown/power off will have the power events logged as usual. The debug tracing is flexible and can be configured to trace only the information you want and to where you want it. Various debugging tools are included to help testing individual components separately. Please see the user guide for more details.

Where is the Green Software?

The Blog Ship Software onTime! presents rules for being a green software engineer.

Then I got to thinking, as software engineers, what’s our responsibility for being green? I did a couple of searches and ended up with nothing. The general view appears to be that software developers are automatically green. After all, how could software not be green? It’s just a bunch of bits, right? Software hardly has an environmental impact, or so is the consensus.  Can software be any more green than it already is?

As I thought more about the subject, I realized that in fact there is a huge variance in software greenliness (new word?).  The notion of green has always existed in software development under a different name: “Simple!”  Yes, simple, is the word we have used to describe the most green software in our industry and some of the most successful software products of all time have been the greenest solutions. I’ll get to some examples in a minute.

I started writing a long response, but I knew I was missing the point.  So, after a few days I was able to simplify the issue.

Assumptions are made in what is considered efficient software, the problem almost all these assumptions run open loop. There are no closed loops to measure how accurate the design assumptions were once the software has been deployed. Bringing real time feedback to the developers on how well their code runs and how green it is in production is what will change behavior.

Some companies have started to expose the power consumption of applications in the data center to developers. You can do all the testing you want in development, but until deployment you don't know what really is happening. Most developers have no idea on the costs to provision more power let alone how much power costs.

The call to action for the devolper is to add application instrumentation which allows operations to determine the amount of power used by an application components and/or transactions.  Few architects are thinking at this level, but I am finding a few who are.

Infoworld summarizes Green IT for 2007

Ted Samson from Infoworld does a good job of recapping the Green IT events of the year, providing a high level view of the different vendors who have green IT solutions.

Cisco's Green Guru proposes Cisco be the router of Energy Data

Cisco's new Green Guru, Paul Marcoux, proposes Cisco be the router of energy data in the data center. 

Using open standards, the company wants to get server and storage vendors to collect and share information about their equipment and send it to Cisco routers and switches. The data could include power consumption, operating temperature and more. It's becoming a critical job, and because the network touches all IT resources across the enterprise, data collection should happen there, according to Paul Marcoux, vice president of green engineering.

I think Cisco may find the vendors have other plans for this data then giving it to Cisco. Burton Group raises this issues as well in the article.

Cisco's proposal would represent a whole new role for networks beyond communications, said Burton Group analyst Dave Passmore. Server vendors might go along with the plan, but Cisco can't count on smooth sailing, he said. Centralized power regulation would play a role in overall management of the datacenter, an area where Cisco is attempting to make inroads with other initiatives as well.

"Who controls virtualization in the data center is going to be the new battleground," Passmore said.

Saving IT Energy This Xmas Holiday - Cornell beats Stanford

SearchDataCenter.com has an article about how Stanford University shuts down utilities saving them $250,000, but their IT infrastructure stays up and running.

Over the Christmas holiday vacation, Stanford University shuts down the utilities in more than three-quarters of its 220 buildings on campus but like most organizations, its IT infrastructure stays up and running, said Susan Kulakowski, campus energy manager.

The Stanford, Calif.-based university saves about $250,000 in utility costs during the annual shutdown. It could save more if a portion of its IT infrastructure shut down, but that's not an option, Kulakowski said.

"There would be a big outcry if we tried to shut down our servers. We scale down IT staff and shut off utilities in other areas, but our students and staff still use the system over the break, so we have to have it available," Kulakowski said.

SearchDataCenter.com searched in vain for an enterprise that shuts down servers over the holiday break and came up with this: Even the most idle servers are kept awake at all times because the prospect of shutting down is just plain scary.

I understand SearchDataCenter.com's frustration finding an enterprise that shuts down servers. I got around this problem, by finding someone who was in the right position to implement the idea, and discussed the benefits of demo'ing the concept. Cornell Medical school's BioMedicine has been turning off servers and the users don't even notice.

This facility is one of the only places I know of that turns off servers when they are not needed. For IT Pros they do the equivalent of turning off the lights when they leave the office this holiday weekend (thanksgiving). Think about how many servers are running these next 4 days from Thurs – Sun with no load on them. Would anyone notice if they were turned off?

The amazing thing is the Biomedicine department has been turning off their servers in a high performance compute cluster for the past 6 months and the users don’t notice a change in service, because they turn off and on the compute nodes in response to the job queue. There aren’t going to be that many research scientist submitting jobs on Thanksgiving day. And, as each compute job is completed and sits idle, there is an automated system that turns off the servers. When new compute resources are required as new jobs are submitted on Monday, the machines are turned back on.

IT Leaders Share Green Data Center predictions

Infoworld has an article with comments from a broad range of companies. The most interesting comments I found are:

Paul Marcoux, vice president of engineering, Cisco development operations, and "green guru," Cisco
Website: Cisco corporate social responsibility page
1. Heading into 2008, companies will continue to emphasize their social responsibility behavior, creating an environment for industry leaders to combine the power of innovation with collaboration to create the most sustainable model for addressing global climate change. As a result, across business and IT functions, we'll begin to see industry standards and green languages emerge in 2008 to foster greater communication and collaboration.

2. If you can't measure it; you can't manage it. In 2008, we'll see a slew of technologies developed to offer real-time monitoring intelligence to measure energy consumption for products. By 2009, there will be few products available that cannot be monitored for energy consumption.

Pat Tiernan, VP of social and environmental responsibility, HP
Website: HP's environmental sustainability page
Green IT will have a more significant focus as we move into 2008. This includes designing products with the entire lifecycle in mind. In addition to energy use, companies will be more vigilant in implementing plans for disposal, reuse, and recycling. Green strategy will also become an argument for the optimization of IT resources, as well as for saving money, with more energy-efficient products.

When will a Web site use Green to promote itself?

It hasn't happened yet, but I am keeping my eyes open for the web site that says visiting its site is good for the environment due to its zero carbon emissions or renewable energy.

MSNBC has an article that Organic Distillers are marketing that they are good for the environment.

Drink this and you may feel pleasantly green

Organic distillers, brewers hope eco-sensitive brands will catch on

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By Jennifer Alsever

MSNBC contributor

updated 4:12 p.m. PT, Wed., Dec. 19, 2007

When sipping that beer or vodka tonic at the next holiday party, take heart: Your revelry may actually be good for the environment.

Or at least that’s the pitch coming from makers of organic tequila, gin, vodka, brandy, beer and wine that are finding their way onto store shelves and fine restaurant menus — all in the name of healthier socializing and being green.

“Sip tequila and save the world, that’s our motto,” said Enrico Caruso, senior vice president of sales for 4 Copas Tequila, a Newport Beach, Calif., maker of tequila that is certified organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Caruso said 4 Copas uses no pesticides or chemicals in farming the agave plants used in its tequila and uses only organic yeast in fermentation.

At $42 to $80, 4 Copas tequila is not cheap, but it is certified organic. View related photos

Google Tax Break Approved SC Data Center

Google got its Tax Breaks in SC.

The google guys are smart and leveraging their brand recognition to help get politicians reelected, bringing media attention to their small town.  30 years of no property tax to employ 200 people.

RICHLAND COUNTY, SC (WIS) - Google won't pay property taxes in Richland County for 30 years.

Tuesday night, County Council decided on its tax incentive plan for a Google data center in Blythewood.

WIS News 10's Craig Melvin talked to County Councilman Damon Jeter and County Administrator Milton Pope. They said Google has committed to spend $600 million in Richland County. The internet giant is expected to create at least 200 new jobs with an average salary of $60,000 a year.

What the news doesn't clarify is of the $600 million spent in Richland county, a large part is capital equipment, installed by specialized technicians who are sent to the facility for installation.  I would be curious how much of the local labor will get of the $600 million of construction cost.

Memory Solution to Reduce Energy Consumption

In the IT industry there is a perfect storm for server hardware innovation with multi-core processors, virtualization, power management, and 64 bit being delivered in high volume. Another component - storage is changing as well.  Here is one example of the changes coming in energy efficient storage besides SSD. 

SUNNYVALE and MILPITAS, Calif., Nov 14, 2007 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- Spansion Inc. (Nasdaq: SPSN), the world's largest pure-play provider of Flash memory solutions, and Virident Inc., an innovator focused on energy-efficient, scalable system solutions for the Internet data center, today announced the two companies will develop and market a new generation of memory solutions designed to dramatically reduce power consumption and provide excellent system performance in Internet data centers. Spansion also announced it has made an equity investment in Virident.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20060118/SFW077LOGO)

This innovative partnership will combine the revolutionary Spansion(R) MirrorBit(R) Eclipse(TM) family with Virident platform technology to create a new generation of memory solutions. This breakthrough memory approach will enable a significant expansion of main system memory in data center servers. The new memory will incorporate specific optimizations for server applications to enable fast read performance and high capacity, yet consume much less energy than power-hungry DRAM. MirrorBit Eclipse Flash memory consumes as little as one-tenth the power of DRAM on a per-Gigabyte basis.

Today, major Internet companies select server infrastructure for the delivery of their services in an environment constrained by the power demands and cost curves of DRAM, and the slow response times of the hard disk. The Virident technology together with Spansion MirrorBit Eclipse Flash memory opens up the possibility of storing much larger datasets in main server memory, providing excellent overall system throughput while living within the power and cooling constraints of the Internet data center.

EDS Eight Tips to Reduce IT Environmental Impact, lack critical tip

EDS has a press release for their eight tips to reduce the Environmental Impact of IT.  Their list is good, but they miss the need for an Energy monitoring system.  If you don't put a monitoring system in place as I talk about in my TechNet Article, you'll have no idea how effective the tips that EDS suggests are in reducing your energy costs.  EDS touts their innovative thought leadership in:

To help corporations and governments kick-off the new year right, the EDS Fellows have highlighted eight ways CIOs can extend the life of existing facilities and reduce the environmental impact of computing in 2008.

The title of EDS Fellow is awarded to the company’s most innovative thought leaders in recognition of their exceptional achievements. Each Fellow has a proven track record of creating world-class solutions for clients. In addition to their academic achievements and invention history, the 24 Fellows average 25 years of industry experience and innovative technology implementations.

One of their tips on maintenance Is one where a monitoring system can help you determine when maintenance is done poorly and actually decreases your efficiency.  There are some maintenance guides who have suggested that up to 50% of maintenance is ineffective or worse causes another failure due to error.  How many of you have taken your car in for maintenance to find there is a new problem which you think has been caused by your last maintenance call?  You can't challenge the car dealer, because you can't prove your car's state before and after the maintenance event. Also, ineffective maintenance is a waste which is not environmentallly friendly. A goal should be to do the maintance which has measureable impact to your performance.

Perform Rigorous Maintenance
The fifth option is more fundamental, but also very achievable. Data center managers can improve the efficiency of their facilities by rigorous maintenance to ensure all equipment is operating at the peak of efficiency as well as modifying layout and configuration of equipment to reduce cooling requirements. These and many more efficiency steps will increase overall data center efficiency and lower the carbon footprint.