Green Data Center Blog

ISO Launches Standard for Energy Management

ISO has launched a project committee to develop an international standard for energy management following their successful examples of ISO 9000 and 14000 series.

ISO has just approved the creation of a project committee mandated to develop an international standard on energy management.

The standard will provide all types of organizations and companies a practical and widely recognized approach to increase energy efficiency, reduce costs and improve their environmental performance by addressing both the technical and management aspects of rational energy use. The standard is intended to be broadly applicable to various sectors of national economies, including utility, manufacturing, commercial building, general commerce, and transportation sectors, and therefore, could have influence on as much as 60 % of the world’s energy demand.

ISO Secretary-General Alan Bryden commented: “The urgency to reduce GHG emissions, the reality of higher prices from reduced availability of fossil fuels, and the need to promote energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources, provide a strong rationale for developing this new standard building on the most advanced best practices and existing national or regional standards”.

Following the successful examples of the ISO 9000 series on quality management and the ISO 14000 series on environmental management, the project committee ISO/PC 242, Energy management, will consider the development of a standard containing relevant terms and definitions and providing management system requirements together with guidance for use, implementation, measurement and metrics.

The intent of the new ISO/PC 242 series are:

• provide organizations and companies (utilities, manufacturers, commerce, buildings, transportation, both private and public) with a well-recognized framework for integrating energy efficiency into their management practices
• offer organizations with operations in more than one country a single, harmonized standard for implementation across the organization
• provide a logical and consistent methodology for identifying and implementing improvements that may contribute to a continual increase in energy efficiency across facilities
• assist organizations to better utilize existing energy consuming assets, thus reducing costs and/or expanding capacity
• offer guidance on benchmarking, measuring, documenting, and reporting energy intensity improvements and their projected impact on reductions in GHG emissions
• create transparency and facilitate communication on the management of energy, promote energy management best practices, thus reinforcing the value of good energy management behaviours
• assist facilities in evaluating and prioritizing the implementation of new energy-efficient technologies
• provide a framework for organizations to encourage suppliers to better manage their energy, thus promoting energy efficiency throughout the supply chain
• facilitate the use of energy management as a component of GHG emission reduction projects.

The secretariat of ISO/PC 242 will be held jointly by the ISO members for the United States and for Brazil: ANSI (American National Standardization Institute) and ABNT (Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas).

America's Power, Clean Coal Technology?

Found a Web site that is clearly sponsored by top coal producers and coal based utilities. They have enough money to make their own TV ads.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1258426564/bclid1264609443/bctid1243638288

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1274008754/bclid1264609443/bctid1281309647

And, here is another blogger's comments about this blog.

In the wake of setbacks to new coal powerplant construction in the face of likely carbon legislation, the coal industry has mounted a serious PR blitz, led by a group called Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC).

ABEC is a national non-profit organization with a claimed membership of 150,000, whose acknowledged primary funding source is "America's coal-based electricity providers" -- including such big-boys as American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP), Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), First Energy (NYSE: FE) and Southern Company (NYSE: SO). Not to mention large coal companies such as Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI) and CONSOL (NYSE: CNX), and railroads such as Burlington Northern Sante Fe (NYSE: BNI) and CSX (NYSE: CSX).

Quite aptly, Sourcewatch refers to ABEC amusingly as an "astroturf" support organization: "apparently grassroots-based citizen groups or coalitions that are primarily conceived, created and/or funded by corporations, industry trade associations, political interests or public relations firms." Given the corporate interests listed on the ABEC website, it is hard to call ABEC a true grassroots organization.
Here in Ohio, ABEC has launched a series of billboards and newspaper advertisements promoting coal, implicitly at the expense of other energy alternatives. Particularly objectionable to me is the ad that illustrates (as if algebraically) "Coal = Ohio Jobs", suggesting not-so-subtly that a shift to other non-coal forms of energy will cause a loss of jobs. I was compelled to write a counter-response, which appeared last week as an editorial in The Plain-Dealer.

Christian Belady's Bottom Line Opinion 10 years ago, We Need A Better System

Microsoft's Christian Belady was going through his old presentations and found a public presentation on The Big Picture, A Philosophical Discussion to Make US Think. Download Cbelady.pdf The presentation is an accumulation of predictions he was making in the late '90s as part of making a case for more efficient computing while at HP.

This topic seemed appropriate as Christian and I sat in a Green IT presentation today from a major IT corporation, and were discussing afterwards with an ex-semiconductor engineer on what has caused companies to make the change to energy efficiency.  Coincidentally, we all had made the realization 10 years ago, and compared how long it took for executives to accept that energy efficiency is an important feature. Even though we had all figure it out, Christian is the one who can point to a specific presentation and putting his predictions out there.

Jumping to the bottom line, here is Christian's call to action:

Summary
Power is not just a….
•component problem
•System problem
•Data center problem
•Utility Infrastructure problem
We have a huge opportunity to solve these problems as one system and optimize the solution.
WE NEED A BETTER SYSTEM!

Big Picture
Bottom Line
We need to cooperate to solve these problems on a much larger scale.
Develop consortiums to address these global issues and influence the industry, government and culture proactively.
We need to ensure that we have a better world.

Here are some additional notes Christian provided for his presentation.

This public presentation (first time I talked about all of this externally) was where I talked about the following:

1) 100MW data center was and their water needs - Slide 30

2) How the government is going to care about us  - Slide 32 (data is wrong though) and Slide 34

3) How when China standard of living will increase and really squeeze our energy costs

4) The hypocrisy of how we get all mad that people are burning down the rain forests to live and the US lights up the globe Slide 36

5) My Quote on how data centers will need your own power generation Slide 37

6) How we need to solve as a system Slide 40

7) My bottom line “My Plea for Industry Cooperation and Consortiums” Slide 41

Dell Ad, Frontpage of WSJ, Slash Energy Consumption up to 45%

In today's print and web WSJ.com, Dell has an advertisement headlined Slash Energy Consumption up to  45%, Unlock your Hidden Data Center.  The url for the site is here. IBM and HP have been running multiple ads on Green Data Centers.

This is in direct contrast to my post on Going Green from an Architect's view.

Dell Power and Cooling Solutions

Stop compromising your capability just to cut costs. Dell can show you how to drive cost and complexity out of the data center to deliver more compute capacity for less than you’re probably spending right now. It’s like having a hidden data center, right inside your current space. Simplify IT with Dell by unlocking your hidden data center today:

• Slash energy consumption up to 45% or increase performance up to 97% by deploying a combination of Energy Smart technologies, services, virtualization, and cooling best practices.¹ Unlock Your Hidden Data Center
• Avoid building a new data center right away - Get more out of your existing facility
• No need for expensive, proprietary equipment or fighting with your local utility for more power

• Energy Smart products are available now for immediate business impact
• Dell Energy Smart Servers are up to 28% more efficient than our regular servers²
• Maximize performance for the energy used
• Utilize Dell blade systems that consume up to 19% less power than HP

• Deploy faster with less waste. Dell blade servers take 65% less time to set up and come in 97% fewer boxes than HP   Learn More
• Dell – Liebert Energy Smart advanced cooling solution enables up to a 250% performance gain with no increase in facility power requirements OR up to an 80% performance increase with a reduction in facility power by 42%   Learn More

• Dell’s virtualization-optimized servers and storage maximize performance and reduce wasted energy—and our Virtualization Assessment Services show you the most effective path to a virtualized infrastructure…One Dell customer used virtualization to save as much as $10,000 a month in power and cooling costs – an 80% reduction   Learn More
• Dell PowerEdge Energy Smart 2950 offers better performance / watt:
  • 15% better performance / watt than HP ProLiant DL380 G5
  • 10% better performance / watt than IBM System x3650   Learn More
• OpenManage™ power monitoring and management features deliver operational improvements at no extra charge

• Build on an open architecture that scales to meet your business needs… A centralized, scalable solution helped one Dell customer cut IT administration time by up to 50%    Learn More
• Virtualize your servers to maximize performance and reduce wasted energy consumption…Real results include consolidation from 80 servers down to five, contributing to a 33% infrastructure reduction    Learn More

Article on Green IT Architecture, written by a Microsoft CTO and Field Architect

IEEE Computing has an article, Green: The New Computing Coat of Arms? by Microsoft's Joseph Williams, CTO of WW Enterprise Sales and Lewis Curtis, an architect for developer platform and evangelism. The article is not representative of Microsoft's views, but they are the views of two people who are thinking of Green Data Centers, and have regular discussions with companies who are taking a leadership role in going Green.

An Architectural Approach to Green Computing There’s no simple path to green computing, but there are some low-hanging fruit. You can spin the dial on some straightforward actions, such as orienting racks of servers in a data center to exhaust their heat in a uniform direction, thus reducing overall cooling costs. You can also implement Energy Star guidelines (www. energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=prod_development.server_efficiency) for energy efficiencies in the data center. But these are point solutions. A
comprehensive plan for achieving green computing really does require an architectural approach.

Because of IT’s ecosystem complexities— ranging from the data center to client computing and from customer impacts to business impacts—some investment and process decisions almost always involve trade-offs, or, if you aren’t architecturally proactive in your thinking, a tapestry of unintended consequences. You won’t find a silver bullet or a single vendor solution that will magically make anyone “green.” In fact, given all the interdependencies and complexities, it isn’t entirely obvious yet what a green outcome would even look like.

They close with

Using an analogy from security, in the past 15 years IT has learned that purchasing a firewall doesn’t necessarily make an IT environment secure. It takes an entire security architecture to provide a vision against which secure computing can be executed. The same is true for green computing. Point solutions will help, but really addressing the issue takes an architectural view.

To be Green is going to require somebody in your company to think the way Joseph and Lewis do. The architects are there at most companies, but do they think Green?

Job One for a CEO: Exploit the opportunities and shift the costs to someone else

WSJ has summarized its ECO:nomics conference with multiple postings on its web site. On page one, ECO:nomics: Creating Environmental Capital, hits you with the hard core view.

The push to curb global-warming emissions is starting to redraw the industrial landscape, and in doing so it has already begun to create new winners and losers. Job One for a CEO: Exploit the opportunities and shift the costs to someone else.

Some players -- like wind-turbine makers and venture capitalists -- stand to gain from the drive to reduce fossil-fuel use. Some -- like auto makers and oil producers -- stand to pay. All face a dilemma: The rules of the green game have yet to be written, but to remain competitive, companies must bet big today on how the rules will shake out.

These bets, and the battle over the coming rules, were a recurring topic of discussion at ECO:nomics, The Wall Street Journal's first annual conference on the business of the environment. In this report, we offer some of the highlights of that discussion.

You'll read, for instance, why executives from major multinationals are calling on the U.S. government to impose a cap on greenhouse-gas emissions. As Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric Co.'s CEO, explained, because regulation is coming, "I'd just as soon have a seat at that table than have it pushed down my throat."

And spins this as the beginning.

Winners and losers. Opportunities and risks. The fault lines in this new-energy landscape are only just emerging.

Here are links to more content.

THE JOURNAL REPORT

• Green thinking is at the core of thousands of new communities. Here's a look at some of the approaches. Video | Interactive Map

• Governments and companies are on a quest to turn trash into power.

• How to safely dispose of products that are potentially harmful to the environment is a growing concern. Podcast

• Global Warming: Who said what -- and when

• The environmental movement almost killed Hayfork, Calif. Now, it's the town's main hope.

• Why is a U.S. ambassador helping foreign companies raise money?

• See the complete Environment report.

BusinessWeek Article, It's Too Darn Hot, The huge cost of powering—and cooling—data centers ...

Businessweek wrote an article about energy consumption in the data centers, starting the article off by drawing attention to the big data center operators all visiting Iceland. But, behind the scenes it looks like there were multiple vendors positioning to get in the article as HP, Sun, Intel, VMWare, IBM, Cassatt were all researched and/or interviewed. There is not necessarily anything new for those who follow data centers, but interesting BusinessWeek chose this as a subject.

It's a testament to the challenges companies face in operating data centers that Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), and Microsoft (MSFT) have all checked out this remote corner of the world (although none has made a commitment so far). The reason: Iceland has a rare combination of vacant land, cheap geothermal energy, and chilly climate that makes cooling a data center nearly free.

The writer chose to emphasize the strategic battle of Green Data Centers between Google and Microsoft, as well as other industry players, Sun, IBM, HP.

So intense is the competition among tech companies to lower their costs of processing data that some treat information about their energy use like state secrets. When Google built a data center along the Columbia River in Oregon a few years ago, it bought the land through a third party so its involvement was hidden, and the city manager had to sign a confidentiality agreement. In North Carolina, the state's sunshine laws forced it to disclose the incentive package it offered Google to locate a data center there, but the company's plans for power consumption were redacted as trade secrets.

Little wonder, perhaps: In the future, the competition between Google and Microsoft in the Web search business might be determined as much by data center energy efficiency as by which company writes the best search algorithm.

And provides a short history of Microsoft's transition to a player in data center design.

Three years ago, Microsoft began to tackle the energy issue in earnest. CEO Steve Ballmer and other top executives had decided to greatly expand the services offered over the Web to consumers and businesses, including e-mail and instant messaging, to parry threats from Google. So a group of about 20 people gathered at an off-site meeting at the Salish Lodge in Redmond, Wash., with a view of a waterfall out the window, to hash out a forecast of data center needs. "We decided to take the most aggressive, craziest plan we could come up with," says Michael Manos, senior director of data center services. "In hindsight, we were conservative."

Since then, Microsoft has spent more than $2 billion building four gigantic facilities—in Chicago, Dublin, San Antonio, and Quincy, Wash. Now it's looking at locations overseas, including Iceland and Siberia. Its computing needs have doubled each year for the past three years, and Microsoft expects them to continue doubling each year for the foreseeable future.

Energy consumption is a major factor in Microsoft's planning. The company has created what it calls a "heat map" of the globe that takes into account 35 factors in site selection, including cost and availability of power. A group of scientists studies the latest advances in data center design and computing efficiency. And Manos looks for local resources he can take advantage of—such as water from a waste-treatment system that cools computers at the new data center in San Antonio. As a result of all of this effort, Manos believes his 20 data centers are 30% to 50% more efficient than the industry average.

Dream Tool for Green Data Center, Detect Greenwashing Products

Barron's posted an article on Wall Street Redefined.

RELATIONSHIPS COUNT FOR LITTLE on Wall Street these days -- fortunately. A hedge-fund manager can no longer make up for bad performance by buying you a fancy dinner. An institutional salesman can't sustain fat commissions by reciting the morning meeting notes and taking you out on the links.

Contributing to this salutary pay-for-performance trend are "alpha-capture" databases that let money managers track the performance of ideas pitched by hundreds of brokerage salespeople and analysts. These systems take a more scientific approach to the traditionally haphazard process of allocating commissions to brokers. More important, the systems help investors find the outsiders who deliver "alpha," which is the Wall Street term for market-beating returns.

And continues...

BUT ALPHA-CAPTURE SYSTEMS can motivate institutional salespeople to cull their firm's best ideas. Buyside users of a system tell stockbrokers to enter ideas into a Web-accessible database, along with an investment thesis, trading strategy and conviction level. The ideas get time-stamped and both the broker and the money manager can subsequently track performance in real-time. The returns to an idea can be compared to hundreds of others in the system or to a benchmark. Portfolio managers can zero in on brokers or stocks that interest them. The phenomenon has been called a Wall Street version of fantasy football.

First Coverage's chief executive, Randy Cass, says his belief in the need for such systems originates in his experience as a portfolio manager at the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. "I've been there, trying to deal with massive amounts of information being firehosed at me," he says. To cope, most portfolio managers look for ideas from a few familiar people and firms.

When I read this, it would be a dream come true to have a tool like this to detect the Green Hype vs. Green Reality.  Having vendors enter their ideas into a web database could make them accountable for their products, detecting Greenwashing and holding the sales team accountable.

Are Green Data Center Consultants Really Worth It?

DataCenterJournal has an article by a Green Data Center Consultant Bill Masters, Are Greening Consultants Worth It?  And, offers his 5 top reasons for a professional Green Consultant.

1. Skilled greening consultants typically have a technology and energy background. That means they have expertise in power distribution, UPS, infrastructure, cooling as well as extensive knowledge with respect to load and performance benchmarking measurements.

2. Experienced greening consultants will take a holistic energy reduction approach to data centers. Most will conduct a comprehensive Data Center Analysis to evaluate your data center's infrastructure in addition to an IT analysis that's designed to pin point hardware and software inefficiencies.

3. A few of these consultants are aligned with the utilities in your area of operation. In many cases they have programs available to cover some or all of the greening costs associated with an aggregate or stand alone power savings programs.

4. The skilled greening consultant will act as your agent to work directly with the utility to see your greening project through from inception to completion.

5. Finally, the skilled greening consultant will only get paid a percentage of the verified energy savings calculation confirmed by the utility.

On first glance this made sense, but then I asked would I do it this way. No. If you really are Green you're about efficiency and eliminating waste. So, shouldn't your #' 1 job be to use the least amount of resources for maximum results?

Here are my three simple steps:

1. Awareness of where you are at and the ability to educate others.
2. Identify potential Green/energy efficiency projects and prioritize.
3. Figure out the most efficient path to take and define the measurements for success/failures along the way.

The Future Green Data Center Work Force

DataCenterKnowledge has a human interest post on The Youngest Data Center Entrepreneur  which points back to Jonathan Jones post, the 10 year old son of Softlayer's CFO.

One day I am going to be a mechanical engineer. I’ll design server racks and datacenters for SoftLayer that will be more efficient and eco-friendly to help the environment. They will hold more servers so they can sell more and make more money.

This is the kind of energy that I run into all the time, but never this young and focused on creating a Green Data Center.