Google & Microsoft adoption of Containers and Cloud Computing has a common pattern - cost containment

Cloud Computing has reached record levels of media interest and confusion.  Containers had a lot of interest in the data center industry and there are some efforts like Cisco to combine cloud computing and containers.

Cisco targets Data Center Containers for Federal/Defense market saves 50% capital and 30% operating costs

Containers have gone through its hype phase, and now we'll see how many start buying containers.  There is some new media coverage on Cisco's move in containers.

Cisco claims that by purchasing a portable data center—which cost around $1.2 million for a 40-foot, fully loaded model and some $600,000 for a 20-footer—an enterprise can save 50 percent in capital expenses and 30 percent in operating expenses compared with a similar-sized, permanent land-based facility. But those are very general numbers.

But what clicked in conversations this past 4 days is there is another way to view why Google and Microsoft both are using containers and cloud computing.

Cost Containment.

Process of maintaining organizational costs within a specified budget; restraining expenditures to meet organizational or project financial targets.

Data Center Containers are enclosures of compute allowing a more accurate cost accounting of IT.  Much easier than thousands of feet of white space with power and cooling systems that need to be allocated across the load put in the space.

Cloud computing is a virtual enclosure of compute that you pay for as you go.  Easy and smaller increments of cost containment IT.

Both of these solutions support better management of budgets.

Cloud computing means so many different things to different people, and what almost all miss is this is a way to adopt a cost containment mindset.  There are other ways to put cost containment in IT and the data center that are even better than Cloud Computing as there is more to IT systems than cost.

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Cloud Computing is changing behavior, one of the hardest steps in Greening the Data Center

A Green Data Center is not a binary thing that is demonstrated by achieving a performance number.  Achieving a sub PUE of 1.2 is a good step, but does that make the data center Green?  It is more energy efficient than others.  A LEED platinum data center means the building has achieved enough points that the building now has more points than others, but is that Green?  These are all good ideas, but overall it is not changing behavior for the holistic system.

The book Switch: How to change things, when change is hard makes an excellent point.

• Buy Switch.
• Come see us on the book tour.
• Read the first chapter.

Why is it so hard to make lasting changes in our companies, in our communities, and in our own lives?

The primary obstacle is a conflict that’s built into our brains, say Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the critically acclaimed bestseller Made to Stick. Psychologists have discovered that our minds are ruled by two different systems—the rational mind and the emotional mind—that compete for control. The rational mind wants a great beach body; the emotional mind wants that Oreo cookie. The rational mind wants to change something at work; the emotional mind loves the comfort of the existing routine. This tension can doom a change effort—but if it is overcome, change can come quickly.

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Usually these topics are treated separately—there is "change management" advice for executives and "self-help" advice for individuals and "change the world" advice for activists. That's a shame, because all change efforts have something in common: For anything to change, someone has to start acting differently.

When you build a LEED certified data center does it change the behavior of the occupants?  Does a low PUE change how you host your IT?  It changes the mindset a bit for the mechanical operations staff.

If you are running a Cloud Computing data center that is charging users for their resources used and there is a clear profit and loss goal for operations and customers, there are behavior changes all over.

James Hamilton posts on Dave Patterson's latest Cloud Computing keynote at Cloud Computing 2010.

The Berkeley RAD Lab principal investigators include: Armando Fox,  Randy Katz & Dave Patterson (systems/networks),Michael Jordan (machine learning), Ion Stoica (networks & P2P), Anthony Joseph (systems/security), Michael Franklin(databases), and Scott Shenker (networks) in addition to 30 Phd students, 10 undergrads, and 2 postdocs.

The talk starts by arguing that cloud computing actually is a new approach drawing material from the Above the Cloudspaper that I mentioned early last year: Berkeley Above the Clouds. Then walked through why pay-as-you-go computing with small granule time increments allow SLAs to be hit without stranding valuable resources.

James does a good job of identifying the top 6 slides out of the 50 slide talk.

If you look at all these slides each one of these are discussing how Cloud Computing is and will change behavior of people in the IT system.  Which is the biggest step in a Green Data Center.

I think leading Cloud Computing data centers will be greener than most as performance per hr is a number all think about.  And, a natural 2nd question is how much it costs.  The costs are largely affected by the power consumed.

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50% of IT budgets treat electricity as free resource, Avanade survey discovers

Avanade has a news release on a survey revealing the disconnect between IT and electricity use.

GLOBAL STUDY: MORE THAN HALF OF COMPANIES FAIL TO ACCOUNT FOR ENERGY COSTS IN IT BUDGETS
Executives and IT decision-makers cite energy as a top cost in IT operations; Survey reveals disconnect in budgeting
SEATTLE – March 31, 2010 – According to a recent survey commissioned by Avanade, a business technology services provider, there is a clear gap in energy policies within IT departments. Companies recognize energy as a top cost, but ultimately, more than half of respondents fail to account for energy costs when developing IT budgets.

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Also, Avanade has a press release on customers interest in Microsoft Cloud Computing.

In 2009 Avanade engaged Kelton Research to conduct two global surveys on cloud computing – one in February 2009 and the other in September 2009. Between the first survey and the second, there was a 320 percent increase in executives and IT decision-makers reporting they are testing or planning to implement cloud computing technologies.

Makes me wonder how many enterprises are forgetting to account for the electricity bill as a cost savings for cloud computing.

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StorageMojo Blog votes for Emotions drive Private Cloud, commenting on James Hamilton’s post

I wrote on Mike Manos’s comment regarding James Hamilton’s post that Private Clouds are not the future.

Jan 25, 2010

Private Clouds Dead or Alive, views from James Hamilton and Mike Manos, logic vs. emotional

I’ve been thinking about what to write as a response to James Hamilton’s blog post on Private Clouds are not the Future.  It is well written and logical in its efficiency.

Last week Alistair Croll wrote an excellent InformationWeek article arguing that “the true cloud operators will have an unavoidable cost advantage because it's all they worry about. They'll also be closer to consumers (because they have POPs everywhere and partnerships with content delivery systems), and connecting with consumers and partners will become an increasingly essential part of any enterprise IT strategy.” Have a look at Private Clouds are a Fix, Not the Future.

Private clouds are better than nothing but an investment in a private cloud is an investment in a temporary fix that will only slow the path to the final destination: shared clouds. A decision to go with a private cloud is a decision to run lower utilization levels, consume more power, be less efficient environmentally, and to run higher costs.

StorageMojo’s Robin Harris also votes for emotions keeping private clouds future bright.

Why private clouds are part of the future

by ROBIN HARRIS on FRIDAY, 5 FEBRUARY, 2010

James Hamilton, Amazon architect and a very smart guy, recently blogged about private clouds. In Private Clouds Are Not The Future he argues that economies of scale make public clouds much more efficient than private clouds.

I think we agree that several effects make web scale public clouds more efficient

…

Robin adds his view it isn’t all about economics.

It isn’t all about the Benjamins
Economics is not the driver many assume. Individuals and companies often select less economic choices. Some people buy cars that cost $200,000 and get 12 miles to the gallon. Some companies buy $6/GB storage and then utilize just 1/3rd of that costly capacity.

Often perceived benefits are not well measured in dollars. Convenience, availability, consistency and control often relate to emotional needs and wants that are rarely quantified or questioned.

But we don’t have to invoke those to understand why private clouds will be part of the computing landscape. Just a quick look at one of the large Internet data centers will tell us what we need to know.

As much as people talk about Cloud Computing it is rare to hear someone talk about power.  Robin is the exception to the rule.

Show me the power
All the advantages of public clouds have analogs in the world of power generation and distribution. Power generation is cheapest when centralized and large-scale distribution systems move power at the lowest cost per watt.

Electrical power generation and distribution is over 125 years old. The technology is well understood, the industry is mature, and a massive infrastructure — including mile-long coal-hauling trains — supports production and distribution.

And yet, Google’s massive Dalles, Oregon data centers, built next to a substation a few miles from the nation’s largest hydropower system – one of the world’s most reliable power sources – flanks each data center with generators. I expect Amazon does the same.

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Are Cloud Computing Data Centers Green? IBM announces its greenest Cloud Computing DC in North Carolina

I’ve been writing about cloud computing more as cloud computings are more efficient using less resources.  Here is IBM’s latest press release that demonstrates cloud computing is green.

The data center uses advanced software virtualization technologies that enable access to information and services from any device with extremely high levels of availability and quality of experience.  The facility aggressively conserves energy resources; saving cost and speeding services deployment through a smart management approach that links equipment, building systems and data center operations.

“I thank IBM for its continued commitment to North Carolina. This facility promises to be one of IBM's greenest data centers in the world, proving once again that green is gold for North Carolina,” Gov. Bev Perdue said. “Growing North Carolina’s green economy plays a critical role in my mission to create jobs and to ensure our state’s economy is poised to be globally competitive in the long term.”

As I’ve discussed the ideas working with University of Missouri, IBM has taken the same approach working with North Carolina Universities.

The data center is showcasing a cloud computing solution in partnership with North Carolina Central University (NCCU) and NC State University that enables Hillside New Tech High School students in Durham, NC to access educational materials and software applications for the classroom over the Internet from the high school’s computer lab, as well as from any networked device.  This means that the learning environment can be extended to nearly any place at any time without the restrictions many schools face such as limited support, hardware resources and lack of access. The Hillside outreach project with NCCU, using cloud computing as a vehicle in support of education, is one of several such K-12 projects that IBM supports.  The new data center also currently hosts IBM’s global web site, ibm.com, and the IT operations of strategic outsourcing clients such as the United States Golf Association (USGA).

The green features are listed here.


  • Smarter data center management:      Thousands of sensors, connecting IT equipment, data center and building automation systems, provide data that can be analyzed to plan future capacity planning, conserve energy and maintain operations in the event of a power outage.
  • Energy efficiency: The data center uses half the energy cost to operate compared to data centers of similar size by taking advantage of free cooling – using the outside air to cool the data center.  Intelligent systems use sensors to continuously read temperature and relative humidity throughout the data center and dynamically adjust cooling in response to changes in demand.
  • Cloud computing capability:  Support for cloud computing workloads allow clients to use only the resources necessary to support their IT operations at any given moment - eliminating the need for up to 70 percent of the hardware resource that might have been previously needed to perform the same task. The data center also hosts recently announced “Smart Business” cloud computing offerings - each of these solutions can significantly reduce a clients total cost of ownership by up to 40 percent.
  • Built for expansion: Due to an innovative modular design method, IBM will be able to add significant future capacity in nearly half the time it would take traditional data centers to expand.  This design/build method – called IBM Enterprise Modular Data Center  (IBM EMDC) – also enables IBM to rapidly scale capacity to meet demand by adding future space, power, and cooling to the data center with no disruption to existing operations.  This means up to 40 percent of capital costs and up to 50 percent of operational costs may be deferred until client demand necessitates expansion.  The new data center can also quickly and seamlessly expand its power and cooling capacity.
  • New building standards: IBM started building the data center in August 2008 and it began to support client operations within 15 months compared to the industry benchmark of 18-24 months.

In constructing the new data center, IBM renovated an existing building on its Research Triangle Park campus by reusing 95 percent of the original building's shell, recycling 90 percent of the materials from the original building and ensuring that 20 percent of newly purchased material came from recycled products.  The result lowered costs and reduced the carbon footprint associated with building by nearly 50 percent allowing IBM to apply for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification. LEED is a third-party certification program and the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.

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