Not Calculating PUE ROI, 1 of 9 Top Data Center Mistakes

Lee Technologies sent over their Top 9 data center mistakes paper, and I liked it right from the start as they made the point people don't calculate an ROI for PUE performance.  PUE is closest to telling an efficiency of a data center which to a layman is the closest we have for data centers for a MPG, but who specifies a high MPG number and doesn't think about how much it costs for the extra MPG above the norm.

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The Top 9 Mistakes in Data Center Planning: The Total Cost of Ownership Approach to Building or Expanding Data Centers

Why do so many data center builds and expansions fail? This white paper answers the question by revealing the top 9 mistakes organizations make when designing and building new data center space, and examines an effective way to achieve success through the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) approach.

I spend too much time writing for other people, and I could go on how I would rewrite the paper, but overall an excellent job bringing up issues few think about.

The top three points that I think would get people's attention are ironically the last 3 of 9 tips.

# 7

Big Mistake #7:

Misunderstanding PUE

Many times, organizations set a PUE goal with all the proper intentions
but the calculation does not take into account all factors that should be
considered.


You need to fully understand what the ROI is on capital expenses to
reach your goals. You need to ask yourself, what is the TC O relative to
the target PUE?

#8 has three parts, and I  like this one best as this hidden cost of LEED is why builders and consultants push LEED.  People think they are getting LEED for free, because they are not counting the cost of certification.

Big Mistake #8:
Misunderstanding LEED certification
To date, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has not set specific
criteria for data center LEED criteria.

There will be costs related to receiving certification. Failure to take
these related expenses into account will impact your TCO and
business decision planning processes.

And #9, an overall problem with data center design.

Big Mistake #9:
Overcomplicated designs
As stated earlier, simple is better. Regardless of the target tier rating
you have chosen, there are dozens of ways to design an effective
system. Too often, redundancy goals drive too much complexity. Add
in the multiple approaches to building a modular system and things get
complicated fast.

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Compliance and Sustainability Solution - IHS Environment

I am at OSIsoft's user conference and found one compliance solution from IHS for the Environment.

Environmental Solutions

IHS provides a full suite of environmental and chemical management software and service solutions for EHS and sustainability management.  Solutions include:

Effective environmental, sustainability and chemical management is no longer simply about regulatory compliance. Increasingly these concerns are central components to companies’ strategic planning and management.


IHS Environment solutions help you manage your Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) and sustainability programs -- from the corporate level down to individual facilities.


By offering a complete portfolio of solutions, from EHS and chemical management software to strategic consulting services for climate change management in a cap and trade environment, IHS is your single source for cost-effective environmental management.

The IHS Environment makes sense to evaluate if you run industrial processes and use other IHS software.

I've also met some other sustainability folks at OSIsoft and I will discuss how well the IHS Environment solution can work for a green (low carbon) data center.

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Redmond High teacher wins $25,000 NEA Green Prize in Education, thinks Green is built on simple solutions

Sometimes I wonder if the challenges to green the data center is the confusion companies have in approaching the problem.  PUE as simple as it is as a metric can be confusing to a novice on where to start.  To be greener requires change.  Change requires a motivation.  What is the motivation for green?

In Seattletimes, there is an article about a Redmond High School teacher who won the $25,000 National Education Association award for Green Prize in Education.

Redmond High environmental-science teacher wins $25,000 Green Prize

Mike Town, who teaches environmental science at Redmond High, was presented the inaugural $25,000 Green Prize in Environmental Education from the NEA Foundation on Monday. The award was delivered by a grandson of undersea explorer and filmmaker Jacques Cousteau.

By Katherine Long

Seattle Times Eastside reporter

Teacher Mike Town listens Monday before receiving the NEA Foundation's inaugural Green Prize in Public Education.

Enlarge this photo

KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Teacher Mike Town listens Monday before receiving the NEA Foundation's inaugural Green Prize in Public Education.

Information

Cool School Challenge: The "Cool School Challenge" program can be downloaded for free athttp://coolschoolchallenge.org.

When he was a boy, one of Mike Town's heroes was Jacques Cousteau, the French explorer and filmmaker whose "Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau" brought the beauty of the marine environment to viewers around the world.

So it seemed fitting that when Town was awarded a national environmental-education prize Monday, it was delivered by one of Cousteau's grandsons, Philippe.

Here is a quote from Philippe Cousteau.

“The guiding philosophy of Mike Town's Cool School Challenge is that big changes start with small steps. His program provides a simple process that enables students, working together with their teachers, to proactively reduce greenhouse gas emissions of schools, making a world of difference in their own communities," said Cousteau.  "The natural environment is a leading interest of many students and their teachers, but there are few resources to support them. If we truly want to save what my grandfather called our water planet then we must arm youth with the knowledge, skills and tools to take action to do so. Mike Town’s program is a great step toward this.”

Cool School challenge takes an approach asking for the motivation.

Conceptually modeled after the U.S. Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement, the Cool School Challenge aims to motivate students, teachers, and school districts to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions schoolwide. At the heart of the Cool School Challenge is the philosophy that big changes start with small steps, and that taken together, simple individual actions create a world of difference.

This project was the unanimous choice as the winner.

The NEA Foundation created the Green Prize in Public Education to recognize and showcase an outstanding public school educator or program that best advances social and environmental responsibility, improves student learning, and can be replicated. Town was the unanimous choice of a prestigious panel of national leaders from the environmental, education, business, and philanthropic sectors.

Mike's passion is to leverage and be a multiplier.

The shaggy-haired Town, who describes himself as "an old hippie who happens to be an educator," decided to become a teacher because "it has this multiplier effect" — by teaching young people, he said, his passion for the environment can reach many more.

Here is a Google Map of other schools who have joined the program.

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Could the same approach be used to green data centers?  Most likely yes.

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OSIsoft expands Sustainability program, hires EPA ENERGYSTAR's Andrew Fanara

There have been some interesting changes in the data center industry as executives move to Microsoft, eBay, and Apple.  OSIsoft bagged the latest knowledge transfer, getting EPA ENERGYSTAR's Andrew Fanara to join their company.

OSIsoft® delivers the PI System®, the world’s leading highly scalable and secure infrastructure for the management of real-time data and events, and for connecting people with the right information, at the right time, to analyze, collaborate, and act. With more than 14,000 installations across oil & gas, power & utility, pharmaceuticals, data center, chemical, pulp & paper, metals & mining, and other process industries, the OSIsoft PI System® is the flexible foundation for establishing a culture of continuous improvement at the plant, across the enterprise, and throughout the value chain. Leveraging the PI System, companies improve asset performance, increase energy efficiency, mitigate risk, centralize knowledge, and optimize production to drive profitability and remain competitive.

To green the data center there are a few people who I try to have regular conversations with and one of them is Andrew Fanara.  While skiing a month ago, Andrew let me know he was thinking of leaving the EPA to join the private sector, and was talking to a variety of companies that were interested in leveraging his experience in the data center industry. 

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We discussed many different types of companies that could use Andrew's skills and provide a good environment to work on developing new methods  For example, a place where he could be more innovative and react faster to market and technology changes.  #1 suggestion is to work at place that allows him to leverage his existing business network and make it stronger, and more influential.

One of the companies he was talking to was OSIsoft.  I've known the OSIsoft executives about 5 years.  And, have had the pleasure of going to the last four OSIsoft user conferences which is where I met Mike Manos.  Even though Mike and I overlapped at Microsoft, we didn't connect until OSIsoft had an executive summit to discuss the energy industry.

I think highly of the OSIsoft capabilities, but to give Andrew another perspective, I called in a favor and had him talk to a Microsoft executive who could compare OSIsoft's capabilities as a technology partner vs. others. The Microsoft executive confirmed that OSIsoft is one of the top software vendors in the energy industry and are leaders in energy efficiency enabling better use of natural resources.

Many data center insiders are sad to see Andrew leave the EPA, but I see this as a great step in knowledge sharing.  There will be new people who will take over Andrew's responsibilities and energy efficient data centers will continue with future specifications for storage and data center buildings.  Andrew will take what he has learned at the EPA, and apply it to private industry.

At OSIsoft his new job will entail working on sustainability (green) programs through OSIsoft's global customer base which is currently at 14,000 installations, enabling Andrew to get his "hands dirty" with in depth projects.

More than 14,000 customer installations
  • 65% of Global 500 process and manufacturing companies use the PI System
  • 100% of the Global Top 5 Producers use the PI System
Strategic alliances

Microsoft
Cisco
SAP
IBM

We would sometimes joke we eat dinner out more often (at data center events) than with our spouse and we'll be having our next dinner meeting in a week at OSIsoft's user conference Apr 26 - 28.

This year the Users Conference focuses on how real time information is the currency of the new decade, and we have a packed agenda that covers this in depth. We start with a great series of executive keynotes about innovation and solving real business problems-click on the titles to read the details.

Congratulations to OSIsoft and Andrew Fanara for connecting in an exciting area - corporate sustainability.

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Carbon footprint of a Tweet, Energy/Tweet approx 100J, CO2 0.02 grams

Earth2Tech reports on the Energy per Tweet.

How Much Energy Per Tweet?

By Katie Fehrenbacher Apr. 19, 2010, 12:00am PDT 1 Comment

2 0

Every time you send out 140 characters over the social application Twitter, how much energy does that consume? According to some back of the napkin calculations from Raffi Krikorian, a developer for Twitter’s Platform Team, each tweet sent consumes about 90 joules. That means each tweet emits about 0.02 grams of C02 into the atmosphere.

For the roughly 50 million tweets sent on average per day, that’s the equivalent of 1 metric ton of CO2 per day. (1 metric ton of CO2 looks kinda like this).

Raffi Krikorian's passionate talk on energy use of a tweet starts at 2:50 into this video.  It is only 5 minutes long.


Apr 15

From #chirp: Energy / Tweet ≈ 100 J ±  something / Tweet

Last night at Chirp, I gave an Ignite talk entitled "Energy / Tweet".  Taking a few liberties, some assumptions, and running all of Twitter in development mode on my laptop, "energy per tweet" comes out to about 100 J / Tweet.

You can catch me talking (and introduced by @brady) starting at 2:50 in this video:

You can also just get the slides here:

Excuse this comment, but it illustrates the passion Raffi has as at 8:10 he says we can be less of a "planet fucker."

This is the kind of thinking that is going to get people thinking what is the carbon impact of code just like Microsoft posted last week.

eBay understands the energy per listing.  Google understands the energy per search.  Twitter understands the energy per tweet.

Do you have energy consumption for your IT services?

Twitter knows it has to be more energy efficient look at its growth.

The new numbers blow past Pingdom’s stats. Some of the highlights:

- In 2007, around 5,000 tweets were sent per day.

- By 2008, the number grew to 300,000 tweets per day.

- By 2009, around 2.5 million tweets were sent through Twitter every single day.

- Tweet growth shot up by 1,400% in 2009, reaching 35 million tweets per day by the end of the year.

- As of now, Twitter sees 50 million tweets created per day.

Great Job Raffi for waking up your development community on the energy / tweet.

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