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Is a Green Data Center where it gets power from?
Or is the question of does Green mean it is alive and healthy?
If a data center constantly adapts and reflects to the conditions and decisions are made to be efficient is that better than whether the power came 100% from wind power?
Dec 1, 2007
The WSJ with MIT Sloan published an article today which appropriately describes one of the reasons I started working on Green Data Centers. After 14 years at Microsoft, 7 years at Apple, and 5 years at HP, I felt that it was time to do something different, and I quit with no idea what I was going to do.
One area I started working on and had an interest in was how many systems, especially home automation systems were put together for short term objectives of making the sale, and how frustrating it was for home owners when things broke to know the root cause of what broke and whether the repair actually really fixed the problem or systems were just rebooted to mask the problem. Which took me down the path of monitoring and metering. Narrowing down the area of what to focus on I discovered water well systems had the largest value impact to real estate values. Land without water isn't worth a whole lot, and there were plenty of high end real estate being built on large acreage on the top of the hills with great views.15% of US homes are on well water systems, and the percentage is higher for vacation/2nd homes/future retirement.
Then my paths crossed with Pat Kennedy, CEO and founder of OSIsoft. In our discussion of real estate monitoring systems, Pat mentioned the problem of energy consumption in data centers, and how he wanted to measure the power consumption of applications. Having worked on system software and power management for both Microsoft and Apple, I was thinking how to do this, and how difficult it was given almost all the focus on power management was on laptops. I remember in 1999, talking to Server OEMs about using Windows 2000 power management features and they just looked at me strange and asked why would you want to save energy on a server.
But, Pat hit on a good idea, I went back and thought about this more. Many of the same principles I was applying to home automation, water well monitoring systems applied to monitoring data centers. I researched this more, signed up for the EPA working group distribution, contacted more people, and even nominated the subject for a Microsoft internal Technical Readiness event with the help of Lewis Curtis and George Cerbone.
This last year has been an interesting ride, and I now write for TechNet Magazine, speak at a variety of events, consult with various companies, and I am back at Microsoft as a vendor working with a lot of people who are passionate about Green Data Centers.
My latest effort was to start with this blog, and get more information out there quickly and regularly on Green Data Centers.
Today is exactly my 18 month anniversary of leaving Microsoft and taking the risk to "Get Ahead by Going Backward"
-Dave Ohara
| BUSINESS INSIGHT | ||
When it comes to advancing a career, sometimes the best way to take a step forward is to take a step back.
For most people, a promotion is the cure for a stagnating career. They've accomplished and learned all they can at one job, so they aim for the next one up the ladder, hoping it will bring them bigger personal and financial rewards.
But a few pursue a much riskier strategy. Instead of trying to move up, they take a lower-level job that gives them valuable new skills and experience. They're prepared to accept a short-term loss of income and prestige, betting that the knowledge they gain will lead to a better job down the road.
Microsoft Infrastructure Architect Lewis Curtis and I have had numerous conversations on what is a green data center. We both agree it is not simple binary decision, but a long term commitment to improve the use of resources to provide data center services.
Corporate IT initiatives to reduce environmental impact and power consumption is here for the long run. Executives are allocating time, energy and money to invest in Green initiatives. Governments are allocating research, regulations and suggesting laws toward Green Datacenter efficiency. Consumers, policy makers and industry influentials are promoting Green Datacenter models.
We didn't see laws and regulations promoted for SOA, or Agile design, or Web 2.0 or SaaS, … Ten years from now, those initiatives might not even exist, but commitments to reduce environmental impact and power consumption will continue to be important for organizations.
Many view the Green Datacenter as a product feature checklist to gain their one time win. But that is an unfortunate illusion. While new technology from the industry will help, it does not replace the ongoing architectural and process commitment needed.
Green Datacenters = An Architectural Commitment, not a product Strategy
For example, A virtualization or a blade environment product decision has the potential to reduce power consumption. But if there are no processes or architectural guidance to go with it, it can encourage server sprawl and eventually increase power consumption. And of course, increasing rack power density without a aligned cooling architecture is a recipe for datacenter disaster.
Environmental Impact and Power Consumption is becoming a crucial architectural systemic quality metric:
In the past, IT architects gave too little attention to security: Eventually suffering the consequences. Environmental Impact and Power are quickly becoming pervasive architectural issues with new initiatives.
I am off to Barcelona this week to moderate a Green Data Centre Panel discussion between AMD, Intel, HP, Dell, Citi, and Microsoft. I'll update this blog about how the panel went and issues raised.
SRV01-PAN Panel Discussion: The Green Data Centre
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The following is article I wrote for Technet to kick off the Green Data Center ideas in their magazine. Results so far show it is the most popular article in the issue, and has higher than normal customer feedback and a very good rating.
My next article in the works is about one of Microsoft's Data Center and how they have built a greener data center.
http://blogs.technet.com/tnmag/archive/2007/10/26/green-computing.aspx
Green is the hot topic these days, and the concept is having an impact on the way people think about datacenters. Companies around the world are announcing ways to save energy and reduce costs by buying new hardware and services. Yet, there is little guidance on how you can take action to control energy costs.
In our cover story for the October issue of TechNet Magazine, Build a Green Datacenter, Dave Ohara explains some of the issues you should consider when planning for more efficient computing resources. Dave looks at ways to measure energy consumption, defining the requirements for a green datacenter, and where to look for more information and support as you get the planning process underway.
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