Data Center Container Makes PUE and other performance metrics easy to measure

April 1, 2008 Dave Ohara

Nicholas Carr's Rough Type blog jokes about Microsoft's container data centers being a trailer park. But, he appends his blog later quoting the searchdatacenter interview with Mike Manos and Christian Belady.

UPDATE: There's more on the data center philosophy of the 'Soft Boys in this interview with Manos and one of his colleagues. On the attraction of containers: "One of the things we like about them is we can take a bunch of servers and look at the output of that box and look at the power it draws. At the end of the day, we can determine, 'What is the IT productivity of that unit? How many search queries were executed per box? How many emails sent or stored?' You can get into some really interesting metrics. A lot of people say you can't look at the productivity of a data center, but if you compartmentalize it - not as small as the server level, but at some chunk in between - you can measure productivity."

This is one advantage Microsoft will gain from going down the path of containers in that it will be easy for them to use the containers as a unit of measure for PUE and compute capability metrics. As they update the hardware in a container, they will be able to make comparisons between versions. They will now have 220 possible mini data centers (containers) to experiment on what are the right combinations - storage, memory, processors (AMD/intel), SSD, network configurations, power systems, etc. This is going to let them experiment and have a standard unit of comparison. This is innovative.

Attendees comment on Mike Manos 's keynote at Data Center World

April 1, 2008 Dave Ohara

OK, one more post on Mike Manos's keynote from an attendee. Seemed worthwhile as it gives a different perspective than datacenterknowledge and searchdatacenter.

The Michael Manos keynote this morning at Data Center World was inspiring. Michael doesn't read off of note cards and you can tell that he not only knows this material inside and out, but that he is passionate about it. I gained a number of things from this talk -- including him mentioning that their new Chicago facility will have upwards of 200 shipping containers pieced together like the RV campsites like I have talked about in previous posts.
Here are my notes from his talk:

Microsoft challenges: 15x growth on servers, 9x growth on egress, 15x growth on power, 3x growth on number of data centers.

30% of the audience had active prograMicrosoft to monitor and measure power in their data center

Next to nobody in the audience knew what their carbon emissions were for their data center

Sustainability regulation 'is' coming ; not if, but when

How many are working on green programs? 30% (audience)

Industry challenges/minefields:

sustainability reporting & efficiency reporting

data center inventory globally becoming a challenge

increasing power densities at the rack level

power costs

green-washing

expertise shortage

organizational structures

increasing capital cost barriers

innovation hoarding

heterogeneity versus homogeneity mindsets.

And the post goes into more detail and pretty much covers everything Mike presented.

John Rath good notetaking.

AFCOM interview with Microsoft's Mike Manos and Christian Belady

April 1, 2008 Dave Ohara

Searchdatacenter.com reports from AFCOM with a dual interview with Microsoft's Mike Manos and Christian Belady, titled Microsoft spills the beans on its data center strategy at AFCOM.

On Tuesday, April 1, Microsoft Senior Director of Data Center Services Michael Manos delivered the keynote presentation at AFCOM's Data Center World conference. The company has opened its kimono in non-Redmond fashion -- sharing its insights on data center operations with anyone who's interested. We spoke with Manos and Microsoft Principal Power and Cooling Architect Christian Belady about Microsoft's experience with a rapidly expanding data center footprint, the problems the company has faced and challenges for the industry ahead.

What does Microsoft have to offer the AFCOM attendee?
Michael Manos: Most of the presentation focuses on two things. One is to talk about the challenges we've faced at Microsoft. But more importantly, we're going to talk about what everyone at this conference is going to face over the next two to three years and, to a large degree, show how Microsoft has solved these problems.

How much of the secret sauce of operating your data centers can you give away without losing the competitive advantage?
Manos: What's competitive advantage, and what's the right thing to do? You see people solving the same problems in different ways over and over. There is not a key driver or direction to the industry because we are solving the same problem 30 other people just solved. We have to share the findings that each of us is coming up with in order to make an impact on the industry at large.
Christian Belady: The industry is very fragmented. There is a loss of efficiency opportunities. If we share and others share, we start having a converged vision of what should be in the future.

Speaking of convergence, it seems like the message has taken hold in terms of infrastructure efficiency metrics like power usage effectiveness. Lots of data centers now work to make the power-and-cooling infrastructure as efficient as possible. But when will we get to the next step: measuring useful work? For example, what is the usefulness of an "efficient" server that runs an application twice a month?
Manos: I think it's coming. Some [of our] product groups have started to make the transition. You can't get there without effective monitoring in place. Also, exposure of that information to the developers is key. Most developers never think about energy, but we have a program that charges our developers for the energy they use. Measuring and exposing that internal chargeback brings focus to the product groups. You can't get there unless you can effectively measure what you're doing and expose it.
Belady: We're looking at using containers inside our future data centers. One of the things we like about them is we can take a bunch of servers and look at the output of that box and look at the power it draws. At the end of the day, we can determine, "What is the IT productivity of that unit? How many search queries were executed per box? How many emails sent or stored?" You can get into some really interesting metrics. A lot of people say you can't look at the productivity of a data center, but if you compartmentalize it -- not as small as the server level, but at some chunk in between -- you can measure productivity.

I've heard rumors, Google is contemplating its data center disclosure given Microsoft's big moves. Wouldn't it be great if we had Google and Microsoft competing to show who has the most efficient data centers and who is greener?

Google chose the path of being an electric company with its renewable energy initiative. Microsoft took a different path and chose to help people immediately save energy in their data centers. Who chose the greener path? Let's see what Mike Manos presents at his next keynote at the Uptime Institute's Symposium 2008.

Microsoft Embrace, Extend, and Innovate the Data Center Container

April 1, 2008 Dave Ohara

DataCenterKnowledge reports on Mike Manos's statement, Microsoft is embracing data centers containers.

The data center container revolution has officially arrived. And Microsoft's cloud computing initiative is driving it.

Microsoft will forego a traditional raised-floor environment in its new data center in Chicago, and will instead fill one floor of the huge facility with up to 220 shipping containers packed with servers, the company said today.

Versus other companies concept demonstrations of data center containers, Microsoft follows its infamous "Embrace, Extend, and Innovate" strategy made public with focus on the Internet in 1994.

In order to build the necessary respect and win the mindshare of the Internet community, I recommend a recipe not unlike the one we’ve used with our TCP/IP efforts: embrace, extend, then innovate. Phase 1 (Embrace): all participants need to establish a solid understanding of the infostructure and the community - determine the needs and the trends of the user base. Only then can we effectively enable Microsoft system products to be great Internet systems. Phase 2 (Extend): establish relationships with the appropriate organizations and corporations with goals similar to ours. Offer well-integrated tools and services compatible with established and popular standards that have been developed in the Internet community. Phase 3 (Innovate): move into a leadership role with new Internet standards as appropriate, enable standard off-the-shelf titles with Internet awareness. Change the rules: ~~Windows~~ Microsoft Data Centers become the next-generation Internet tool of the future.

And the datacenterknowledge article continues

Microsoft is embracing containers as the key to building scalable, energy-efficient cloud computing platforms. The company's bold move is an affirmation of the potential for containers to address the most pressing power, cooling and capacity utilization challenges facing data center operators. The Chicago facility is part of the company’s fleet of next-generation data centers being built to support its Live suite of "software plus services" online applications.

But the design of the Chicago data center will go beyond the optimizations seen in Microsoft’s new facilities in Quincy, Washington and San Antonio.

"The entire first floor of Chicago is going to be containers," Microsoft director of data center services Michael Manos said this morning in his keynote at Data Center World in Las Vegas. "This represents our first container data center. The containers are going to be dropped off and plugged into network cabling and power." The second floor of the immense facility will be a traditional raised-floor data center, Manos said.

"It's a bold step forward," said Manos. "We're trying to address scale with the cloud level services. We were trying to figure the best way to bring capacity online quickly."

GreenBiz Covers IBM's Green Data Center Announcement

March 31, 2008 Dave Ohara

GreenBiz covers IBM's Green Data center with article,

IBM Unveils Austria's First Green Data Center at kika/Leiner

From "Green Philosophy" to "Green IT" at kika/Leiner

March 31, 2008: 05:31 PM EST

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and kika/Leiner today announced the construction of a new energy efficient "green" data center which will reduce electric power consumption by up to 40 percent. The new data center offers kika/Leiner a way to extend their environmental vision beyond traditional business areas.

As kika/Leiner expands throughout central Europe and the Middle East, their need for information technology (IT) services has increased considerably. To meet this demand, the market-leading furniture retailer in Austria turned to IBM to design an energy efficient data center using new "green" technologies that are part of IBM's Project Big Green. The new data center is planned to begin operation in May.

Additional Green Features from IBMs press release:

IBM Unveils Austria's First Green Data Center at kika/Leiner

From "Green Philosophy" to "Green IT" at kika/Leiner

March 31, 2008: 05:31 PM EST

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and kika/Leiner today announced the construction of a new energy efficient "green" data center which will reduce electric power consumption by up to 40 percent. The new data center offers kika/Leiner a way to extend their environmental vision beyond traditional business areas.

As kika/Leiner expands throughout central Europe and the Middle East, their need for information technology (IT) services has increased considerably. To meet this demand, the market-leading furniture retailer in Austria turned to IBM to design an energy efficient data center using new "green" technologies that are part of IBM's Project Big Green. The new data center is planned to begin operation in May.

The building is a free-standing cube with about 1,000 square feet of IT space that fulfils all state-of-the-art technical security requirements of a data center. It is locked, has no windows, is equipped with an automatic fire-extinguishing system, and is protected against flooding. The data center does not contain any working space and entrance is restricted. Free cooling will be used in cold months, meaning the air conditioning for the data center will come directly from the cold outside air. Only on warm days will the data center be automatically cooled.

"kika/Leiner perfectly combines ecology and economy," said Leo Steiner, general manager of IBM Austria. "The additional work and expense for green technology pays off within a few months, and the benefit for the environment pays off from the very first day."

A separate high density computing area ensures the separation of IT equipment with higher or lower heat emissions and optimizes the cooling calculation, capacity and efficiency. This area of the data center features racks with the newest IBM BladeCenter technology. IBM BladeCenter integrates servers, networks, storage and business applications in highly efficient one-inch systems that sit in a rack like books in a shelf. IBM BladeCenter uses up to 24 percent less energy than competitive systems.

IBM Cool Blue technology provides a method to control and monitor BladeCenter power and heat requirements. Hot air from the IT equipment is reduced to room temperature by water-cooled heat exchangers attached to the BladeCenter racks. The high density area covers about a third of the data center IT space and, if required, can be extended. Another third of the data center is space for conventional computing servers with low heat emissions. The last third will remain empty for future expansion.

IBM's partnership with kika/Leiner plays to both companies' beliefs in environmental sustainability. For example, by implementing well-directed lighting and by using energy-saving lights, kika/Leiner managed to reduce its own electric power consumption by 18 percent in Austria in 2007. In new stores in Brünn and Pilsen in the Czech Republic, a completely new lighting concept has been implemented using energy efficient lighting.

Sustainability is paramount to kika/Leiner's "Grüne Linie" (Green Line). Their furniture is made with natural materials and the company provides one of the most distinguished and best known ecological furniture trademarks in Austria. All "Grüne Linie" products are certified with internationally approved environmental seals, including the "Österreichisches Umweltzeichen" (Austrian Environmental Seal of Approval) and the "Europäische Umweltzeichen" (European Environmental Seal of Approval). Consumers are offered more transparency and it also raises the awareness for lasting products. The brand was recently re-launched and is available in 50 kika and Leiner furnishing stores.