Your Custom Text Here
Found an interesting blog entry by Philip Evans.
Phil Evans is an Infrastructure Optimisation consultant with Microsoft Services in the UK. He is a passionate believer in right-size computing and helps organisations get the best out of their IT infrastructure spend.
Phil uses a simple concept of equating IT equipment to electric space heaters running 24 x 7 in a refrigerator.
It's that simple, but few organisations are prepared to tackle poor utilisation of their server infrastructure. In the economic boom years, running an empty fridge was not a big deal. Today, however, it's different. Take Internet Service Providers - do they run servers that do little or nothing? I think not - they will provision new hardware when they absolutely have to and not before. Doing so is exactly how they steer a course between operating costs and profits.
The average server power supply runs at about 800 Watts peak capacity. That's having a home electric heater or vacuum cleaner on 24/7, producing lots of carbon. Now imagine the 300 vacuum cleaners being stored in a large fridge 24/7 and that's what you have in the average data center. It just doesn't add up.
Storage Area Networks (SANS)are even worse. These are intensively-packed units of hard disk drives that spin constantly, even when not in use. SAN units (aggregated into large collections) typically use 1500-2000 Watts EACH, meaning that the average implementation could use up to 40 Kilowatts of power - that's 40 electric fires (in a large fridge, don't forget) running 24/7.
Then consider the fridge itself. Would you put a heater in a fridge? Of course not - but that is exactly what a data center is and the only means of cooling for most installations is to chill air and push that air in. Doing so actually requires more energy than is actually being generated within the data center (simple laws of physics come into play here). Wouldn't it be better to just regulate the temperature of the incoming air into a data center rather than trying to isolate it from an energy perspective?
We take it for granted PUE is important, but many users don’t get it that data centers are like refrigerators full of space heaters. You can continue the story by saying a typical refrigerator cycles on and off and has a life cycle of 14 years, but imagine the stress put on the refrigerator as it runs 24 x 7 cooling the space heaters. The lifespan is now less than 5 years. Then you need battery backup and generators to keep your space heaters and refrigerators running when the power goes out.
Others may understand how their servers impact the data center infrastructure using this story. I am going to try this in a presentation.
Thanks Philip for putting your idea out there.
There is a lot of news on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology focusing on Google and Microsoft.
Obama enlists Microsoft, Google execs to help in push to boost R&D ...
Computerworld - 9 hours ago
... two of the people who will help him shape the government's science and technology policies are top executives from Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. Obama ...
Google, Microsoft Execs on Obama Science Panel PC Magazine
paidContent.org - Google's Schmidt, Microsoft's Mundie To Advise ... Washington Post
Google CEO, Microsoft exec on Obama tech board CNET News
Obama Unveils Science Panel; Includes Google, Microsoft Executives
CNNMoney.com - 13 hours ago
It includes Google CEO Eric Schmidt , who was an early backer of Obama's presidential campaign. In addition to Schmidt, the group will include Craig Mundie ...
Google's Schmidt and Microsoft's Mundie Appointed As Obama Tech ...
TechCrunch - 11 hours ago
by Leena Rao on April 27, 2009 Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, and Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief research and strategy officer, have been named to President's ...
The official press announcement is here. Out of the 20 here are the ones who have an environmental background.
Rosina Bierbaum, a widely-recognized expert in climate-change science and ecology, is Dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan. Her PhD is in evolutionary biology and ecology. She served as Associate Director for Environment in OSTP in the Clinton Administration, as well as Acting Director of OSTP in 2000-2001. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
John Holdren is serving as co-chair of PCAST in addition to his duties as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President and Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. Prior to this appointment Dr. Holdren was a Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He also served concurrently as Professor of Environmental Science and Policy in Harvard’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and as Director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship.
Mario Molina is a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego and the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, as well as Director of the Mario Molina Center for Energy and Environment in Mexico City. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for his role in elucidating the threat to the Earth's ozone layer of chlorofluorocarbon gases. The only Mexican-born Nobel laureate in science, he served on PCAST for both Clinton terms. He is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.
Ernest J. Moniz is a Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems, Director of the Energy Initiative, and Director of the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment at MIT. His research centers on energy technology and policy, including the future of nuclear power, coal, natural gas, and solar energy in a low-carbon world. He served as Under Secretary of the Department of Energy (1997-2001) and Associate Director for Science in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (1995-1997).
Maxine Savitz is retired general manager of Technology Partnerships at Honeywell, Inc and has more than 30 years of experience managing research, development and implementation programs for the public and private sectors, including in the aerospace, transportation, and industrial sectors. From 1979 to 1983 she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Conservation in the US Department of Energy. She currently serves as vice-president of the National Academy of Engineering.
Barbara Schaal is Professor of Biology at Washington University in St Louis. She is a renowned plant geneticist who has used molecular genetics to understand the evolution and ecology of plants, ranging from the US Midwest to the tropics. Dr Schaal serves as Vice President of the National Academy of Sciences, the first woman ever elected to that role.
Daniel Schrag is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University and Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He is also Director of the Harvard University-wide Center for Environment. He was trained as a marine geochemist and has employed a variety of methods to study the carbon cycle and climate over a wide range of Earth’s history. Awarded a MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 2000, he has recently been working on technological approaches to mitigating future climate change.
7 out of 20 have specific environmental background. I think these 7 will have bigger impact than Google’s Eric Schmidt and Microsoft’s Craig Mundie.
WSJ asked a good question on whether Smart meters are a dumb idea. Why is this potentially dumb? Because a utilities and politicians are making an ROI decision without any data to support their decision for smart meters, and almost no one is transparent as to the cost and energy savings.
Smart Meter, Dumb Idea?
New devices promise to cut energy use by giving consumers more information. Critics say they aren't worth the cost.
By REBECCA SMITH
Not everyone thinks smart meters are such a smart use of money.
Utilities are spending billions of dollars outfitting homes and businesses with the devices, which wirelessly send information about electricity use to utility billing departments and could help consumers control energy use.
Proponents of smart meters say that when these meters are teamed up with an in-home display that shows current energy usage, as well as a communicating thermostat and software that harvest and analyze that information, consumers can see how much consumption drives cost -- and will consume less as a result.
There are a few asking the right questions, but they are in the minority.
"What we're most concerned about is that consumers realize real benefits from the meters" from the start, says Michelle Furmanski, general counsel for the Texas House Committee on State Affairs, which is considering legislation that could establish more protections against disconnections.
I run into this situation many times in data centers, and here is a course of action.
Two years ago, Connecticut Light & Power Co. proposed to provide smart meters for all of its 1.2 million customers. "But then we heard from the Connecticut attorney general asking us, why don't you walk before you run?" says Mitch Gross, a spokesman for the utility. "He was concerned about the cost."
As a result, the utility will do a pilot program this summer to test customer acceptance of smart meters and variable pricing. Some 3,000 customers have volunteered, and the utility intends to see whether people cut energy use during times that prices rise. Some consumers will have "energy orbs" in their homes that change color, a visible indication of how prices are changing, as a way to stimulate behavior changes.
Instead of the estimated $255 million cost of a full meter deployment, the test will run $13 million.
The simplest thing to do is think of an ROI for your metering/monitoring system. Thinking of what you will do with the data when you collect it. Will you use it in a closed loop feedback? Or for user awareness on power use? Can you estimate power consumption based on server activity?
All of these things can be done if you create a lab to evaluate possible metering systems and the ROI.
news.com has an article about Yahoo’s new application VP, Bryan Lamkin.
Yahoo hires former Adobe exec to lead applications group
Yahoo has hired Bryan Lamkin to head up the group that manages some of its highest-profile products and is an essential element of the Yahoo Open Strategy.
Lamkin will take on the role of senior vice president of Yahoo's Applications Products division, which encompasses its e-mail and instant messaging services, photo-hosting site Flickr, as well as Yahoo Answers, Groups, and e-mail and calendar service Zimbra. He will report directly to Executive Vice President of Products and Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh.
As part of its Yahoo Open Strategy, the company is attempting to better integrate social connections with its online applications.
His role will be a central one at Yahoo in light of a recent reorganization led by CEO Carol Bartz, which unified Yahoo's product and technology groups under Balogh. Bartz said Tuesday she was dissatisfied with the unfocused engineering work at Yahoo and called for a new round of layoffs, in part to make room for new engineering talent.
Yahoo has been reducing data center costs along with the rest of the top players as data center knowledge reported.
Q&A: Yahoo Discusses Its Data Centers
October 6th, 2008 : Rich MillerSearch and news portal Yahoo (YHOO) is a major user of data center space, and is in the midst of a significant expansion of its infrastructure. We recently had an email Q-and-A with Yahoo Vice President of Operations Kevin Timmons, who oversees the company’s data centers, and asked about Yahoo’s data center growth and energy efficiency initiatives.
<a href='http://d1.openx.org/ck.php?n=abe8c1f2&amp;cb=767963705' target='_blank'><img src='http://d1.openx.org/avw.php?zoneid=3201&amp;n=abe8c1f2' border='0' alt='' /></a>
What are the factors prompting Yahoo to seek additional data center space?
We’re constantly in expansion mode here, primarily due to simple traffic growth to the site and our efforts to continuously serve our global audience in the best manner possible. We also are continuously looking to consolidate many of our smaller legacy centers into more efficiently designed facilities that are more reliable and more cost effective to operate.
I’ve had the pleasure of working with Bryan when he was a VP at Adobe and was curious what he was going to do after his retirement from Adobe in 2006. Hopefully it will not be long before I can get in contact with Bryan in his new role at Yahoo.
