Power Efficiency of HP Rack Mount vs. Blade Servers, 3.5% difference in performance/watt

July 28, 2009 Dave Ohara

Burton Group has a blog entry discussing the comparison of HP rack and blade servers.

Power Efficiency – Rack Mount vs. Blade Servers

HP has just published SPECpower_ssj2008 results for a c7000 blade system, the results when compared to existing rack mount server results for the same benchmark make interesting reading. Before I say anything else, kudos to HP for publishing a power benchmark on blades, now if we can only get IBM, Dell, Cisco etc to follow suit.

The blade system used sixteen identically configured blades to achieve the following result:

ssj_ops @ 100%
avg. watts @ 100%
avg. watts @ idle
ssj_ops/watt

7,210,418
2,783
802
1,877

Each of the 16 blades used a pair of Intel Xeon 5520 processors and 8 GBs of memory. The result is interesting because HP just happens to have published results for an identically configured Proliant DL 380 G6 rack mount server. I’ve multiplied the rack mount result by 16 so we can directly compare power efficiency:

ssj_ops @ 100%
avg. watts @ 100%
avg. watts @ idle
ssj_ops/watt

7,037,296
2,720
1060.8
1,813

From these results we can draw some useful conclusions:

There is a difference of roughly 3.5% for performance/watt, with blades holding the advantage.

Idle power consumption for the blade solution is approximately 25% lower

Peak power consumption for the rack mount solution is approximately 2% lower

The writer makes the statement the 3.5% difference in performance per watt is not significant, but he assumed the blade enclosure was fully populated with 16 blades. How many blade enclosures do you see fully populated?

Maybe the rack mount servers are more energy efficiency in most circumstances.

As the author says it would be great if we could get the same data from IBM, Dell, and Cisco. But, then people wouldn’t be buying the blade enclosures.

When People Leave, will they Go Back?

July 24, 2009 Dave Ohara

We are seeing more data center executive movement than at any other time. Well at least the press is writing about the movement of Yahoo and Microsoft data center executives.

News.com just posted about Adobe reclaiming Photoshop guru Mark Hamburg.

Adobe reclaims design guru from Microsoft

by Stephen Shankland

A high-powered programmer who'd left Adobe Systems to lead a Microsoft Windows interface design team is heading back after just over a year.

Mark Hamburg had worked on Adobe Photoshop since version 2.0 in 1990 and then was instrumental in designing its photography-specific cousin, Lightroom, which sports a radically different user interface.

Hamburg left Adobe for Microsoft in 2008 to become a "distinguished engineer" leading work on improving operating system usability. He called the job an opportunity that "was a little too interesting to turn down" because he found the Windows' experience "really annoying."

This post caught my eye as I know at least half a dozen photoshop engineers from when I worked with them building on Windows platforms. And, when Mark Hamburg switched to Microsoft I dropped by to see what he thought of joining Microsoft.

Well, I guess he didn’t like it that much as he is back to Adobe in a year.

As data center executives move, I am waiting to hear when they go back. The industry is much too small with few expertise to not expect this.

Don’t get me started on the series of mishaps in Microsoft to create a Photoshop competitor. A good friend of mine who worked for me at Microsoft and is ex-Adobe as well was Hamburg’s boss’s boss. We worked on RAW image formats in 2001 and tried to convince Microsoft the future of imaging required RAW image support. People thought we were crazy. After Lightroom and Aperture have market share, and Photoshop supports RAW, Microsoft marketing realizes the RAW image market is gaining market share.

This same friend went back to Adobe after Microsoft. But, now he is at Google.

Renewable Energy Conversation with Sierra Club’s Carl Zichella

July 24, 2009 Dave Ohara

At Data Center Dynamics SF, I had a chance to meet Carl Zichella, Director of Western Renewable Program , CA, NV, HI. Carl has been going to DCD for years, and here are a few of his comments in a video from past conferences.

Given Carl’s expertise I asked what resources he would point to research renewable energy. NREL was his first suggestion.

NREL has GIS data their team has published.

This site also provides access to our FTP site where you can download data and Geospatial Toolkits.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Geographic Information System (GIS) team analyzes wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and other energy resources and inputs the data into the GIS—Geographic Information System. Read more about NREL's GIS team and the map server that creates the dynamically generated maps.

There is a ppt to see what the data looks like.

For a quick snapshot of U.S. resource maps for various renewable energy technologies, access the Renewable Energy Technology Resource Maps for the United States (PowerPoint 6.7 MB) presentation on this Web site.

For Californians, you can check out California Energy Commission’s Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI).

Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI)

California has adopted energy policies that require substantial increases in the generation of electricity from renewable resources. Extensive improvements, however, are needed to California's electric transmission infrastructure to get the electricity generated by new renewable power facilities to consumers.

The Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI) is a statewide initiative to help identify the transmission projects needed to accommodate these renewable energy goals, support future energy policy, and facilitate transmission corridor designation and transmission and generation siting and permitting. RETI will be an open and transparent collaborative process in which all interested parties are encouraged to participate.

RETI will assess all competitive renewable energy zones in California and possibly also in neighboring states that can provide significant electricity to California consumers by the year 2020. RETI also will identify those zones that can be developed in the most cost effective and environmentally benign manner and will prepare detailed transmission plans for those zones identified for development.

One specific question I asked Carl at the end is "Why do you attend DCD SF regularly?” Carl went on to explain that data centers and the associated high technology companies are the most innovative group he has encountered pushing for renewable energy.

We exchanged many other ideas, and I’ll have more to write about Carl Zichella and the Sierra Club’s efforts as renewable energy is an essential part of a green data center strategy.

Top 25 Countries for Green Data Center Blog, July 2009

July 24, 2009 Dave Ohara

I had a media company and ask about my country coverage.

Here is a percentage breakdown for the top 25 countries which make up 90 % of traffic.

United States	54.5%
United Kingdom	5.5%
India	4.0%
France	3.7%
Canada	2.9%
Germany	2.1%
Australia	2.1%
Japan	1.5%
Netherlands	1.3%
Sweden	1.2%
Singapore	1.1%
South Korea	1.0%
Italy	1.0%
China	0.9%
Malaysia	0.9%
Philippines	0.8%
Brazil	0.8%
Spain	0.8%
Belgium	0.8%
Hong Kong	0.7%
Ireland	0.6%
Switzerland	0.6%
Taiwan	0.6%
Finland	0.5%
Indonesia	0.5%
	90.3%

Who is Reading Green Data Center Blog, July 2009

July 23, 2009 Dave Ohara

I periodically go through google analytics looking at the network locations on who is visiting www.greenm3.com. The majority of traffic is through various ISPs, and here are the top 25 companies I could identify.

Microsoft

eBay

Qwest

SAP

Cisco

Intel

Pacific Crest Securities

Six Apart

Level 3

Dell

Fujitsu

Sun Microsystems

California Energy Commission

Credit Suisse

APC

Amazon

Intuit

Yahoo

Data General

Liebert

Raritan

UPS

IBM

MIT

Thanks for visiting my blog.

-Dave Ohara

I know the GigaOM guys read my stuff, but don’t show up.

Here is a reference to my post today.