Datacenter Power Usage and Pollution

These companies should find ways to reduce their energy consumption by 80%.

They could do it if they wanted to. Reduce consumption, simple!

We just had this up on a blog:

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/21125/Dirty-Secrets-of-Internet-Data-Centers

Ditto.

It's just going to get worse.

If the dreamers have their way with everything connected to the internet then any energy savings that smart phone commanded automatic window curtains may bring will be wasted at a data centre somewhere else.

The exhaust fumes issue is more political than factual. These data centers do not run on diesel generators full time, only when the power grid is lost. But even that is very very minimal because they negotiate the STRICTEST reliability contracts with power providers. So the exhaust fumes issue has only to do with the permitting processes and the semantic differences in the term "emergency", as well as people in that industry having to learn the proper protocols of getting permits in advance of normal regular generator exercising. I know of three data center managers who were unaware that they were required to get permits, and so were fined just for exercising for 1 hour on a weekend afternoon. That only happens once, or at least once with every new manager...

But their power consumption is incredibly huge, there is no arguing that. Did we all think these bits were being twiddled and tweeted all over the globe for free? And did we delude ourselves into thinking that when our laptop gets a little warm, that the server it was talking to was not also processing those exact same bits and the heat we experience at your laptop is being concentrated at that server by thousands of laptops, smart phones, pads, desktops and internal servers connected at the exact same time too? To be honest, I had never thought about it until I got into the Server Farm business indirectly. I was in shock, it is MASSIVE amounts of energy being consumed by this industry, with no signs of abating any time soon.

The spike issue? Grossly over blown in my opinion. I did work for Google in a new server rack design and while there, I could see a graphic they have showing world wide traffic patterns. Fascinating by the way, and in their lobbies, they also show a projected crawl on the wall of the most dominant serch terms in use at any moment (we are a bunch of sick puppies by the way). The only time in the 3 months I was in and out of there we saw anything that looked even close to a "spike" in traffic (at that time) turned out to be the day when the photos first appeared of Brittany Spears flashing the cameras getting out of a car with no panties. Seriously!

It's not just the servers requiring power directly by the way, the majority of the energy is from cooling requirements. Energy is their only "raw material" so to speak, so every single dollar saved in energy costs is a dollar that goes directly to the bottom line profit margin for them. Of COURSE they are concerned about it. So to that end, data center designs are TOTALLY about energy efficiency. The latest designs I have heard of, that are apparently already under construction, are taking advantage of the heat generated in the servers to create enough natural convection air flow to keep themselves cool enough without the use of ANY air conditioning.

So yes, they are way ahead of the curve on this and on the leading edge of conservation efforts, nobody is purposely wasting anything. That article was written with a bias in order to get people to read it, so that the NYT can get new subscribers, to their web site, served by those VERY same servers... If they were REALLY concerned, they would sacrifice their own story to save on not having people all over the world try to read it across the internet.

And they would refuse to publish crotch shots of celebreties... yeah right, like that's going to happen.

This seems a promising and profitable solution:

check it out- very interesting

http://www.bloomenergy.com/fuel-cell/es-5700-data-sheet/

If you want to really look at how much power is wasted in Data Centres...Based on "Work Done" 70% of the power going into a Data Center is wasted the other 30% is trying to cool IT.

If you break it right down Computers are switches moving bit & bytes...They don't do any Work.

Ok I'm being pedantic... in a Typical Data Centre it's a 60/40 split 60% for the IT Servers, and 40% trying to keep it cool.

Because of Old IT mantras "Each Application should run on its Own Server" in many data centres, this is still the case with legacy systems.
Most of these servers run at 25-40% utilisation for their whole operational life.. What a waste.

Newer sites and smarter site are virtualising any Server that uses less that 40% of its capacity.

This will Not reduce consumption... but it does centralise it, which lets IT guys install more bigger better apps to use all the new capacity.

The HVAC & Mechanical services are where savings can be made and are generally the lowest hanging fruit.

Down here most new Diesel sets are the Cleanest burners people can get...but they are still diesels and still the best source of Stand-by Power.

Co-generation would be a good alternative and keep the Grid as the Stand-by power.
Which would half the power required all up and remove a lot of the reliance from the grid....

If the utilities would work with the grid....Data centre operators could feed back to the grid when testing or exercising their generators sets.

All this will take time... but a lot of the DC operator & Facility Managers are looking at it.

Unfortunately Society (Good Bad & Ugly) Need & want the Net...so the evils are here to stay.

Regards,
Sapper

The CLOSEST thing to come out recently to help reduce the cooling loads of data centers is a new chip that IBM has developed that is Water-Cooled (internally). Water goes into the chip at about 128F and leaves at about 142F. Since CHIP power is where most of these systems create heat, at least 60-70% of the cooling load can be covered by an air-cooled heat exchanger (radiator) essentially any where in the world- totally reducing power usage (and water usage for cooling towers).

All those site need is some units to keep internal air at the right blend to hold down static and maintain RH.

Yeah, I read that NYT article as well, and it blew my socks off.

I'd really would hate to be paying their electric bills!

But you do, and we're doing it now.

True true...I had forgotten about that. Our Internet bill is bundled with the telephone co. bill.