Zen and the Art of Data Center Greening (and Energy Efficiency)

This blog continues my summary of the Green Software Unconference that took place August 19.

I chaired two breakout sessions:

Energy Star for software
Power consumption monitoring for data centers

This blog covers my second session, Don Bray’s session on carbon management, and the closing. (Note: The summary of the first session is in here. Like the first, the second session was somewhat focused but attracted a set of very knowledgeable people from CSRware and NetApp.

Session 3: Power consumption monitoring for data centers

We were fortunate to have Peter Perrault of NetApp, a company far ahead in energy efficiency in many areas, including data centers. They recently got a rebate check ($1.41M) from PG&E for their energy efficient renovations. So I had some questions for him in conjunction with other participants.
Why is NetApp is so far ahead of the game? It is the culture. From the board and CEO down to line managers and individual contributors, everyone is encouraged to improve. So it is easy to do anything for improvement, including greening data centers.
NetApp has consolidated its data centers. I asked Perrault what the latency problem was if they moved a data center to Oregon (this is just an example, and I do not know if they moved one to Oregon). As far as he knows, they considered latency before moving any data center, and no problems have been reported. This may be different for colocation providers, which must accommodate their customers’ SLA.
One questioner confused virtualization with cloud computing and colocation. Virtualization is a technology for fueling cloud computing. Colocation is not the same as cloud computing. There are so many variations, and some people find this very hard to grasp. I wrote a short piece comparing the energy efficiency of each option.
There is only one clear energy efficiency practice discussed quantitatively for cloud computing.
It is very encouraging to see that if you can change your corporate culture, you can change the way data centers are run. But how can you change your culture? Can you do it overnight? The pressure should come from many directions—from customers, business partners, surrounding communities, employees, and (last but not least) regulations. The U.S. cap-and-trade policy does not contain any severe penalty clause, but the U.K.’s Carbon Reduction Commitment carries a stiff penalty for failing to report emission information: jail time for executives.
Someone asked why people do not monitor and measure power consumption. This is easy to answer. It is because IT executives and managers have a budget for IT gears but not for energy (such as power). The power bill goes to the facilities department or the CFO for payment. This is why IT people choose the least expensive servers, regardless of their energy efficiency. So the remedy for this is that IT people should be responsible for their power consumption in conjunction with the facilities people. Someone asked if this situation is changing, and if any organization is educating people in this field. This topic has come up many, many, many times before in many other data center–related conferences, and people who take the time to go to such conferences are eager to learn, and they may put new ideas into practice. But the rest of the people, who are busy fighting fires every day, do not even consider it. The groups promoting this message are in The Green Grid trade group for energy efficient data centers.
Someone else asked if many of the new methods, processes, and technologies are in use at the field level. Again, this subject has been discussed so often, but those who take the time to attend conferences and read new reports (like those from The Green Grid) belong to the minority. Most others are too busy dealing with immediate problems day to day to worry about improvements. I think the only way to force people to adopt a new energy efficient method consists of financial and legislative motivations. If something hits your pocketbook hard or makes you liable for jail time, you will jump and do what is right.
The conclusion is that since power consumption monitoring and measurement are the cornerstone of everything else, including carbon management, if you do one thing to make your data center greener, that is it.
Finally, once you start doing it, the next step is to measure something else, like water usage, carbon footprint, and e-waste, as CSRware is promoting.

I thank Karen and Dave of CSRware, Peter of NetApp, and the rest for their input and participation. Did I leave anything out? Since we were so into the conversation, I forgot to ask someone to take notes. My apologies!

Session on carbon management
Don’s session was well attended. I did not count, but probably 30 people or more came—the assigned room was packed. Although some knowledgeable people were in the group, it was more or less like a lecture on Carbon Management 101. Don distributed a summary of his most recent research report on carbon management. You can download his handouts from here for free.

You can take a look at the six pages of the summary, but Don listed three major areas of carbon management:

Financial (carbon credit trading and such)
Operational (measuring a carbon footprint)
Value chain analysis (supply chain management and so on)

The report also lists the companies in this field, including CSRware.

Don Bray (middle, smiling) chairing the carbon management session

In closing, Mary Vincent applauded everyone who participated in the unconference and volunteers.

Mary Vincent applauding everyone in her closing comments

Overall, the entire day was well spent, and I feel that the passion for green is real. A lot of talented people in Silicon Valley software communities are waking up to the need to get things green with software. I believe the market will turn, and one reason for that is the passion of the people that I saw there.

My only regret is that I did not win any prizes, while Don won good stuff. Sigh!

Tags: Green Software Unconference Mary Vincent Power monitor and measure

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My Two Sessions at the Green Software Unconference -- 2