Data Center Pulse Blogs

I fully expect controversy will be created by this blog especially amongst some of my awesome friends in the Sustainability/Green space and I am not actually advocating putting away the cleats and buying a game console.

This blog will probably anger some of my friends who are parents. However, it's not meant to suggest a specific change as much as an effort to get us looking at the real issues, and not be taken in by loud mouthed commentators on both sides of the sustainability issue. The idea for this blog was generated while I was attending a Sustainable Silicon Valley event in Palo Alto with the Ambassador to Norway, the Honorable Barry White.

Could playing soccer really be worse than playing video games for the environment?

Much ado has been made about the amount of energy utilized by power hungry data centers and new technology in general. It's estimated that over 3% of the power used in the US goes directly to running all our data centers. That's an amazing figure especially when you compare how relatively few data centers there are versus cars or traditional office buildings. However, the question I've asked before and I am now asking again (only in a different way) is; are those data centers actually hurting us or are they benefiting us by consolidating IT gear and providing us efficiencies through the use of technology?

An obvious comment by the kill data centers at all cost groups might be that we need to find a way to reduce the creation of applications and technologies that require a data center.  Interestingly enough, it seems data centers are trying to save our planet and kids playing soccer are killing the planet.  Here's the scenario.

Save the Earth, Play a video game

Video Game (PS3 or Xbox360) vs. playing soccer on a club team (could be volleyball or basketball, doesn't matter)

Why the question marks (?) in the above table? I felt that considering the overwhelming numbers put up just by driving the car, there was no need to make a point of any of the other resources utilized. Also, it could easily be argued that the other activities associated with Soccer are much more impactful than the activities associated with video game playing. Even if you only drove once for every 5 times you played four hours of video games, you would still have a greater negative impact on sustainability.

*Perspective:  It's important to note that a cabinet filled with high performance servers uses approximately 25 kW of power per hour.  Even the use of an all-electric vehicle doesn't make soccer more sustainable than playing video games (est. impact of electric vehicle in the above example would by 5.5 kWh used)

• That same 25 kWh cabinet filled with running servers can support thousands of gamers, Google searches, map requests, travel bookings, financial research, etc. all at the same time.

It isn't always obvious what being sustainable is:

Solar panels:  The rumors abound regarding the negative impact of construction and waste of solar panels. One estimate I heard was that it takes 20 years to recover the carbon created during construction. However, upon further research I found just the opposite. Solar panels seem to be an excellent and almost immediate opportunity to reduce creation of carbon emissions with a lifetime benefit of as much as 89% reduction over 30 years. What is true is that there is still a good way and a bad way to use this technology.

Personal Note: I really wish we could develop better ways to store energy created by intermittent sources of energy (I.e., Sun & Wind). I would also love to see solar panels used to power a data center, but unfortunately, they don't make sense economically or space wise. As they could never fit in or around a typical data center and supply enough power to make a difference, and being intermittent it requires that they be redundant to an alternative source of energy.

Owning a hybrid: The Prius is another seemingly awesome concept for sustainability. However, I'm afraid the reality is somewhat different from our generally vain reasons for owning one. While a hybrid car can in fact save you significant dollars on fuel, the overall lifecycle impact of a Prius isn't that much different than any other combustion engine vehicle. It might make the driver feel better, but being sustainable shouldn't be about "feeling better" it should be about "doing better".  I would argue that the appropriate use of a hybrid does improve the equation significantly, but if you're a < 1000 mile a month person who generally drives on the highway, don't buy a hybrid.

Important thoughts from the Sustainable Silicon Valley meeting

I think the single most important thought coming out of our little save the world dinner party was the idea that finding ways to reduce use in our everyday lives and our businesses is the most effective way to have a positive impact. One of my primary focuses in IT has always been on the efficient use of resources. I know it's weird, but efficient use means you're only using what you need when you need it, which by its very nature means your being more sustainable.

I know the above isn't a new thought, but many of us think that the hybrid or Solar panels are the best way for us to reduce our usage.  In some cases the hybrid, Solar panels and other "Sustainable" or "Green" solutions can conserve when implemented and used properly. I believe it's incredibly important for us to consider where the world is today on the tipping scale of climate change risk.  If the scientists are correct and we are nearing the point of no return as far as global warming is concerned, then it would stand to reason that our consumption at the moment is critical to affecting change. If we assume that we can continue to consume at current rates because buying a hybrid or putting up solar panels will save us, I'm afraid we might just be hastening our climate change in the name of saving it.

What's the point?

As I said earlier "being sustainable isn't about feeling better, it's about doing better. If you are really interested in lowering your personal carbon impact on the world, then make your changes in an educated fashion. Don't do it for the sake of vanity. 

• Reduce use of resources through reduce use, not by masking the use
• Push for change in the areas that can really provide benefit, not on things like Ethanol
• Push for legislative change in where/how we provide tax payer funds to support the generation of energy
• We don't have to believe in human influenced climate change to want a cleaner planet and even if humans aren't the cause of global warming, why take the risk?
• Moving away from using fossil fuels isn't an if but rather a when, so let's help our politicians to accept that fact and focus on it now, not when it's too late.

We are all using more and more technology every day, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop that. The benefits in efficiency, defense, resource utilization, entertainment, travel and many other areas mean that no matter what any one person or government does, others will exploit it for the advantage. I'm obviously advocating that data centers aren't the evil some like to believe they are but that doesn't mean we are absolved from the need to make them efficient. Also whenever possible we need to power them from clean and or renewable energy sources. In a recent blog I even made the point that building data centers to support high density server environments was being more sustainable than low density designs. The high density design reduces the number of buildings required to support the same amount of work.

 So, the next time you visit or drive by a data center think twice before you assume that data centers are the problem, but please don't get rid of the kid's cleats.

References:

Previous blogs on this topic:

Cloud Computing and Data Centers are Killing our Planet

High vs. Low Density Data Centers, Cloud, Cost, PUE & Sustainability

Solar Panels:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/03/solar-panels-ewaste

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1021/es071763q

Prius or hybrid:  

http://www.thecarconnection.com/tips-article/1010861_prius-versus-hummer-exploding-the-myth

http://www.lifewhile.com/cars/17312400/detail.html

http://www.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-042810-194328/unrestricted/Hybrid_Cars_IQP.pdf

On March 5, 2012 DCP members from as far away as Japan and Taiwan converged on the Doubletree hotel in San Jose, CA for an all day collaboration session with end user peers - The DCP 2012 Summit was held in conjunction with the Green Grid Technical Forum. Almost 50 of my industry peers from companies like Yahoo!, Microsoft, LBNL, Stanford University, Salesforce, @ Tokyo, Delta, Equinix and others, focused on discussing what's hot - i.e. the current "pulse" in DCP. With over 2200 members in 66 countries, there is definitely a lively "pulse".

The summit registration process yielded three priority topics

1. The Green Grid Case Study on eBay's Project Mercury
2. The new Service Efficiency Metric proposal.
3. The DCP Top 10 for 2012.

This year we changed the format. Instead of choosing 6 or 7 topics and breaking out into parallel groups, we selected a smaller number and held them in series so all members could be involved in the rich discussion and debate. The format worked out well. We had over 3 hours of discussion on Project Mercury, 2 1/2 hours on the Service Efficiency Metric and a wrap up hour on the Top 10 which I presented on behalf of DCP at the Green Grid Technical Forum closing session on Wednesday, March 7, 2012 (Watch for an upcoming blog and video on that next week). Below are three videos summarizing the event and the two primary topics.

As Mark and I discussed last January in Episode 33: Three Years Later, we are getting back to basics. These collaboration sessions are one of the key reasons that end users participate in Data Center Pulse. The networking, discussion, debate and innovation that comes from them is aligned with the Data Center Pulse charter to influence the Data Center industry through end users.

DCP 2012 Summit Summary

DCP 2012 Topic 1 - Project Mercury Case Study

DCP 2012 Topic 2 - Service Efficiency Metric Proposal

It's that time of year again, Data Center Pulse will be holding it's annual Collaboration Session in conjunction with The Green Grid's Technical Forum at the Double Tree Hotel in San Jose, CA.

Data Center Pulse will be going over the Data Center Top 10 and presenting the findings to The Green Grid. We will also discuss some or all the following topics:

A new metric for "Useful work" to measure the performance and efficiency of your IT systems

The Green Grid Project Mercury Case Study

Impact of Cloud Computing on your Data Center Planning & Strategy

Other: Topics to be determined by Data Center Pulse members

The session is open and free to Data Center Pulse Members. You can submit your request to participate by sending an email to membership@datacenterpulse.org

If you aren't a member, but qualify (your role has a primary and direct responsibility for your company's data center). You still have time to sign up through LinkedIn groups. ( Search Groups: Data Center Pulse).

We look forward to sharing ideas and concerns with you on the 5th.

More Information on The Green Grid Event:

The Green Grid Forum 2012: Come and watch the Sparks fly!

Data Center 2025; how to save $11M by monitoring PUE; new metrics!; productivity of data centers. http://www.thegreengrid.org/events/TGGforum-2012.aspx

Data Center Pulse is meeting in the same location the day before. Members of DCP get a 10% discount off attendance, and if you're not a member of The Green Grid, you can "sneak in" by signing an NDA.

Come see the biggest event in business computing efficiency of the year! Mar 5 (DCP meeting), Mar 6-7 (The Green Grid Forum) http://www.thegreengrid.org/events/TGGforum-2012.aspx for more info.

Unfortunately, there isn't a simple answer to the "Is Public Cloud Greener" question as the only real answer is "it depends".  At the core of the question is that assumption that because you're theoretically using fewer physical machines more effectively, that you are thereby greener or more efficient.  However, even if we stay with that assumption, when you dig into the details of what being "greener" really means, you'll see that there's still no easy answer.

In order for cloud to be greener, it has to accomplish two things at a very high level:

• Use less power, people, and resource than it's none cloud equivalent to do the same work

• And, use power that is at least as clean, if not cleaner than the power you were using

While many of us make the assumption that the first bullet is true, we really have no way of knowing whether the second one is, unless the provider offers this information in some verifiable and transparent way.

The above discussion and the detail that supports it are covered very well in a recent blog/presentation done by a friend and fellow Data Center Pulse member Tom Raftery.  I highly recommend spending a few minutes with Tom's blog and presentation if you'd like to increase your understanding of the nuances of setting expectations with SPs, and creating or managing sustainable and green IT solutions.

http://greenmonk.net/is-cloud-computing-green/

Great job Tom, keep up the good work.