Template:Green tech
From Lauraibm
Full article: Green Tech Shops have a way to go (8-Aug-07)
Data centres are the gas-guzzling jalopies of the technology world. Some require 40 or 50 times more power than comparable office space.
"It's somewhat analogous to someone who decides to purchase an energy-efficient car and says, `Gee, I'm using 30% less petrol with this, that means I can drive 30% more miles than I used to, and still do something for the environment,'" said an analyst with Pund-IT Research.
A new report from the EPA estimates that the easiest, least inexpensive changes to data centre operations - involving tweaks to software, layout and air conditioning - could boost efficiency by 20%. The EPA says 45% improvement - enough to lower electricity usage by 2011 - can be achieved with existing technologies.
Unlike in other office space, air conditioning cranks year-round, to overcome the 100-degree-plus air that the computers themselves throw off. That challenge has increased in recent years with the rise of compact "blade" servers that are crammed into server racks.
A 1 megawatt data center will ring up $17 million in electric bills over its 10-year life span. Even so, few data centres have taken obvious steps to reduce that load.
Almost all the energy that goes into the air conditioning systems is used to run giant chillers that make the air pumped through the rooms' raised floors a brisk 55 degrees or so, sometimes as low as the 40s. Such extremely cold air is blasted in to guarantee that no single server's temperature gets much above the optimum level, which is around 70 degrees.
But the air conditioning doesn't have to be so cold if the layout of server rooms is better designed to improve air flow, smoothing out all the various microclimates that can develop.
And in many places, the outside air is plenty cold enough much of the year, for free. Yet only recently have data centres adopted systems that can take filtered outside air for cooling the computer rooms.
To be fair, some data centres are buried too deep within buildings to gulp fresh air. But the main reason for the A/C over-reliance is that data centers were built for one thing - to maximize the performance of the Web sites, computer programs and networking equipment that they run. If the air conditioning is colder than necessary, so be it.
"There are probably two key metrics for the IT guy: no downtime and `no security breaches on my watch,'" said the VP of one cooling efficiency firm. "They normally do not know, don't care and aren't measured by their electric bill."
In fact, in many companies, any given department's responsibility for the overall utility bill is determined by such factors as employee headcount or square feet of office space. By that measure, the IT department comes out way ahead.
An IBM VP estimates this is still the state of affairs 70-80% of the time. The tech shops "aren't actually paying their real energy bill," Sams says.
