Energy Matters

What's easier, Urban Planning or IT?

No doubt, we must control IT energy consumption but as problem solvers, IT Directors have it easy compared to urban planners and big city mayors.

Look at what they are trying to control.

Most of us are vaguely aware of urban growth headaches. But I've just been startled to full consciousness while participating in a UN sponsored conference on urbanization and the role of information technology.

A 2004 UN report found that urban population was growing by one million people a week.

                              

There are already at least 250 cities of more than a million—many of these in Asia, especially India and China.

In 2003, there were 39 cities over 5 million in population.

However, urban giants with populations exceeding 10 million dwarf cities of a few million. According to various estimates, there may be over 20 of these already. By 2020, the projections place 20 or more of these at over 20 million.

Think about this while you’re grappling with creative ways to handle extreme growth in data and applications. How would you handle 20 million people and all that supports them?

Here is a great place for information technology to help in dealing with very real world issues.

Decide, Act, Be Eaten

I am not alone in finding Scott Adam's Dilbert one of the funniest and most terrifying comic strips ever.  Funny because so many of the strip's characters depict, do, or say the silly, insipid and often clueless things we hear and see happen around us every day. 

Terrifying for the same reasons. 

Sometimes it’s a fun-house mirror but a mirror nonetheless.

A recent strip is a great example.  The pointy haired boss is pushing ahead with a merger - with some aliens - because he urgently wants to get something done:

How often is it the case that, in a rush to appear productive or decisive, we take action, any action, without a considered plan? 

How often does that succeed?

Your Mileage Will Vary

EMC's advises a systems approach to IT energy efficiency. Look at every individual IT element to maximize the contribution of each.  Then step back and take a comprehensive look, a systems view.  Still, when looking at those individual elements, it pays to take care in selection and configuration.

There are similarities to auto MPG ratings. The brand and model selected make a big difference in potential efficiency.  But so do driver habits, driving conditions, and maintenance.  For storage there are even more variables that require care, along with attention to that systems view.

Your mileage will vary.

EMC storage technology delivers great individual energy results and excels when framed in that broader view. 

Our customers attest to it.

I visited with one of our largest last week in New York.  They saw the results from a recent DMX refresh where capacity was increased but power consumption dropped by 30%.

Still, it's always welcome when you get independent corroboration of benefits.

The Wrong Debate

A colleague just dropped a copy of eWeek on my desk.  The April 14th issue.  It contains an article titled: Green IT's merits spark debate by Clint Boulton.

(I'd provide you a link but the on-line eWeek seems to be out of sync with the printed paper version.  Why do they even have a printed version of eWeek?)                

The essence of the debate, staged among four Gartner analysts, was to state opposing views on the merits of "Green IT".

But, alarmist or skeptical, it was the wrong thing to debate. 

I wouldn't blame you for being immediately skeptical of four Gartnerites on stage in Las Vegas at a Gartner event debating IT impacts on global warming.  What's the chance of outside the G thinking?

And of course 'Vegas is a great place to discuss carbon footprints.  We'll be doing it at EMC World in just a few weeks. 

Hmm.

Opening Day

Baseball.

I was in New York on Tuesday,  opening day for the New York Yankees.

No need to mention your team preference in NYC. Just say you're from Boston and they fill in the blank.

So, the evening news made much of the Yankees last year of play in Yankee Stadium.  That got me to wondering how "green" the new Yankees ballpark will be.

That's because a few days earlier the Washington Nationals opened in their new "green" ballpark.
(Beat the Braves 3-2.)

                  

                "D.C. turns brownfield into 'green' ballpark"

"The Washington Nationals' gleaming new baseball park...will be the first green professional stadium in the United States,..."

And why not? 

Water Power

The topic of water or liquid cooling for data centers keeps coming up.

Just when it seems that every old mainframe data center has had all of the water pipes removed, the wisdom of water over air cooling has seen a resurgence. 

Actually there isn't any disagreement that water/liquid is a more effective cooling agent than air.  It's just that all of that liquid flowing through pipes next to all of that expensive electronic gear made operators nervous. 

So, as soon as they could, most had it removed.

Times have changed. 

Again.

Re-enter liquid cooling - maybe. ( See Adam Trujillo's interview with Neil Rasmussen of APC. )

So, I started looking at  the relationship of water and energy. 

But I was sidetracked.  I followed some interesting info bits that seem obvious now but which had never occurred to me. 

Surprise Inside!

Think about matryoshka dolls.

Think about the childlike glee that comes from discovering that one doll is really eight!

                                        

Matryoshka are the Russian nesting dolls where each fits inside the other. (I always called them “Russian Dolls” and had to look up “matryoshka”) The first were created near Moscow in 1890. Maybe not high-tech but they help to illustrate an important eco-energy concept .

Dale Hoenshell, a colleague at EDS, recently explained a computer controlled lighting test project he was running. Preliminary results indicated potential for a 45% reduction in electricity use. Maybe more.

Among other means, they achieved this by dimming lights to reduce glare in work areas, turning off lights where nobody is present and by “harvesting” sunlight.

They were achieving, even exceeding, the desired power savings – the big doll.

But there were other benefits, smaller dolls, hidden inside.

You Know That...

You know that the market motivation for “sustainability” has hit the big time when Microsoft sponsors a government CIO Summit with a green theme.

One of the more interesting presentations discussed how Microsoft's Business Communications Software can be used to reduce carbon footprints by reducing travel.   

Probably valid, but there was no mention of it in the product announcement last October. 

Just Microsoft noticing that growing green wave?

You know that energy efficiency is gaining ground when EDS sponsors a “Green IT” event in Calgary, Alberta Canada, the heart of Canadian oil and gas.

Contributing to the EDS green initiative, I wrote an article for the latest issue of Synnovation magazine. This is an EDS publication – green cover and recycled paper – showcasing the ideas of several EDS Agility Alliance partners. (More accurately, I drafted the article, which was then treated to some very talented editing by Maria Gorsuch Kennedy, who heads up sustainability communications at EMC.)

The event was well attended. And the message was well received once the realization hit that efficiency meant less waste, reduced costs and savings that apply directly to the bottom line.

You know that the complexity and interconnectedness of energy issues is being recognized when the Boston Globe features home energy efficiency audits and a “quiet revolution in power lines” on the editorial page.   

Maybe enough people are really starting to pay attention.

Maybe even enough to make a difference?

And you know that times are really changing when my small traditional hometown, Hingham Massachusetts – founded in 1635, commissions a study to understand and reduce the town’s carbon footprint. 

You know that you have proof of virtualization going mainstream when it shows up in the Dilbert comic strip.

While I participated as a panelist / speaker at both the Microsoft and EDS events, I had nothing to do with Dilbert. He needs no help from me. (Which is a good thing because my kids keep insisting that I am not that funny. Of course, that is because they don’t think that embarrassing them in public should count as funny.)

For genuinely funny, Dilbert is probably the most consistent, on target running social commentary since “Shoe” addressed the paperless office.

There are lots of ways to look at these topics.  It’s great to see that lots more people are.

Redefining Definitions of "Green IT"

               

It is gratifying to think that this blog is having some small impact.

A complete stranger introduced himself at a conference last week saying: “I enjoy reading your blog…”

How about that?  A fan!

And it’s great fun to have Computerworld write an editorial quoting a definition I proposed here last October for data center efficiency as a practical and businesslike approach to "green".

In his editorial, The main stem,  Don Tennant describes a "green pall" he sees over IT.  In particular he notes the backlash from IT users who are confused, skeptical and often weary of vendors pushing their greenness for fun and profit. 

I agree.

Customers are getting jaded. 

(Yes somebody else may have used "jaded" before me to describe being fed up with green hype  but I haven't seen it so I'll claim origination and let the others put it in quotes.  I also claim "mossy" but haven't found much use for it yet in data centers. )

You might understand why my favorite part of Tennant's editorial is where he cites this blog as offering " ...one of the most intelligent explanations of the phenomenon that I've seen ..."  Although I don't quite understand his surprise that it "was provided by, of all people, a marketing executive at a big IT vendor. "

Perhaps we can cover that another time.

The Green Grid Idea

The idea of a "Green Grid" has been taking several forms, most related to the environment and energy.

There is a  Green Grid computing project at Dartmouth.

There is Green Grid,  the company marketing modular roof systems with energy efficiency listed among a long list of benefits.  The flagship Apple store in Chicago has one.

                        

There is the Green Grid being sponsored by the Mayor of London:

East London Green Grid

"The Green Grid concept aims to provide new and existing East London residents and workers with a multi-functional network of strategic open space and in turn improved quality of life."

                      

                        

Then there is the Green Grid a "global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems."

This is the one which has set out to help make sense of energy in IT.

Lazy Energy Elephants

On the face of it, energy savings is simple. 

Conserve. 

Turn things off. 

Increase utilization.

Plug in less.

Real lasting success comes from your strategy.  You know, the one you have carefully planned.   You've looked at each part of the complete data center eco-system and found ways to reduce. 

Like a diet, right?  Research. Resolve. Reduce. Keep the load off.

Then relax.

Topping the CIO's Most Wanted List

I sat on a financial services conference panel last month in New York City.  The discussion centered around data center efficiency and energy issues.  As we were wrapping up, the moderator asked each of us to pick one most wanted technology advance.

I had to bite my tongue as the bank CIO to my right answered;  "What I want most is Flash drives in my storage arrays." 

Since he is an EMC customer, I knew he was thinking about Symmetrix. 

I also knew that his wish was about to come true. 

Today, January 14th 2008, EMC announced the answer to this customer's wish.  It's a new class of enterprise storage that is "at least an order of magnitude faster than a disk drive" according to The Clipper Group white paper posted on EMC's web site.

How does performance relate to energy?

Well, it's a twofer.

Short Circuits: How Green is Our Valley?

Green is the new PC. It's the new Black.  It's the one campaign topic that every candidate seems to agree needs high priority attention (although what they would do about it ranges from arm-waving scare tactics to thoughtful policy positions). 

The point is that it's less than two weeks into the New Year and I have already seen a gazzillion articles, citations and projections that put green at the center of the universe.  The life-changing, planet-changing, economy-changing, geo-political altering topic of the new century. 

And that got me to thinking about a movie made in 1941.  Funny how the mind, mine at least, makes  connections to unlikely places.  You know, that corner of your sub-conscious that seems smarter than you are. 

Of course "green" is in the title

I probably saw this film on the Million Dollar Movie when I was about ten. (Go ahead, speculate.  Yes, TV was still all black and white then.)  I remember it as a moving kind of tear jerker that introduced me to the "industrial revolution"; although it's unlikely the term was ever used.

Bah, Humbug! Maybe Scrooge had it right.

Dickens had an unsurpassed ability to create and make us fully dislike despicable characters.  Ebenezer Scrooge was one of the best / worst. 

Mean.  Stingy. Crabby. Bereft of emotion and humor. 

We love to hate Scrooge.  And he deserved to have his scorn scared out of him by those ghosts. 

Didn't he? 

Except, once he is scared into reforming he goes on a spending spree to make everybody happy and to keep Tiny Tim from an early grave.  That makes him  a good guy. 

Doesn't it?

More from the United Nations ICT Conference

Twice in the last three weeks I've visited the Big Apple (see theories on why NYC is the "Big Apple" ) to participate in conferences highlighting Information Technology impacts on the environment - positive and negative. 

GAID has set course to "use ICT for enhancing the achievement of internationally agreed development goals, notably reduction of poverty" and investment banks etc use IT to increase wealth. 

The UN GAID conference focused on how ICT can help analyze and resolve difficulties faced by developing nations wrestling with energy needs and environmental impacts. 

(For example, ~17 countries produce 80% of all greenhouse gases but countries that will suffer most from climate change are those that contributed the least and have the least resource to resolve it -  e.g., small island nations that could disappear with rising oceans.)

The second conference, sponsored by Waters USA, was aimed at Financial Services Industry topics ranging from regulation to technology.

They made for an  interesting contrast.

IT and Climate Change - The Positive Impact

Information Technology can help save the planet. 

That's a central premise of the Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID) .

Last week I had the opportunity to participate as a panelist in a conference sponsored by GAID at the United Nations.  It was held in a large "conference room" laid out like the General Assembly room with curved tables and a place for each nation's delegate. 

An impressive place.

"A rose by any other name... "

JULIET:
    "  'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
      Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
      What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
      Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
      Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
      What's in a name? that which we call a rose
      By any other name would smell as sweet;
      So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
      Retain that dear perfection which he owes
      Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
      And for that name which is no part of thee
      Take all myself."

      - Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1594

Juliet had it right.  " 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy". 

Software - Think Differently

Using software to save energy is not a radical idea.

So, how come it isn't core thinking either?

Software - automation really - brings the most powerful opportunity for optimization and energy savings. There are lots of storage software features and applications that help  manage the placement of data, move it from one tier to another,  prune copies, make incremental copies instead of full, and eliminate redundant data.   Lots of choices and lots of opportunities to accomplish business ends and use less energy at the same time.

Yet, in my experience, discussion about energy savings center mostly on the efficiency of power supplies or bits of computer and storage systems.  Of course these need to be made as efficient as possible.  That's foundation work though. Even the most energy efficient of systems won't help you if not deployed and operated with  all of their efficiency potential. 

It's the software. 

De-dupe and No-dupe

Deduplication of data is mainstream.

There are several available products and approaches.  Some are integrated with backup, some with archive systems.  Like so many other products, they were created for very useful purposes like reducing IT complexity, validating data integrity in the archive or reducing capital expense.

There is also the happy circumstance that they save truckloads of energy too.

For example, EMC's Avamar is used for data de-duplication during backups. That’s important for energy containment because it eliminates redundant data that would otherwise clog your network and your storage media. Reduce the spinning disk. Reduce energy.

This is a great example of the cascade effect. Shrink the backup data. Speed up process. Save operational costs. Save space. Reduce capital costs. Save energy. Save time.

Branch Circuits

What is the simplest way to save energy?

Turn it off.

Whatever it is - light switch, PC, engine - if it's not on, it isn't consuming energy. 

Simple right?

So, how many times a day do you have an opportunity to do just that, turn it off (or not use it), and don't? 

Energy Savings often starts with paying attention to the little things.  Frequently, it's small and simple and even has side benefits:

- Turn off the lights in the conference room and open 
  the shades.  Benefit from sunlight and vitamin D
  (Doesn't work unless the room has windows or your intention is to nap.)

- Walk up the stairs instead of using the elevator. Benefit
  from exercise.

- Stop using a screen saver on your computer.
   According to Nicholas Carr, "A PC with a screensaver going can use well over 100 watts of power, compared with only about 10 watts in sleep mode. An analysis by the University of New Hampshire indicates that if an organization has 5,000 PCs that run screensavers 20 hours a week, the annual power consumed by those screensavers “accounts for emissions of 750,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, 5,858 pounds of sulfur oxide, and 1,544 pounds of nitrogen oxide.”

That's a lot of benefit from a very simple act.  Sounds like a CIO mandate would be in order here.

Mostly it's simple and obvious and common sense. Often you get some very good side benefits. So why don't we do it more often?  Inertia?  Lack of attention? Too busy? All of the above?

Here's two sites offering helpful hints.  Maybe obvious ideas that you already knew but haven't thought about recently.

The "Harvard Green Campus Initiative" has lots of ideas and links to energy saving tips like:

How much damage can one computer cause?

"One desktop computer left on all day for one year can result in more than 1500 pounds of CO2 being released into the atmosphere. It would take 100 to 500 trees to offset that amount of extra CO2."

Another site at NPR, in partnership with National Geographic - Ten Tips to Fight Global Warming - includes useful tips along with information that helps quantify the impact of actions. For example:

1) Replace five incandescent lightbulbs in your home with compact fluorescents: Swapping those 75-watt incandescents with 19-watt CFLs can cut 275 pounds of CO2.

And here is one more (thanks to The Storage Anarchist ) - 5 Easy, Cheap ways to Go Green in your Data Center - not a site but an article by Jimmy Ray Purser with a few common sense tips, like:

1. Get a copy of your company's electric bill. ... It is very difficult to see how much money you are saving unless you have a benchmark. This step is often overlooked, but it is really the most important part.

If you have favorites, please send me the links and I'll post them here.

I believe it is a state of mind -  awareness -  that saves energy.  Much more than any technology. 

Sometimes the most effective part is also easy.

Think about it.

What color is Green?

I don’t like the term “Green IT”. 

You can use it with a dozen people and conjure a dozen different ideas.  Yes, of course, everyone will agree that it has something to do with energy and environmental friendliness.  Some might put it under the broader category of environmental sustainability, or corporate sustainability.  But when you dig in you get lots of different opinions on what it really means – it’s like putting an “e” in front of a word to make it trendy but not give any useful meaning.  How long did it take for that to stop?

Now, a whole set of discussions around “green” have already started a backlash from customers feeling that the whole deal is just marketing hype, or “greenwashing”. 

In some cases they may be right and that doesn’t help to clarify meaning.

What is enough?

A 5% improvement in power supply efficiency will help save energy;   so will incremental improvements in air conditioning and power handling and storage systems and computer processors.  Every item in the data center should be as efficient as you can get.  That’s a common sense idea and a more common factor in buying decisions. 

That’s not enough.

I noted last week that the new Hitachi array boasts a 20% energy efficiency gain but that it isn’t enough. 

And it isn’t. 

Greening Hitachi

Hitachi is going green.

On Monday, September 24th, Hitachi Data System announced “new Power Savings capability for the AMS and WMS midrange lineup, which can be invoked by clients or applications as a storage service on an as-needed basis. The new Power Savings Storage Service enables customers to power down volumes (disks) when not being accessed by a business application. The volumes can then be powered up quickly when the application requires them.” 

Congratulations and good for them.  They’ve taken a little green step.

Hitachi is doing the right thing.    And since all of us have had a hand in messing up the planet, I think we should all take action to clean it up too. 

Hitachi is trying to do their part.  EMC has been doing its part for quite some time. That’s good. 

But… 

Foundation Work, Consolidation Work

Building is messy. 

If you’ve lived through a home remodeling project, you understand that.  Building is disruptive and frustrating and almost always seems to cost more than you expected. 

To be successful, you need a vision - In my case, my wife has the vision and I only need to be a good listener. 

You need experienced help - I found a talented local builder named Rob.  (Don’t call him Bob the builder or the fees go up.)

You need a solid foundation - literal and figurative.

It’s not much different when you plan to build energy efficiency into your data center - say by doing a consolidation project.  Just like that home project, it’s likely to be messy.  But this is messy that can be satisfying. 

Strategy Matters

When I speak to customers, one of the questions I ask is if they have an energy strategy.  Rarely is the answer an unqualified yes.  Sometimes they think it’s a trick question. 

Some data centers have a strict “energy budget” that controls every item in use. Nothing is plugged in that isn’t in the budget.  Some are ignoring the issue and hoping the storm won’t hit.

The following is not a real conversation, just one I imagine from bits and pieces of real conversations. 

“Do you have an energy strategy?”

“Why do I need an energy strategy?  It sounds hard and time consuming.” 

“You’re running a data center.”

“Energy involves global warming, global economics, global politics. Not me.”

“Have you seen the trade press warnings about energy and data centers?”

“But it isn’t impacting me.  Why should I worry?”

“Who are you? Alfred E. Newman?” 

Saving Energy by Disk Choice

Here’s an idea that is simple and obvious – once you think about it.  You can store a given amount of data on different capacity disks and get different results. 

Yes you can.

I have had some fun with this even with some very experienced “storage guys” because it is something that they know but always think of in a different way.  They configure storage based upon the needs a customer has for performance and how much they are willing to spend.  Typically that’s it - performance and cost. But drive capacity also impacts space and energy consumption.  (Yes, yes, there are other configuration rules and spares and RAID and stuff but don’t complicate this.) 

Take a specific example; storing 750GB of data on the new large capacity SATA II drives instead of using eleven 73GB drives will decrease energy consumption by about 91%.

Until recently the energy component of disk choice wasn’t given much consideration .  No need. 

That was then.  This is now. 

That’s why the most frequent reaction I get to this is “I never really thought about it that way.” 

Now they will.

Flying Over the Ice Cap

I flew over the ice cap in the spring. 

It wasn’t ice. 

I was going to Washington DC from Beijing.  I had just conducted some training sessions about helping customers improve energy efficiency in their data centers.  That’s a part of my job.  I develop and link energy saving ideas that help our customers save energy – and money.  Indirect perhaps, but I think of it as my small and practical contribution to the fight against global warming.

I’m no tree hugger but I wasn’t prepared for the ice cap.  I expected variations on white.  What I saw was like pale grey skin laced with thick blue varicose veins. Global warming visible and ugly; stretched to the horizon. 

Energy matters.

Energy matters. 

Energy matters in lots of ways.  Some days, it’s how much energy I have, or don’t have.  Some days it’s the price of gas – hundred miles round trip from my house to the office.  Some days, when I’m thinking big thoughts, it’s will there be enough energy for my grandchildren – assuming I have some one day.

In various forms, energy has always been critical – wood for your fire, oats for your horse, jelly doughnuts for the local cop. Energy matters to each of us.  Personally. Politically. Economically. Ecologically. Globally.   

There is also plenty of advice on what should be done about energy.  But, like good diet and exercise, there is a space between knowing what should be done, and doing it.

Take energy in data centers. It’s been getting serious attention for some time.  There is no lack of opinion on how critical and worrisome the issue has become.    It is or will soon become a problem for nearly every data center. 

So who’s fixing it? 

What’s being done right now? 

What’s next?