Green Notes

The AFCOM association, whose members include 4,500 administrators from 3,900 data centers around the world surveyed  436 data center sites last year. Some of the findings of the survey indicated that cyberterrorism is an increasing concern, mainframe deployment is on the decline, storage deployment is on the rise, and “green” technologies are definitely happening.

It was found that there is a shift in data centers away from mainframe computers and toward other types of servers.Just less than 40 percent of data centers run two or more mainframes, with 45.7 percent of such data centers planning to replace at least one of their mainframes in the next year. However 33 percent of those replacing mainframes plan to replace them with other types of servers.

The market is flooded with energy efficient products and services that claim to optimize data centers and save on power. Data center power consumption has become out of control the past few years and companies have been clamoring to offer solutions for addressing not only the problem of green house gas emissions but also to make business sense by saving up some green.

Some of these tools are free such as American Power Consumption APC’s Efficiency Quotient online tool (http://www.apc.com/tools/calculator/efficiencyQuotient/) which helps IT managers determine the efficiency levels of their data center. It provides a fact-based rating of a data center’s current efficiency levels; recommends steps for improvement; gives access to related white papers, tools and information. More recently it has released another tool that will help managers make decisions regarding the physical requirements of a data centre after a virtualisation project. The Virtualisation Energy Cost Calculator can be downloaded from the APC site.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has also developed a data center efficiency tool, DC Pro that analyzes 12 months’ worth of a data center’s utility bills to answer specific questions about electricity distribution, airflow management and data center cooling. The tool provides suggestions for improving efficiency.

The Green Grid,  a global consortium of IT professionals dedicated to improve energy efficiency in data centers, has launched several new tools and reports to promote the cause of data center efficiency including a new power usage effectiveness (PUE) reporting tool and regional tools for calculating free cooling. It’s free online tool for data center managers records their power usage effectiveness (PUE) scores that will establish global consistency in reporting the split between energy flowing to IT equipment and facility operations.In addition to free cooling from outside air, the tool provides information about savings that could be obtained using water-side economizers.

Software firm CA  has introduced a program called ecoMeter in its new ecoSoftware products, which helps companies manage energy use from data centers, as well as other facilities. The program allows a company to know, at any given time, how much energy is being used by each element in the data center – be it a server, generator, cooling unit or backup power supply, reports Earth2Tech . Another new tool launched by Arch Rock Inc., called Energy Optimizer – Data Center Edition is a wireless monitoring system that allows IT managers to make knowledgeable decisions about their data center efficiency in real-time. It  judges a system’s efficiency against standards from the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers, estimating the actual dollars the data center is spending on electricity and its carbon footprint. It also identifies hot spots, such as short-cycling, missing blanking panels and sub-floor obstructions that cause energy waste. Others approach the problem from a completely different angle. For example, Milford, N.H.-based Degree Controls Inc., has developed active airflow management products that include airflow monitoring tools to control cooling. Then there is a new chip by Teridian Semiconductor  that does accurate energy measurement as a way of addressing this growing enterprise data center power consumption. Teridian’s chip enables manufacturers to integrate smart energy measurement tools into data center equipment including power supplies, and communications equipment, as well as servers.

We have barely scratched the surface in this blog of the zillions of options available with respect to freebies and other efficiency tools for sale. Free tools can be handy to give you a broad perspective of where you need to be looking at to solve the issue. A professional consultation service like Green Rack Systems would help you sort through the plethora of choices in the market today to identify the right suite of products to invest in tha meet your data center’s unique challenges.

Cloud computing is a kind of scalable service provided by distant vendor servers over the internet. The data storage and management tasks are assigned to a set of infrastructure, platform or software over a network or “cloud”. This type of computing certainly comes with inherent flaws such as a danger of becoming too vendor dependant , a shrinking on-site IT department, questionable security and reliability issues etc. Also cloud computing requires a lot of investment which has led many detractors to suggest that this type of computing service would lead to an unfair monopoly of the big players in the business. But cloud computing is still in a stage of technological infancy, so it is only a matter of time before these concerns are ironed out.

Cloud Computing provides datacenters with immense potential to save on energy, infrastructure and staffing issues. The advantages are numerous. Smaller scale datacenters can benefit from access to sophisticated super computers leading to increased competitiveness in the market. More moneyed ventures who have the means to invest in new infrastructure, on the other hand can offer their services to others increasing their potential and diversifying their line. Computational power and storage borrowed from a third party decreases the load in your data center thereby leading to less energy consumption on the home front. Also you pay for what you use and use resources on a need to basis. Services on the host side, run on shared infrastructure at high utilization as not all users will be accessing service at the same time. Therefore there is less computer idling and a lot more of energy saving. While some argue that cloud computing just shifts the energy consumption from the data centers to the hosts’ side , even with all the additional overhead costs and single computer power usage , there is considerable decrease in net power as you take other systems offline and pay a whole lot less for cooling. When we add virtualization and alternative energy sources like solar power to the midst, we really mean green business! Green rack systems provides a high tech solar powered co-location facility as an optional service for our clients. Those intent on keeping things in house but would also like to cut down on energy bills, should consider professional third party services like ours for secondary and non-critical applications while retaining main frame operations close to home. Cloud computing is also a great way to go for startups that cannot afford to maintain a professional standard data center. Please contact us at 408-213-8144/ sales@GreenRackSystems.com for an in-depth consultation on what option would suit your business model.