Green Notes

Google announced that they would open source the PowerMeter API that integrates home energy monitoring devices directly into Google’s Power meter . The Google meter is a free software tool that lets you monitor your personal energy consumption from  iGoogle homepage so that you can make more efficient use of power at home.

Using the open standards based Apps interface, developers can now customize the energy information available to customers while assuring privacy. Google also has provided resources for utility service providers and device makers in terms of samples and implementation guidelines to build their own Google meter compatible systems. For more info, check out Google’s official blog site: http://blog.google.org/search/label/PowerMeter.

For help with greening your IT strategy and choosing the right open source software to boost your energy efficiency, contact us at GreenRackSystems; sales@GreenRackSystems.com.

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.

Once we have proper systems in place at our data centers, it becomes equally important to maintain the infrastructure to ensure seamless delivery without any bottlenecks that might hinder the services provided to clients. The advanced nature of computing which our data centers currently provide us with further complicates not only mere maintenance but also quality assurance. Depending on functionality and targeted usage, the priorities of a co-location facility change. For example an IT data center servicing the needs of bank or governmental agency would have to mitigate constant security risks in terms of confidentiality of data processed. A data center catering to a high energy social networking site would want to maintain the constant fluidity of the site. How many of us get fed up of waiting endlessly for our updates to show up or photos to be uploaded on some of our popular networks. Apart from the main concerns in a set segment for upkeep, there are other related risks to be managed and avoided. Once you take all precautions to reduce the risk, data centers usually conduct regression tests to recreate threat scenarios with realistic data feeds and test environment. Disaster recovery plans once in place should be tested and updated constantly. A full scale testing environment with all the hardware, networking equipment etc can be hard to re-create for smaller data centers. Also there is additional risk of leaking of sensitive information during these tests and current budget cuts due to macro-economic conditions might not provide the resources to design elaborate testing scenarios. Our complete data center services at Green Rack Systems can assist you in quality assurance, security and testing by creating application relevant production environments outside of your facility for reliable performance testing to pinpoint areas that need improvements. Our professional testers skilled in this specific arena can take the pressure off you for not only investing in a test lab but also training and breeding a test team. In this way your data center will be able to run smoothly without running into routine errors, crashes, inefficient downtimes, security threats etc that could be damaging to your reputation vis-à-vis clients.

Please contact us at Green Rack for a one time inspection or ongoing quality assurance and risk mitigation services for your data center.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, data centers across the United States accounted for 1.5 percent of total US electricity demand in 2006 — equivalent to the annual electric consumption of the state of Florida — and have become one of the fastest growing users of energy. While the power consumed at these individual data centers may be small, the consumption in totality at EPA and other large organizations is significantly enormous. Even as much is written about greening data centers and as non-profit organizations like the Green Grid are striving to bring about a new improved way of approaching this data center energy crisis, there is not much initiative on the part of the data centers themselves. They are often found to be slack on basic essentials in measurement and tracking equipment.

A recent study by Gartner released in September found that as many as 48% of data centre managers have still not even considered the issue of energy management metrics. “Without metrics it is impossible to get accurate data, which is essential to evaluating basic costs, proportioning these costs to different users and setting policies for improvement.” , Gartner remarked of its findings. Gartner said that energy management both in terms of capacity and cost can only be effective through advanced monitoring, modeling and measuring techniques and processes. Further, it encouraged organizations not to rely on internal metrics, saying that evaluating server energy needs to be done in an open and transparent manner. Gartner went so on to note that in many companies the IT department neither sees nor pays the electric bill, and thereby lacks the incentive to save energy. The research firm recommends that data centre managers use sensors to monitor potential hotspots, develop a dashboard of data centre energy-efficient metrics, and improve the use of the existing infrastructure through consolidation and virtualization before building out or buying new/additional data centre floor space.

Gartner’s study is further substantiated by a report released by Aperture Research Institute in 2008 that states “that organizations are unable or unwilling to meet the expectations set by the introduction of green initiatives.74% refused to activate power saving features on devices if it would require a drop in performance. When it comes to procurement, energy efficiency and ease of disposal are the lowest priorities. 37% of data centers have no plans to measure energy efficiency, and 76% do not charge the business for the power used by the IT commissions. One reason is a lack of infrastructure for measuring power consumption.We concludes that data centers lack the tools and processes they need if the organization is to effectively balance its environmental impact and its business priorities.”

Redundant methods of monitoring power efficiency, lack of digital tracking capabilities and reluctance to open up to external consultation could be major impediments in the road to energy optimization. Please contact us at Green Rack Systems for discussing your current IT situation and a detailed analysis of how we could bring more productivity and value to your energy consumption.

While the high tech world buzzes with non stop talk about virtualization and other power monitoring technologies to increase data center efficiency, improvement in basic storage can go a long way to green up your facility. On an average 10 to 40 percent of energy cost in data centers is used to run storage. Yes, managing storage can be expensive especially in a situation like data centers which struggles to cope with excess of data resulting from global initiatives, web commerce, rapidly enhanced computing expectations and security pressures. If businesses do not address their storage budget issues and reduce their data footprint, the problem is likely to blow out of proportion in this era of faster, more ever increasing computing. To keep up with this massive growth, organizations must look at smart storage capacity solutions.

SNIA, Storage Networking Industry Association is a non profit association made up of about 400 companies dedicated to knowledge exchange of end-to-end storage solutions and development of standards in information management products. Some of the energy efficient storage solutions that it recommends are thin provisioning, multi-use backup, virtual clones, de-duplication, compression, using RAID 5 or RAID 6 disk arrays instead of the higher-level standards and smarter coupling of technology and the actual needs.

Most industry experts recommend against indulging in highest grade equipment and to stick to what is actually required instead. Multi purpose, elaborate storage solutions not only cost more but most of the times you may not even be in need of them. So you might be powering them for doing things that you may not even need. So stick with RAID 5 if that’s all you will be using. While Solid State Disk translates to an enhanced performance level, it also costs an arm and a leg. So data that is not critical can be allocated to lower cost tiers and primary storage. Sometimes storage solutions come with automated management software to give information on how much of solid state disk you need to optimize your application. Virtualization of your storage also can go a long way in helping with storage consolidation by providing better storage distribution among servers and reducing hardware requirements. Vendors that provide server virtualization often offer tools to improve the management of storage as well.

The latest buzz in the storage world is data de-duplication also called single instance storage. It significantly reduces the amount of physical disk space needed for backup and other archival functions by configuring data processing and storage functions in a way that removes redundant files, bytes, or blocks of data. It thereby makes sure that only unique data is stored on disks and eliminates redundant files.

The other popular storage solution is thin provisioning which doles out on-demand shared storage to servers instead of allocating tens or hundreds of gigabytes in advance based on anticipated demand which may go unused while consuming a lot of energy. Provisioning helps in cost reduction as it costs less to provide power to one drive loaded to capacity than a number of them each storing a fraction of their capacity.

Please contact us at Green Rack Systems for updating your storage solutions and to reduce your energy bills in the bargain.

While it is natural to immediately gravitate towards hardware and energy centric dimensions of sustainability, eco- friendly computing in terms of the software used, applications and services tends to be an afterthought. Sure, there are software tools that help track emissions, provide better storage solutions, monitor alternative energy production, smart energy grid management etc but what about the actual software used? Can software be green in itself , apart from its functionality?

One way to go green on the software would be to choose a low resource version of open source software .Why? Open source is software for which the source code is completely accessible allowing users to use, change, and improve the software. The customization and free code help with resource optimization and cost reduction. Open source also tends to have a strong community backing of developers who collaborate on the development process further increasing efficiency and reducing work time. Since organic open source software is not tied to any vendor, it tends to be distributed online without the inherently wasteful stages in software purchase such as marketing presentations, quotes, contracts, postage material etc. E-mail transmission of documentation is also generally the norm amounting to lesser paper wastage. Use of good document management software further reduces the use of hard copy manuals. There is a significant number open source developers who telecommute as coding is mostly done in isolation lending itself better to telecommuting options which is another big energy save. Also low resource open source software can typically run on recycled equipment and less glossy hardware unlike the costly demands of most proprietary software that does not perform well on commodity hardware. Another way that your facility can contribute to energy conservation is to adopt an efficient open source, online CRM software to organize, track and maintain customer relationships. Once you have a good web conferencing software in place, there is less need for travel and expensive meet-ups for trivial matters on the pretext of finishing business.

Of course not all open source software is completely free of expense even though it does not usually come with the hefty price tags of proprietary software. Some of the commercial open source software vendors require additional fees for customer support and development. Additionally you might have to invest in one or more software engineers to help you with customization depending on the needs and size of your organization. For help with greening your IT strategy, choosing the right open source software to boost your efficiency and achieve pain free opensource migration, contact us at GreenRackSystems; sales@GreenRackSystems.com.

Datacenters seem to be imitating the fashion world at least when it comes to certain recent computing trends. Thin clients, a throw back to main frame computers of yesteryears has reemerged as an emphatic shift away from a PC based network. Thin clients offer server based computing consisting of a display only device that only display applications run on dedicated servers. Such centralized computing comes in response to increasingly complicated evolution of desktops that require constant upgrades, reconfigurations, maintenance, manpower and higher costs. We are also faced with more and more compatibility issues as hardware and software become more multifaceted. On the other hand, these display only terminals require no hard drive, no local software and no storage devices. With the use of powerful servers and simple terminals involving just screen display, keyboard and mouse , we save on cabling and cooling requirements. Less hardware means less stress on landfills and less ecologically damaging wastes like lead, plastics, metals and electronics.As the client merely serves as an access device to the server, it needs only enough power to render the display, the maintenance is minimal with a much longer life span. No upgrades and replacements are necessary as new hardware and software are released. Since all the applications and data are in one place, it allows for easy sharing by just plug and play. Centralized information on server accounts for a more secure storage of data. Thin clients also require lower deployment costs as they can be remotely configured, do not need to be set up individually and need less management costs as compared to PCs. Last but certainly not the least thin clients are quite economical as compared to standard PCs.

It all sounds great on paper. But are thin clients suitable for your particular need? Though thin clients have come a long way since their bare bone days, some still lack advanced graphical interfaces that we take for granted these days and could have problems running MS windows compatible applications. To assess the design and network of thin clients necessary for the cause of your data center, it is always best to enlist the service of professional consulting organization like Green Rack Systems to help with the deployment. Our team will first try to understand the datacenter’s particular needs along with the needs of each thin client user. We will take an inventory of printers and peripherals to assess the amount of storage that will be needed and of applications currently running on desktops for efficient conversion. Our consultants would then help you arrive at an exact number of servers required to support the thin clients. Next we would help anticipate any potential network and server problems in the transfer and finally synchronize the system for successful completion of the process. It should be kept in mind that not all desktops might be suited for a thin client transfer. For an on-site assessment of your facility for a thin client initiation and other green IT solutions, please contact our sales team at 408-213-8144/ sales@GreenRackSystems.com