Lean & Green: How to Achieve Dramatic Environmental and Business Benefits

Taming the Data Center Colossus
department inflicts on the corporate budget certainly will. But a custom of corporate bookkeeping often blinds one When people think of global warming and department to the excesses of another: At many companies, environmental damage caused by inefficient the power bill is reflected on one budget; but the cost of power consumption, computing may not technology resides on another. "IT pros don't pay much instantly spring to mind as a culprit. The attention to power consumption when buying gear," states common public perception is that computing scientist Jon Koomey of Stanford University and the Lawrence
is a relatively "clean" industry; one that Berkeley National Laboratory. Without a comprehensive understanding of the problem, it's no surprise that the data uses comparatively little power to perform center juggernaut roars on.astounding feats of number crunching. As a polluter, the corporate data center is not The Server as Spoilera pervasive image, as are gridlocked SUVs How did we get ourselves into this crisis? The answer and smoggy skylines. We see no headlines is actually a consequence of vigorous business growth, or news programs decrying "server sprawl." progress and success: As computing demands skyrocket,
Because this data center cauldron of wasteful servers in data centers proliferate. And now, the equation is rapidly spinning out of control as environmental concerns heat and power consumption is hidden, the and cost-eficiency are overwhelmed by server sprawl. environmental threat has sneaked under the Excessive energy consumption from servers running hot radar of public attention. leads to high cooling costs, overuse of fossil fuels, pollution, depletion of natural resources and release of harmful CO2 as waste. For every kilowatt of energy consumed by a server, roughly another kilowatt must be expended to cool that The Naked Facts: Computing Consumes machine. By 2008, the power costs of a server are forecast In truth, the corporate data center is a behemoth power to exceed the cost of the server itself. consumer and a substantial contributor to global warming. For every dollar spent on hardware in a data center, another Small wonder that overall electricity used by servers doubled 50 cents is spent on the energy to power the system, between 2000 and 2005 (from 12 billion kilowatt hours according to recent estimates from IBM. Data center servers, to 23 billion), much of it generated by ancillary electrical air conditioning, and networking equipment sucked up 1.2 equipment, such as cooling fans and facility lighting, percent of U.S. power in 2005-the output of five major according to scientist Koomey. This adds up to a cumulative power plants. Not only that, the monster is growing: energy energy cost for servers and data centers in the U.S. of expenditures and requirements have actually doubled in the approximately $3.3 billion annually. This pain is borne not past five years. Industrial use is approximately one third of only by the earth and atmosphere, but by the shareholders energy consumed in the U.S. (Dept of Energy). At the present of companies spending their potential dividends on power rate, infrastructure and energy costs will exceed total it costs bills, cleanup and disposal of obsolete equipment. And by 2014. companies are now working against the inexorable equation that performance per watt doubles roughly every two years, Unfortunately, "green" has not yet become a top priority along with a corresponding shift in power density. That for company officers focused on sales figures, competitive means power density can now outstrip the data center's positioning, product development and other concerns. One cooling capacity before the limitation of floor space is would imagine that even if environmental issues don't get reached. Until science can develop and deploy a cheap the attention of companies, the financial drain that the IT power source that is safe and practical, the only option for
© 2008 BPM Forum. All rights reserved. 2Taming the Data Center Colossus
business is to become as lean and green as possible to halt on how that entity addresses environmental sustainability.the runaway server train before it can wreak its full havoc on The good news is that right now, businesses can lower the environment and the bottom line. their power usage and costs dramatically while increasing data center p... [download for more]