Green data center threat level: Not green
IBM rolls out measuring tape, and researchers see red
Data centers are rampaging energy hogs. If you haven't been thoroughly beaten over the head with that fact already — you'll have to give us a tour of the underside of your rock some time. We're sure it's lovely.
No doubt there's big money to be sluiced from data center electricity woes. And just about every tech company is eager to sluice. All in the name of our Mother Earth, of course.
IBM this week at its Partner Leadership Conference announced the strengthening of some energy-efficiency programs to capitalize on the power glut.
Jim Stallings, general manager of IBM's Enterprise Systems Division, said at the event that data centers "are out of power, out of space and out of skills."
We'll just ignore the "skills" crack for now, and describe what IBM is doing.
The theme is better measurement and benchmarking. And first off, Big Blue is upgrading its power management suite, IBM Systems Director Active Energy Manager (AEM).
AEM keeps track of how much power is being frittered away in a data center and allows users to set caps on energy use for servers, storage, networking and cooling. The upgrade includes receiving alerts and events from Liebert SiteScan regarding issues such as overheating and low battery power on interrupt-resistant power supplies. Integration with other third-party vendor products is planned.
IBM is also expanding to an additional 27 counties its program that lets companies earn and trade certificates awarded for verified energy savings. The program began last year with a scant seven counties being eligible.
Credits are now available in (deep breath): The US, UK, Canada, France, Ireland, Mexico, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal, Luxembourg, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, India, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, Philippines and Japan.
Next page: Data centers are so power-hungry.
COMMENTS
Power Requirements
If the industrial west would get its collective finger out and establish the solar power sat network with microwave downlink that people-in-the-know have been saying we should do for thirty five years, we could drop the price of leccy to fractions of a penny a kilowatt, make it as clean as it is probably ever going to be possible to get it and finally get us off needing oil for power generation.
All that sunshine just being wasted. All that bloody rigamarole with "Carbon Credits".
Gordon Bennet!
Third world nation power cuts are no joke
You can ration by the market or ration by government action.
In India they monkey around with the power so much that around 10% of our electric bill is in diesel which we burn in the automobile sized generator in our parking lot.
If they would simply raise the electric rate (and compliance level) until they had Californian levels of service (just as an example of another blackout prone area), perhaps the farmers wouldn't be pumping the aquifers dry.
Given that India and China are pressed for food now, while they have aquifers to empty, just imagine the fun they'll have a few decades from now when they don't.
If you save $750 a month per rack
Theoretically you can save 3X this amount as for a large data centre, about a third of the total energy bill goes to the servers. The rest is used on power distribution, power and cooling the DC.
Less requirement at the server = less infrastructure cooling needs.
Mines the thermally insulated one for as I like to keep my DC cold.
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