The Green Data Center

Greening Up your Data Center from the Inside Out.

Part 1 and 2 of this series dealt with server consolidation and access to green energy as ways to help reduce your company’s carbon footprint.  This article gives you front-line knowledge about Data Center energy efficiency changes that really work and don’t require large capital investment.

Every DC is different, so we’ll focus on general things that should work no matter how your DC is configured.  One of the best places to start is getting a LEED assessment of your building(s).  The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings. This assessment will provide you with a baseline report with current and potential scores based on criteria like whether your air conditioning has an economizer mode.

The bank where I worked had an assessment done for our DCs and it identified several quick and inexpensive changes:

The bank LEED assessment also provided numerous changes we could perform with medium to high cost investment. The payback on those investments should be measured broadly across your company’s triple bottom line.

Learn more about LEED, and about BREEAM in the EU.

Here are some of the other efficiency ideas that came out of our LEED assessment and other Green-Storming sessions:

*Cost range is defined as such: Low is <$50k, Med is $50k to $200k, and High is >$200k
*Time range is defined as such: Short is <60 days, Med is 60 to 180 days, and High is >180 days
*ROI range is defined as such: Low is <1.0, Med is 1.0 to 3.0, and High is >3.0
**Recommendations all aim at improving efficiency with potential LEED point gains between 2 to 7.
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Next time: “Encouraging Invention and Innovation Globally.”

Part 1 of this series discussed server consolidation as a way to help reduce your company’s carbon footprint.  This article examines the role green electricity plays in your Data Center site selection.

Electricity is the most important energy resource your Data Center (DC) will need for operations.  At the company where I helped lead Green IT efforts, one of our typical DCs consumed $650,000 of electricity each year (more than 13 million kilowatts) and, like every DC; we needed a reliable source because you never want to be running off your uninterruptable power supplies (UPS) or diesel generators very long. Add in your goal to minimize greenhouse gas emissions and you begin to understand the challenge that finding the right location can pose.  

There are many choices for green electricity generation: Wind, solar, biomass and geothermal. However, hydro-electricity is, hands down, your best current option. Of all the renewably-generated electricity in the U.S., 71% of it is hydroelectric. According to the Renewables 2007 Global Status Report, (produced in collaboration with the Worldwatch Institute and REN21), Hydro makes up fully 15% of all electricity generation globally and is the clear leader in cost at 3-4 U.S. cents/kilowatt-hour.

Finding a data center site that offers access to hydroelectric is not as difficult as it might seem.  An article on the website ExpansionManagement.com reveals, “Microsoft evaluated communities around the world against 31 criteria important for locating a data center and Quincy (in central Washington) ranked at the top, said Michael Manos, senior director of the company’s data center operations.” 

Google, Ask.com, AT&T and several other companies have also chosen this area because, in addition to low risk of natural disaster and access to multiple Internet fiber trunks, central Washington is close to five hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River offering virtually unlimited, inexpensive and green electricity. Hydro does have some drawbacks (dams can cause ecological damage to fish, wildlife, land and even humans – who are affected when upstream land is flooded), but recent innovations in hydroelectric are enabling generation without dams.

As computer and Internet usage continues to rise worldwide, companies will build more data centers and consume more electricity.  By keeping renewably-generated electricity as part of your new site criteria, we can all help to minimize the potential global warming effects of this growth.

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Next time: “Greening Up your Data Center from the Inside Out.”

When most IT managers think of DC efficiency, they jump right to the topics making the most headlines, “Strategic hot and cold server rows, high efficiency power supplies, LEED certification analysis and building retrofits, etc.” Yes, I’ll cover those things in some detail in Part 3, but one of the most effective and least costly ways to cut your total electricity usage (and therefore your company’s carbon footprint) is to reduce the overall number of servers you’re using and especially strive to phase out older model servers.

In a report published by David Greenhill, Distinguished Engineer at Sun Microsystems, (Space Watts and Power), he indicates that older model servers can consume 45 times the energy of newer models. In his case study the 1997 server used 13,456 watts / hr. compared to only 300 watts / hr. for the 2005 server. But even 300 watts/hr. (0.3 Kw/hr.) add up quickly when you realize you’re typically running it 7/24/365. In fact, each 300 w server uses about 2600 Kw per year. Then you factor in the hundreds or even thousands of servers most large organizations are using and the air conditioning, UPS, lighting, etc. to house them, and you can start to see why less is definitely more.

There are plenty of other reasons for consolidating your servers too including (reduced software licensing fees, reduced maintenance costs, reduced leased space and possibly even reductions in total staff to watch over the servers.) So, the next step is figuring out How to Best Consolidate your servers.

Server Consolidation 101

• Identify and work with your key IT professionals to build a project team and plan. Select from each of the following critical areas: IT Infrastructure, Servers and Hardware, Project Management, Business Solution Managers (BSMs – point people who represent the customer), Software development, Database engineering and support, IT Architects, QA, mainframe, etc.
• Have this team build a picture of the current state: How many total servers, where are they located (country/state or province/city/building/floor), what customer groups are using which servers, what applications are on each servers, how much disk space is being used, what % of CPU utilization is being used (average and peak), etc.
• Have your IT Architects, Database, Software, BSMs and mainframe team members research to figure out which applications and databases can share the same server (not all applications are sophisticated enough to share CPU, etc.) From the list of those that cannot, work through the BSMs with your customers to see if any applications can be phased out or upgraded to enable a shared server environment.
• From the list of those applications that can live on a shared server, work with the BSMs and Project Management to initiate migration projects. (Each application and database will have its own Service Level Agreement – SLA that defines its maintenance window, etc.) and you will need to carefully coordinate with all business customers to ensure “business critical” apps are not negatively impacted during the migration.
• From your list of server utilization statistics, have your team determine the best candidate boxes to be the new primary host and backup (fail over) servers, and which boxes will be phased out (end of life’d – EOL, and hopefully recycled back to the manufacturer. See Cradle-to-Cradle. Or reused through donatation to charity organizations.)
• Decide what two physical locations will become your primary and backup data centers (more on chosing ideal DC locations in Part 2 of this series.)
• Then communicate your project plan, goals and projected benefits to all stakeholders and start implementing!
• Don’t forget to include your QA team in each step along the way and especially when verifying sytems and applications post-migration.

At the large financial institution where I participated in this type of migration, we reduced nearly 50% of our servers, saved $tens of millions off our budget and dramatically reduced our electricity and carbon footprint.

If you’re interested in learning more, please be sure to read Part 2 and 3 of this series and referencing some of the other valuable resources out there on this topic: The Green Grid, WEEE, and RoHS. Contact the author at: ToddRawlings.com.

During my tenure at the bank we were using nearly 70,000 PCs and laptops, tens of thousands of servers, cell phones, BlackBerry PDA’s, etc., had four data centers (later merging them down to two) as well as technology in each of our branches (about 2100 of them nationwide). As you can imagine, our electricity usage alone was huge and we knew we could gain some important budget savings and have a positive impact on the environment if we just started thinking and acting more GREEN.

Our CEO brought up the idea of starting a Green initiative within the bank and the CIO (my boss) jumped at the chance to lead this. The first thing she did was reach-out to her Senior VPs to try and recruit people in Technology who would actually run the program. I was trying to climb the corporate ladder and just about to enter Bainbridge Graduate Institute’s Sustainable MBA program. I knew taking a leadership role in this Green Tech program would enable me to have a more immediate positive impact. I could think of no better way to act locally than to help my own company become more sustainable . . . so I volunteered to get the Green Ideas and Green Technology Program started. Now I’m going to share our lessons learned so you can get your own program started faster and with more success!

The Nine ‘Green Ideas Program’ Success Keys:

1. Support from the company’s executive level: As I explained earlier, my bank’s program had support from the CEO and the program was being led by the CIO; you’ll want to gain this kind of support too if you want your Green program to have any chance of longevity. Without “C-level” or Executive Committee support, you risk having the effort de-prioritized without warning. There is nothing more demoralizing for the leaders involved and the general employee population.

2. A budget and a process to allocate funds for green investment: One of the biggest lessons we learned is that many green ideas (especially those related to technology) require an upfront investment. In our case we were limited to only implementing ideas that paid back on their investment in that calendar year, or required no investment whatsoever (besides perhaps some internal labor). Obviously this was not ideal because some of our best ideas (with the greatest benefit to the environment) were not implemented due to initial cost. It may not be feasible to “pre-estimate” exactly how much budget you’ll need . . . every company will be different; but it is important to lay that groundwork, gain early support for “a budget” and then, when you go back to the Executive Committee for approval later they won’t be surprised.

3. A strategy to phase-in employee involvement: The more people involved immediately the better right? Well, not exactly. Broadcasting to all employees that you’re starting a Green Initiative and you want each of them to share their ideas is like dropping a lighted match into a pool of gasoline . . . BOOM . . . a huge burst of energy, thousands of ideas from everyone, hundreds of duplicates; overwhelm because you can’t track all of them; followed by general disillusionment when everyone’s idea isn’t selected and immediately implemented and finally general employee disinterest because you’re too overwhelmed to communicate about progress, implementation takes much longer than you anticipated, and people think the program has died. The lessons learned here are numerous (and I’ll admit – it is a tricky and a difficult balancing act); but generally you want to:

a. Identify what areas you think you’ll want to focus on first (e.g., laptops, network, monitors, data centers, servers, etc.) and then what groups within your IT division could most affect change.

b. Start with a smaller group – we did this by first building out an advisory council of about 10 subject matter experts (SMEs) who had the ability to take action in their particular departments (their respective SVPs granted that authority).

c. Recruit carefully within the ranks. Follow the chain of command so each SVP, department and group leader is sold on the concept, buys-in and agrees to support it by donating a person and part of their time. If you try and recruit by going around a manager you’ll end up with leaders who feel “slighted” and could try and sabotage the program.

d. Design and test your “Idea Intake” process with the advisory council. Even your first ten people will likely generate 50 or more ideas in one brainstorming session.

e. Answer the questions: How will you capture all the ideas? (We developed our own Microsoft Office SharePoint Site). How will you prioritize (what are the criteria for prioritization)? Who will help the idea author determine the cost/benefit, best solution, implementation timing, SVP sponsor, etc.? (Also, consider running a second pilot by announcing and collecting ideas from just one division.)

f. You want to have this entire process figured out, tested and ready before you open the flood-gates with an All-Employee announcement.

4. Weed out duplicate ideas: As you sort through your idea list, be sure to identify duplicate items – keep the version that was submitted earliest. Enhance the description of that early idea if later versions describe it better, and be sure to notify each idea author of the duplicate situation . . . letting them know which idea you plan to move forward with (so they can track progress and “share a sense of ownership” of the idea.)

5. Prioritize the ideas: Use the criteria you developed in the pilot(s) to prioritize the ideas. (We prioritized them based on a combination of scores across: CO2 savings, $$ budget reductions, and investment cost . . . but use whatever combo is best for your company.) Be sure to share how you are prioritizing with everyone so they feel it is fair.

6. Show momentum with some quick early “wins”: Your Executive Committee will be anxious to hear about your progress. Be sure to have some early successes in your pocket or you risk losing their support.

7. Provide frequent, but meaningful communications: The employees will also want to hear about the program’s success and progress; but it’s important not to flood them with emails. (We handled this by producing bi-weekly Intranet articles that gave updates on specific Green ideas and project status. Links in the article enabled readers to drill in deeper for more detail or visit the idea submission and tracking site. We avoided using email to the general population because they were already getting too many of them.)

8. Keep the new ideas flowing: Demonstrate that you are indeed acting on ideas, making implementation progress and getting results. Recognition for the best ideas is another way to keep interest high. At the bank, we selected the top-three ideas each quarter and awarded the authors and implementation teams with prizes.

9. Trumpet the major successes to your customers: Be sure to share your best Green success stories with your external customers too – so they know what you’re doing.

Following these key lessons learned will help you avoid many of the early mistakes we made and should give your company’s new Green Ideas Program a fighting chance to make a real difference in the world!

Next time . . . I’ll start sharing some of the bank’s more successful green technology ideas and how we implemented them.