Designing Radically Efficient and Profitable Data Centers
by Rocky Mountain Institute on 08. 7.08
Do you ever wonder what keeps our e-mail servers, search engines, and Web applications like Facebook and Flickr running?
Data centers around the world are responsible for storing and processing the "petabytes" of information that power modern computing.
But what's supporting data centers?
Vast amounts of power.
In 2000, data centers comprised 0.8 percent of total US electrical consumption. By 2005, despite a 7 percent growth in electricity production, data centers' power consumption grew to 1.4 percent of the total, the equivalent of seven medium-sized (750 MW) power plants. By 2010, according to the Energy Information Administration, that amount is expected to reach 2.3 percent.
The IT industry has proven that the pace of technology development can be stunning. Moore's Law predicted that the amount of transistors per square inch on circuits would double every 24 months. Instead, it has doubled every 18 months.
This explosion in power density does not come without costs, though, and is causing increased temperatures inside and around the chips.
Increased cooling needs together with increasing IT demand are driving the growth in energy consumption. Meanwhile, climate concerns are mounting and prices of electricity are rising fast. Companies that run datacenters everywhere are feeling the crunch on their bottom line.
Competing during these changing market conditions formed the focus of a recent gathering of U.S. experts at the Next Generation Data Center Conference in San Francisco.
There, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) energy analysts Sam Newman and Bryan Palmentier showed how designing radically efficient data centers can keep the industry in the black for years to come.
From past and current client experience, RMI has found that the same computing services can be provided with 95 to 99 percent less power than standard practice. And these gains are achievable with off-the-shelf technology.
According to RMI's research, average data centers are hugely energy inefficient. For every 100 watts these data centers consume, only 2.5 watts result in useful computing (see graph below). The rest of the power is wasted on low server utilization and inefficiencies in the server power supply, fans and hardware that cool servers, UPS (uninterrupted power supply), lighting, and central cooling.
Datacenters can achieve radical power savings by increasing the productivity of technologies closest to the end-use. This avoids all upstream inefficiencies as well. In the case of data centers this means focusing on IT loads -- by turning off unused servers, purchasing more efficient models, or running multiple applications on one machine.
Once IT loads are addressed, upstream equipment can be downsized as well. For instance, smaller IT loads require smaller cooling systems.
These are only a few examples of the possibilities whole-systems design presents. A host of organizations from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab to the Uptime Institute to the Alliance to Save Energy have compiled their own strategies to cut datacenter energy use.
Though most of us may never see these developments when logging into our e-mail or updating our profiles, many of our favorite online services depend on these kinds of breakthroughs.
But in an industry that prides itself on innovation, creative solutions are no doubt at hand.
Image Credits:: Andres Rodriguez (servers), EPA 2007 (energy use graph), Jeff Kandyba and RMI (energy flow chart).
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One thing DCs and manufacturers can do is come up with a new power standard. Each and every one of those servers comes with it's own, inefficient, power supply. Many have two for redundancy.
Those could be eliminated by providing 5/12v DC lines directly to the servers.
Next, servers should be able to throttle down and go into low-power "rest" modes when they're not being used.
Easy cross-server virtualization services would also help, but most companies are pricing their software such that it costs as much, or more, than another server.
Unfortunately, each company has to design its systems to support PEAK loads, not average ones.
Ok, I work in the industry, so have to comment...
Datacenters running on DC power? How is this going to save anything? Do you realize the power losses at such low voltages at 5 and 12 VDC? There would have to be massive - and I mean MASSIVE copper lines to supply the amperage needed for a datacenter if it were run in DC at current voltages of 5 and 12v
Some routers run DC. But our main routers take FOUR 80amp, -48V feeds.
The industry has clearly been opening it's eyes. When a 5MW datacenter costs you $250K per month JUST FOR POWER - the powers to be easily focus on efficient design. The concept of "hot aisle/cold aisle" are being taken to the extreme, with full shields between the two aisles to ensure the most efficient cooling possible (no mixing of hot and cold air). Server manufacturers - atleast ones worth their weight - are installing efficient power supplies. All the big companies (Yahoo, Google, Microsoft) are marching down the virtualization route, because they have finally realized that even at peak times, their average server load is less than 20%.
I have been watching this and seeing it coming for years. Things are indeed changing very fast. IBM has been testing better, non-silicon insulators for more energy efficient transistors. They're well down that path now. The amount of efficiency gains for the tech industry will definitely be massive over the next 5+ years. I see it every day at work. This issue is in the forefront of every datacenter designer and operator's mind.
Not sure if it is an appropriate question.
Can the data centers be placed in cold places like say Canda, Alaska ( I know the power issues in alaska). They could save atleast 20-25% of the total power consumed.
Why is the word petabyte in quotes? It is as much as normal word as megabyte or gigawatt.
AISO.net
Its more dramatic. I'm more for putting Exabytes in quotes as Petabytes are so common.
Our main data-center is getting near EOL so it would be interesting if they take some of these efficiency recommendations to heed. I find it unlikely as most individual project and vendors have their own way of saving resources which often doesn't fit in with the data center.
"But in an industry that prides itself on innovation, creative solutions are no doubt at hand."
Innovations such as Google's RE
Also, servers could have liquid cooling systems built in that just need hooked up to a supply and return line. This could, in turn, be connected to the building's HVAC system to provide heat to other parts of the building during the cooler months, or connected to a pipe buried in the ground under the building to naturally cool the processors.
Part of the problem is that there aren't, to my knowledge, servers built as data-center-only systems. They're designed for racks, but those racks could be anywhere, so you have to include fans for cooling and power supplies. Perhaps this is a market niche that could be filled.
Update
Seems this guy ADC got 25-30% efficiency majority factor is using outside air as part of cooling mechanism.
(although URL has 1978, its not news of 1978 :) )
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1978/66/
I'm also in the industry, and virtualization is being used right now in data centers to consolidate physical servers and save on energy costs for server power as well as for cooling. Although not all servers are good candidates for virtualization, a majority of them are.
Have you guys heard about The Green Grid?
http://www.thegreengrid.org/about/mission/
DC in the datacenter offers limited advantage, particularly considering the cost of conversion. There are better ways, including virtualization, more efficient power sources and precision cooling alternatives. The Green Grid is a consortium of IT organizations whose charter is to promote the development and usage of lower energy techniques in the data center. Check them out.