What happens downstream?: Scott Mattoon's blog

This question was the underlying theme of many sessions at the 2007 Uptime Institute's Design Charette, which I attended this week.  But it's the wrong question.  As I wrote in a follow up to the EPA Energy Star report on data center efficiency the bigger question is:  How can IT create value, in the broader economy, that replaces other less efficient modes of commerce and interaction?  In that context, any goal to reduce data center energy use is probably unattainable.

Data center energy consumption is projected to be 2.5% of total U.S. electricity demand by 2011, and it's tracking to double every 5 years.   Should IT managers be focused on driving that ratio and rate down?   That's another wrong question.

My design charette team was focused on Data Center Management & Metrics.  Green Grid contributor Ken Uhlman from Eaton was on the team.  He  posits:  "Managers get things done right.  Leaders get the right things done."  Accepting that axiom, it becomes clear that efficiency potential can only be maximized if we have both managers and leaders focus on the challenge.  Data Center managers need to reduce the marginal energy use per unit of work executed in the data center.  Leaders need to find ways to deliver economic value over the network that are more efficient than current business and social practices.

For instance, how much energy can be saved by services like those offered by MillionsOfUs.com?  Every "test drive" of an automobile in these virtual worlds uses some amount of electricity and causes a puff of CO2 to be emitted from a power plant, but the watts/joules/calories and GHG emissions involved are infinitesimal compared to that of a trip in the combustion powered vehicle down to dealer row to try out cars.

Clearly, IT driven efficiency has been at work for a long time.  Over the last 40 years, global economic productivity gains have been driven largely by IT, and much of this gain has arguably resulted in a net reduction in energy use (modulo the indirect demand for energy driven by IT).  But how much?  And what is the size of the opportunity ahead to do even more?   Studying these effects was a clear call to action in the EPA Energy Star report, but no such action appears to be underway.

While it is critical for managers to get a handle on efficiency within the data center envelope - and the potential here is huge - real leadership in energy efficiency will come in the form of value creation over the network that displaces less efficient value creation.

The U.S. EPA Energy Star Program released a report on server and data center efficiency(PDF) this month.  The study was in response to Public Law 109–431(PDF), which required EPA to analyze "the rapid growth and energy consumption of computer data centers by the Federal Government and private enterprise".   The Law goes on to say, "It is the sense of Congress that it is in the best interest of the U.S. for purchasers of computer servers to give high priority to energy efficiency as a factor in determining best value and performance for purchases of computer servers."

The increased federal attention to server efficiency is good news for Sun, particularly in light of the recently announced UltraSPARC T2 processor, a.k.a. Niagra 2, which, at two watts per thread, will clobber the competition in most commercial SWaP comparisons.

Where it comes to energy demand, the EPA report keeps the big picture in focus, citing that IT is not only part of the problem, but also part of the solution:

"The data processing and communication services provided by data centers can also lead to indirect reductions in energy use in the broader economy, which can exceed the incremental data center energy expenditures in some cases. For instance, e-commerce and telecommuting can reduce both freight and passenger transportation energy use."

The authors recommend quantifying this indirect reduction through IT services in future research.  This is a largely untapped source of energy conservation for which a range of alternatives exist.  For example, using technology such as the 4 watt SunRay thin client, businesses could shift employee desktop computing tasks to run on optimally efficient servers in the data center, rather than the mostly idle 200+ watt computer at every desk scenario that dominates corporate work environments.  Companies could also employ work at home programs like Sun's Open Work, and make much greater use of video conferencing and web meeting software.  These conservation efforts inevitably increase energy demand in data centers, but clearly offset much larger energy demand by providing reasonable alternatives to some very energy intensive practices that dominate business culture today.

Seperate from any empirical consideration of such indirect energy reductions, the report estimates that by 2011 U.S. businesses could shave off $4.1B in data center electricity costs annually just by following best practice outlined in the report.   Considering that total U.S. data center electricity costs in 2006 were $4.5B, that's a lot of efficiency gain by 2011.

Interestingly, the $4.1B potential data center savings is mirrored by the potential savings determined by a Harris Interactive poll commissioned by Sun, for conservation in the office by workers.  The results of the poll, released August 1, indicate that energy-conscious behaviors of U.S. office workers can save $4.3B in energy costs per year.  With a flip of two switches (lights off, computer off,) workers can make a huge collective difference, equivalent to taking 6.1M cars' CO2 emissions out of the atmosphere.

So we're looking at potential savings of $8.4B, just by doing what we already know how to do, with no compromise to services or productivity.  Add in whatever additional energy can be saved by replacing energy intensive business practices with services over the network and you've got a really good economic case for aggressively pursuing energy efficiency in the data center and the workplace.

 Further reading:

• EPA’s Enterprise Server and Data Center Energy Efficiency Initiatives Web site

Only a day after the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency is “expressly authorized” under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases, the agency has reopened California's petition for a waiver from the EPA's guideline which had precluded regulation of gases not deemed to be air pollutants, such as CO₂.  A waiver would allow California to regulate tail pipe emissions and clear the way for 13 other petitioning states to do the same.

But the waiver may not be necessary if the EPA, in exercising its new authority, determines that GHG's should be regulated at the federal level.   This is an outcome sought by automakers because it's their only hope of getting weaker regulation than that proposed by California.   While the ruling did not explicitly direct the EPA to regulate GHG's, it requires the agency to give a scientific basis for not doing so.

The high court in a separate but related ruling gave authority to the EPA to regulate emissions from factories and power plants.  This is good news not only for Earth but also for Sun (I couldn't resist) because energy producers will more aggressively seek reductions in demand for electricity.  I expect we'll see more programs like PG&E's rebate for Sun's CoolThreads servers.