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.
