EPA Sends Data Center Power Study to Congress

BDPrime writes "We've all been hearing ad nauseum about power and cooling issues in the data center. Now the EPA has issued a final report to Congress detailing the problem and what might be done to fix it. Most likely what will happen is the EPA will add servers and data centers into its Energy Star program. If you don't feel like reading the entire 133-page report, the 14-page executive summary is a little easier to get through."

Summery

[Average_Joe_Sixpack (534373)]

If you don't feel like reading the entire 133-page report, the 14-page executive summary is a little easier to get through.

Still too long. Can anyone reduce it to a single phrase or word? Thanks in advance

Great scott!

[Bacon Bits (926911)]

Snipped from page 5:

These forecasts indicate that unless energy efficiency is improved beyond current trends, the federal government's electricity cost for servers and data centers could be nearly $740 million annually by 2011, with a peak load of approximately 1.2 GW.

Re:Great scott!

[nharmon (97591)]

That amount of power can be easily generated with one DeLorean. I'm going back to sleep...

Re:Great scott!

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr. (142215)]

$740 million? That's like 4.2 days of the Iraq war!
($177M/day for Iraq http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nat ion/president/2004-08-26-iraq-war-clock_x.htm [usatoday.com]

That sounds like a big number, and is for most of us, but not for the Federal government. About 29 cents more in taxes off each paycheck (assuming 100 M taxpayers, and paychecks every 2 weeks).

There are much bigger fish to fry.

Also, there is only so much one can cut the energy use, and thus that cost down, and still get the business of the government done. And the improvements in efficiency will require hardware, software, and personnel which have their own costs. Eventually you will hit a point where there is no longer a return on investment to make it worthwhile.

Mandatory Madonna reference

[Ancient_Hacker (751168)]

Having any Govt investigate efficiency is about as practical as the Madonna Commission On Chastity and Modesty. Computers are doing just fine at reducing their power consumption by many percent a year without the govt's "help".

Re:Mandatory Madonna reference

[Nezer (92629)]

Having any Govt investigate efficiency is about as practical as the Madonna Commission On Chastity and Modesty.

Which Madonna?

wow

[thatskinnyguy (1129515)]

n 2006, U.S. data centers consumed an estimated 61 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy, which accounted for about 1.5% of the total electricity consumed in the U.S. that year.

Is that it? Seems like small potatoes to me.

Re:wow

[jandrese (485)]

1.5% of the total electricity used in the US per year is a huge number. It's like when politicians talk about something really expensive and they say "oh, it's only 1% of our GDP" to make it sound not so bad, except to people who know just how enormous the GDP of this country is.

More importantly, this could probably be reduced considerably without major disruptions or reduction in quality of service by just embracing higher efficiency components in our datacenter equipment (especially servers).

Re:wow

[Bacon Bits (926911)]

It's an estimated 11,000,000 servers in everything from 2 server closets to thousand server enterprise centers. These 11 million systems consume more power than all the TV sets in the US combined, and there are more TV sets in the US today than people.

Or lets do it this way. Hoover Dam at peak output produces 2 Gigawatts of power per hour. 11 million servers consume 61 billion KW hours annually. It takes Hoover Dam 30,000 hours (about 3.5 years) to produce that much power. So you need four Hoover Dams just to power all the data centers in the US.

Re:

[miller60 (554835)]

Actually, dams are serving as magnets for data center development, since hydro power is cheaper than other sources and provides the public relations advantage of being "greener" than coal or nuke power. That's why more than 2 million square feet of data center space [datacenterknowledge.com] is being planned in and around Quincy, Washington, a farm town of 5,000. Meanwhile, in northern NY state, HSBC is locating a $1 billion data center project [datacenterknowledge.com] in Cambria (another farm town of 5,000), where it will use hydro power from the Niagara r

Units -arghhhh!

[IvyKing (732111)]

Or lets do it this way. Hoover Dam at peak output produces 2 Gigawatts of power per hour.

What you meant to say is "Hoover Dam at peak output produces 2 Gigawatts." What does make more sense is saying 48 million KWH per day or a bit over 17 billion KWH per year - assuming that there is enough water behind the dam to allow for continuous peak output, which is certainly not the case this year.

cogeneration

[MonorailCat (1104823)]

Move all the data centers to Minnesota or Canada and use them to heat people's houses.

Or better yet! DatacenterBurgerKing with CPU-broiled whoppers.

Re:cogeneration

[misleb (129952)]

Ya know, I always wondered why most places weren't more efficient about the cooling of their datacenters... particularly in the winter. Like it'll be 20 degrees F outside and they're STILL running A/C for the computers. WTF? Just vent a small amount of the outside air into the datacenter and you're done. Or better yet, just blow in the air from the offices and send them warm, data center heated air.

Another question, why do we vent the exhaust from our refrigerators into the house during the summer? Just seems like there's a lot you could do to save energy just by moving what would outerwise be waste heat to places where it can either be used or at least not cause a larger cooling problem.

Guessing

[iknownuttin (1099999)]

Like it'll be 20 degrees F outside and they're STILL running A/C for the computers.

Climate controlled. There's this element among building planners that think any outside air is bad(TM). That's why, even in small buildings where you don't have to worry about pressure differentials blowing windows out like you do in skyscrapers, you can't open a frick'n window in the Fall or Spring when the air smells wonderful and there's this perfect chill in the air the just stimulates the brain.

I'm drenched in sweat here in Hotlanta (it's 82F and 66% humidity and climbing to 94) and I really miss New England's Spring and Fall.

Re:

[hcdejong (561314)]

Humidity, pollution and other things as well as physical access must be controlled.

Pollution is easily taken care of with a filter. Controlling physical access is trivial. Humidity may be a bit more involved, but then again, you're heating the incoming air which reduces its relative humidity. Condensation isn't likely. If it does turn out to be a problem, use a heat exchanger and preheat the incoming air using the exhaust air.

But it is not terribly practicle to plug the plenum passages once a year.

So? Inst

great news for Sun

[toby (759)]

...whose servers are among [sun.com] the most power-efficient [sun.com] available, and even more so with Niagara 2. [sun.com]

Disclaimer: I own a tiny bit of Sun stock. (But I bought it because I believe in them, not vice versa!)

Simple Solution

[evilviper (135110)]

I've long been dumbfounded by the way datacenters charge. They seemingly all charge a hell of a lot for physical space, and then almost completely ignore power requirements. This seems incredibly strange, since datacenter operating costs are pretty much tied directly to power consumption (monthly electricity fees, UPSes, electrical generators, cooling, etc.), and only incidentally to physical space.

Further, the cost to handle each extra watt is multiplied thanks to cooling, power back-up, wiring, etc., while increasing the physical size of the building, constructing more datacenters, etc. is just a flat (linear) cost, and mostly just a one-time expenditure at that.

This strange arrangement is what has led us here. It's not the natural evolution of technology to cram as much power consumption into as tiny a box as possible. It's an artificial need, created by the idiotic distribution of fees common to datacenters.

If a few large datacenters declared their fees as a small $$$ value for each unit of space, and additionally a few dollars, per watt of power consumption, you'd see the problem naturally fix itself, through normal economic forces. As soon as watts are the defining factor, companies won't pay more for a cramped 1U server rather than an (inexpensive) 2U or 3U server. You will also see companies happy to pay more for lower-powered server hardware, as having them directly bear the energy cost will make buying efficient servers a significant savings to them.

Re:Simple Solution

[fm6 (162816)]

If a few large datacenters declared their fees as a small $$ value for each unit of space, and additionally a few dollars, per watt of power consumption, you'd see the problem naturally fix itself, through normal economic forces

How on earth do you track individual power consumption? Putting a meter on each system is hardly practical. I suppose you get away with one on each rack, but many customers (the vast majority in the one data center I worked in) don't rent whole racks.

Re:Simple Solution

[Nezer (92629)]

It probably would cost to much to bother reporting on...

Because when you run a multi-million dollar data center, you clearly can't afford install a few-hundred dollar device in each customer's rack especially if it's a major part of how you bill your customer.

Look, the power companies do exactly what the parent poster suggests. Imagine if power companies charged a flat rate each month based on the square footage of your house. There would no incentive (unless your a save-the-planet hippie type which isn't a bad thing) to turn up the setting on the air conditioner (or turn it off all together), keep incandescent lights running 24/7 along with the giant plasma TV. This is essentially how data centers operate today. There is no motivation to have energy efficient servers unless you're the one that owns the data center and pays the power bill. Today the best a data center owner can do is invest in more efficient cooling systems and that's about it.

Congress will act

[MobyDisk (75490)]

No doubt our congress will act swiftly by moving daylight savings time to conserve power.

Virtualization?

[tji (74570)]

I just grabbed the executive summary version, and didn't see any mention of virtualization..

To me, this seems like one of the more important aspects of power efficiency. Individual server efficiency is important, but the gains from higher utilization could be even more significant. Adding another core to a hypervisor will always be more efficient than adding a new system (CPU, Power Supply, disks, video, etc..). The energy efficient hardware can also be applied to the hypervisor hosts. Build efficient servers, and use as few of them as practical.

Many data centers are already greatly decreasing their server count using virtualization. This should be part of any data center energy efficiency discussion.

Re:

[necro81 (917438)]

Table ES-1 in the executive summary suggests server consolidation at various levels (moderate, aggressive, etc.). Server consolidation can be done in a number of ways, with virtualization being one of the most effective and popular.

Federal Guidelines for Clock Speed Limits

[infonography (566403)]

55 Mhz that's the law, exceed it and your looking at a speeding ticket.

Re:Grampa Simpson:

[Apocalypse111 (597674)]

I have two buttons on my screen. One of these buttons will supply humorous moderations to your post. The other will release the hounds.

Plead your case.

Re:

[TooMuchToDo (882796)]

Mr Apocalypse, I ask you to look into your heart....

*runs from the hounds*