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Comments: 263 +-   Green buildings, Green Server Farms? on Monday May 16 2005, @12:34PM

Posted by timothy on Monday May 16 2005, @12:34PM
from the but-biogas-is-wind-energy dept.
power
it
technology
mstansberry writes "Has IT evolved to the point where it can consider energy efficiency without sacrificing uptime or performance? According to an interview with APC's Richard Sawyer, the answer is yes. The green buildings movement, spearheaded by the USGBC and other organizations has some people thinking about computing infrastructure's impact on the environment. Is it an IT issue or something from C-level executives?"
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  • But (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 16 2005, @12:36PM (#12545066)
    Last time I checked my computer was a box full of toxic chemicals

    • toxic chemicals.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by PopeAlien (164869) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:49PM (#12545232) Homepage Journal
      Last time I checked my computer was a box full of toxic chemicals

      Ah! but what color are these chemicals?

    • Re:But (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Politburo (640618) on Monday May 16 2005, @01:26PM (#12545667)
      Right, so because computers contain some toxic substances that are not emitted to the air or ground during normal use, that means we shouldn't attempt to mitigate the environmental impact computer use?

      +5, Insightful, but only if you're a simple-minded idiot.
      • that means we shouldn't attempt to mitigate the environmental impact computer use?

        The original point is more that the original production wastes of making a computer are so nasty that any contributions towards making the running of the thing more environmentally friendly has no practical effect on the balance. The manufacturing and refining processes are so nasty that a PC would have to OUTPUT free, clean energy for hundreds of years to come out even.
  • Considering my mac mini takes less power than just my AMD cpu, let alone not talking about the video card, etc... Im really wondering if the push for massive cpu power at the cost of extreme electrical usage is really worth it.

    Green everything should be a good thing, but what if the cost of green than reclamation and regeneration?

    • Re:Considering mac mini's take less power than cpu (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The mini reminds me of a friend who used an old 68k macintosh as a webserver. her desktop was plugged into mains power but the little web server only used 17w of power to run all day every day, and was on a solar power setup with battery backup. last time I heard from her it had gone down from lack of power only twice in a year.

      I bet if it wasnt a home built power system but a professional one with some better power management it could be used 24/7 too
      • How would one build something like that? Battery backup with integrated solar recharging looks like a fine project.

      • The mini reminds me of a friend who used an old 68k macintosh as a webserver. her desktop was plugged into mains power but the little web server only used 17w of power to run all day every day, and was on a solar power setup with battery backup. last time I heard from her it had gone down from lack of power only twice in a year.

        There's a hosting company that runs on solar power, Solar Host [solarhost.com].

        Falcon

  • Power is a big issue (Score:5, Insightful)

    by btempleton (149110) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:39PM (#12545112) Homepage
    Even without environmental questions. CPUs have been getting faster and faster per dollar you spend on them, but they haven not been getting faster the same way per _watt_ you put into them. And each watt put into them also costs power to cool them.

    This applies even in the home. Here in California, land of the 14 cent kwh, a 100 watt PC running 24/7 costs $120 per year in power. In a 3 year life the power is more expensive than the CPU or any other major component except perhaps the monitor, sometimes more expensive than the whole PC.

    This also plays big on ideas like getting an old computer and putting linux on it to act as a router or music player or other special functions. You are much better off buying a dedicated box like a WRT54G than making use of the "free" old hardware.

    And yes, this does have environmental issues, but you can see the problem right away just by looking at costs.
    • Okay, maybe me.

      However, these new |337 modded overclocked mega-boxes with a zillion fans, accelerator cards, lighting, speaker systems, external super-spinning hard drives and 300-watt power supplies use a tad more fuel than that.

      I'd guess that with a CRT monitor, you're looking at an annual cost of at least twice that for a standard-vanilla (non modded) desktop, and the mods go up from there.

      I agree with the post about using laptop parts, and if I'm correct, that's what some manufacturers are starting t

      • Re:Who still runs 100-watt computers? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Cecil (37810) on Monday May 16 2005, @02:59PM (#12546735) Homepage
        My computers can make even a 250-watt powersupply catch fire (Panic and terror ensued, but the system survived)

        They're all relatively green though, because I pay extra to my local utility to have them put enough power from wind farms onto the grid to power my home. It's a different solution perhaps, but everyone has different needs.

        And I know what some of you want to say, so let me pre-empt you: Yes I know that my computers are powered by minced bird guts (B.S.) and weather pattern destruction (prove it)! Ha ha ha! I don't care. It's better than coal or gas or oil, so bite me, ok? Until direct solar energy becomes feasable, it's among the best solutions we've got.

        • Overkill is still overkill (Score:5, Informative)

          by Mr Guy (547690) on Monday May 16 2005, @01:53PM (#12546032) Journal
          You must be out of touch if you think the vast majority of people use that much power all the time.

          PSU Needs Calculator [jscustompcs.com]

          Using this calculator, a sample system I just made up only needed 319 watts of peak power. To get that, I needed to be running the 3gig barton chip, 2 sticks of ram, 2 hard drives, a Radeon X800, sound, NIC, with 3 fans fullblast and 2 cathode tubes, and a dvd player. Keep in mind that's PEAK power required, which means all of that has to be going top speed to get there, which means something along the lines of running 3D mark while copying a dvd from one drive to the other while playing sound while downloading a file over the internet while having all your fans and lights cranked up.

          Hate to break it to you, bud, but just cause you have it doesn't mean you are using it.
        • You must be out of touch. A heavily modded computer can easily use 600 watts.

          But they don't need to (and in fact, often don't - That 600W power supply might only ever draw 200W, in many situations.

          For example, I recently upgraded my main machine to an Athlon 64 3000 (Winchester core). Measured at-the-plug (which even takes PS losses into consideration), it consumes a whopping 64W idle (how auspicious for an Athlon 64, eh?), or just under 100W with absolutely everything going (burning a DVD, CPU pegged
    • And let's not kid ourselves; it affords a good avenue of attack for the marketing department.

    • Re:Power is a big issue (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Shalda (560388) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:59PM (#12545352) Homepage Journal
      I think you've hit the issue right on the head. Your average data-center manager could not care less about whether his server farm is environmentally friendly or not. On the other hand, electricity is a major expense. A dozen racks of 1U servers pulling 100-200 watts each will probably run you upwards of $80k/year. And that doesn't even include the cost of cooling your server room (which will add another $20k or so). Server consolidations and energy efficient servers save money. And that will always be your driving force. If company A says they have a "green" server room, it's just marketing. Their first concern and only concern is the bottom line.

      On the other hand, I live in Minnesota, and 5 months of the year, we can use that server energy to heat the rest of the building. :)
          • storing heat for 5 months in a big tank of water would need tons of insulation.

            It depends on the size of the tank / house. Anyway, 4+ feet underground should provide plenty of insulation check out the permafrost layer up north to see how well that much ground insulates over a few months. I don't know how large a tank you would need for storage capacity but I would go for 10 -20 heat conductive pilings in the ground or water pumped though a pipe the ground as you don't need to use water in a tank for
    • I wonder if using a heat pump to cool servers would be more efficient than using fans and A/C.

      And using a geothermal heat pump is significantly more efficient than using an atmospheric heat pump. The former pumps heat to and from the 50 degree Farenheit ground while the latter tries to pump heat into the hot air during the summer and get heat out of the air during the winter.

      Server farms using these type of pumps would save significant amounts of money using the same equipment.

  • 8am, Day 1: STOP THE WASTE (Score:5, Insightful)

    by toby (759) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:40PM (#12545118) Homepage Journal
    Most server hardware is massively overspecified. 90% of websites could run on a 486 and nobody would notice a difference - assuming, of course, that you are running a sane, frugal (UNIX family) O/S.

    Make enormous energy savings simply by consolidating services...

    Stop buying new servers and extend the lifetime of older ones. (Account for the energy costs of manufacture as well as running costs.)

    • Re:8am, Day 1: STOP THE WASTE (Score:4, Funny)

      by Radix37 (670836) on Monday May 16 2005, @01:05PM (#12545426) Homepage
      90% of websites could run on a 486 and nobody would notice a difference

      Until Slashdot strikes...

    • Web hosting is a bad example (Score:5, Interesting)

      by leoc (4746) on Monday May 16 2005, @01:05PM (#12545432) Homepage
      Because they are already there. In fact I'd say 90% of all web sites out there are already running on less than the power of a 486 today. All 3 of my extremely low-volume web sites, for example, are not even running on real hardware. They are all virtually hosted along with hundreds of other sites on a single high power box. Web hosting companies operate on such a slim margin these days that they are the first to take advantage of any technology that saves energy.

  • My server farm... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bananatree3 (872975) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:40PM (#12545124)
    Would be racks and racks of laptops! No need to by expensive low-power servers, just pump money into high-end laptops that already run low on power. And the best thing is, I don't have to pay for APC's, as they all come with batteries!

    • Re:My server farm... (Score:4, Informative)

      by SuperBanana (662181) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:53PM (#12545274)
      And the best thing is, I don't have to pay for APC's, as they all come with batteries!

      They do, but my experience with laptops (particularly old laptops) has been that their battery capacity gauges don't like being left on A/C power for a couple of months; either the battery gets discharged, or the chip thinks the battery has no capacity left, and instead of going on battery power when the A/C shuts off.

      PS: they're Uninterruptable Power Supplies. Not "APCs". Those are Armored Personnel Carriers.

  • Interview? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperBanana (662181) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:41PM (#12545137)

    "Interview?" More like, "opportunity to mention APC's UPS efficiency and then yack about how important that is."

    Somewhere, APC's PR firm is quite pleased.

  • Virtualization is the answer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by gtrubetskoy (734033) * on Monday May 16 2005, @12:42PM (#12545145) Homepage

    We wrote about the environmental benefits of virtualization on our site [openhosting.com] a while back. I even started a little thread [merit.edu] on Nanog about any numbers on relationship of server utilization and the energy cost, but it looked like few people cared. To see how underutilized your Linux server is, do:

    # cat /proc/uptime
    1122029.25 1101982.75

    The first number is the system uptime in seconds, the second is the number of seconds it's been idle. The number above is from my laptop - 98% idle.

    Virtualization is also going to be the way hardware vendors will keep the server price up - suddenly very powerful servers will start making sense. The questions is - who will win - Xen, UML or Linux VServer. We're banking on VServer. :-)

    • I still have to wonder what the real point of virtualizing is. Yes, Microsoft pulled an amazing coup by convincing sysadmins that they should have a separate box for every tiny little service they wanted to run. But Microsoft got away with it because of the crappy design of Windows as a server OS. (i.e. You have to plan for complete system wipes and upgrades, security is such that one service could compromise another, and system software components are such that they happily interfere with each other.)

      Back in the land of all things sane (i.e. Unix style OSes), I see no reason why NOT to run a billion services on one machine. As long as you've got spare system resources, why shouldn't you make use of them? Why do I NEED the domain controller, file server, mail server, and ftp server to all be different machines? One big Unix box does the job better, and for a lower up front (and longterm!) cost than lots of tiny Windows boxes!

      Granted, there are still some issues that can't be overcome. But which really makes more sense, spending millions of dollars on tons of machines and an army of support staff, or spending a few hundred thousand on a couple of redundant machines and an admin or two to maintain them?
      • As someone else pointed out, you really need to investigate On Demand solutions. Sun Microsystems will sell you a system with way more processors and memory than you need for a VERY low cost, but most of the extra hardware will be disabled. When you're expecting high volume (or even if it should suddenly happen upon you) you can call Sun and rent the extra hardware in a pinch.

        This provides you with massive scalability, but without the nasty upfront cost. And if you outstrip the hardware you've been given,

  • "C-Level Executive"? (Score:3, Funny)

    by dstone (191334) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:43PM (#12545167) Homepage
    I thought I was filling out the cover pages on my TPS Reports properly, but I don't know what a "C-Level Executive" is. Do I have to meet with the Bobs to find out?

    • Re:"C-Level Executive"? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Quikah (14419) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:48PM (#12545220)
      CEO, CTO, CFO, etc.
    • C is for Chief, as in Chief Information Officer, Chief Executive Office, etc.

      In America, it also refers to the grade-point average they barely managed to maintain while drinking their way through college and bonding with their frat brothers' dads so they could get hired onto corporate management tracks at age 23 so they could schmooze their way up to officer-level positions by age 46 and make outrageous salaries "providing leadership" for the rest of us and offering cushy internships to their sons' margina

  • Why I want low power/low heat (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kainaw (676073) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:45PM (#12545177) Homepage Journal
    I want a low power/low heat computer because I want to be able to leave it on all the time. Every PC I've had has been both a computer and a space heater. It is hot enough. I want a computer without the space heater. It isn't that I care so much about global warming. I care about the warming in my own house and all the wasted electricity I have to pay for (both in the PC and my extra AC use). The problem is that it is hard to find a low heat PC. I would like to take the motherboard I have out of the case and drop in a low-heat one. But, all I can find are extremely overpriced complete systems with the obligatory Windows pre-install.
    • Get a slightly older spec Laptop. Specifically designed to be low power.

      PowerPC is lower power than Intel which is lower power than AMD. Transmeta if you can find one. StrongARM is also low power.

    • Low-power shopping list (Score:5, Informative)

      by Brian Stretch (5304) * on Monday May 16 2005, @01:02PM (#12545395) Homepage
      1) Seasonic S12 series high-efficiency power supply. It makes a VERY noticible difference.
      2) Athlon 64 CPU (preferably the new Venice or San Diego core) and Socket 939 motherboard. Enable PowerNOW! power management (current Linux distros like FC3 support it automagically, some BIOSes don't enable it by default). The CPU runs at 800MHz at 1.1V core while idle, jumping to full speed as needed (just like a notebook). Even at full speed power consumption is about half that of an Intel P4 blast furnace. Run 64-bit Linux and get even more work done per watt.
      3) Avoid high-wattage video cards like the GeForce 6800 series in favor of 6600GT's. MASSIVE power consumption difference. Depending on how hard-core a gamer you are, the 6600GT's are good enough and a lot cheaper.

      See Newegg, etc for the parts.

    • Re:Why I want low power/low heat (Score:4, Informative)

      by sffubs (561863) on Monday May 16 2005, @01:06PM (#12545451)
      If you're more worried about heat than speed, something using a VIA Epia [mini-itx.com] board would do the trick.
    • As was hinted at above (WRT54G), I cannot recommend enough getting a hackable appliance running an embedded linux.

      Check out the Linksys [linksys.com] NSLU2 [slashdot.org] NAS device. It has a couple USB ports, a Netword adapter, a 266MHz ARM processor, 32MB RAM and an active community [nslu2-linux.org] porting apps to it.

      A website running on this obviusly couldn't stand up to a slashdotting, but it will work for a personal site and does a good job of streaming media around the house (aside from its primary function as a Samba server)

      The thing

    • I want a low power/low heat computer because I want to be able to leave it on all the time.

      How about something like a Mac Mini, some sort of system with adaptive processor usage and an active cooling fan system? Having a good hardware sleep mode helps, too, unless you're actually running a server or something that needs to be up 24/7... my home computer spends most of it's time 'asleep', but is ready to use pretty damn quickly. I don't reboot short of a system upgrade...

      LCD monitors are probably the best

  • It only really just mentions cost and green. I could say to someone "data centers have huge electrical bills and you can save a lot of money by using energy efficient equipment". That's basically what the article says.

    What about specific solutions? Even just general principles? Where would someone look to get help in reducing energy costs? What about alternative energy supplies? Are they reliable enough? Enough power density?

    I would have liked an article with a lot more information.

  • Can you get by with... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tenebrious1 (530949) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:50PM (#12545237) Homepage
    That drives initiatives like consolidation. If you have 10,000 servers that are only 20% utilized, can't you get by with 2,000? The answer is probably no. But you might be able to get by with 4,000 and cut your cost in half on the equipment side. And then you start to look at not only the capital investment, but also the expense investment.

    What kind of wacky PHB approves the purchase of 10,000 servers when he only needs 4000? And more importantly, is he hiring?

  • Load balancing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Colin Smith (2679) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:51PM (#12545251)
    Save money, don't buy more machines, balance the performance more evenly. Condor, Sun Grid Engine etc.

  • Server power consumption is way too big (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Animats (122034) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:53PM (#12545267) Homepage
    Server software technology keeps getting worse, as .NET, J2EE, Perl, PHP, Flash etc. are deployed for pages that could just as well be static. How many barrels of oil per day go into "ad personalization"?

  • c-level for those that don't know (Score:3, Informative)

    by asoap (740625) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:54PM (#12545287)
    I had to look it up:

    C-level
    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

    c-level is an adjective used in a variety of industries to refer "chief" or highest-level executives. The term arises from an urge to group together the alphabet soup of acronyms (CEO, CFO, COO etc.) found in the upper echelons of the corporate world.

  • Is it an IT issue or something from C-level executives?

    It seems like it's an issue that has relevance to both, since executives can likely benefit over the long haul (tax incentives to go green, the PR value, lower power expendatures, etc.), while IT people will be intimately involved in any implementation of green measures that relate to computing.

  • Move the servers (Score:4, Interesting)

    by G4from128k (686170) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:58PM (#12545348)
    For many applications, the location of the server is not that important. Servers could be relocated to a cooler climate (avoiding the overhead of air-conditioning) or to an area of lower-cost electricity (e.g., Norway has aluminum smelters that take advantage of low-cost hydropower). At the very least, the server could be collocated at a nearby power plant to reduce transmission losses. One could also look into cogeneration -- using the heat of the server to warm water that is then used for another industrial process.

  • Green Web Hosting Services (Score:4, Informative)

    by Guano_Jim (157555) on Monday May 16 2005, @01:05PM (#12545429)
    If you're not interested in running your own alternative-energy IT setup, you can always outsource it:

    Solar Hosting [solarhost.com] uses renewables (i.e. solar, hence the name) to power all their web servers.

    Looks like they offer a complete solution package, from web design to hosting.

  • Building Architecture (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Norm@Home (99305) on Monday May 16 2005, @01:27PM (#12545685)
    During the good years (gone but not forgotten), I worked in several large office buildings.. Six, eight and ten stories, none of which could be considered new and I can tell you the people who designed them had no idea what the PC computer revolution would bring. With anywhere from fifty to two-hundred PC's to a floor the buildings air conditioning system in each case was totally incapable of handing the kind of heat thrown off by that many PC's. In one building (in the warmer months) they had to have someone in at 5am to crank the air conditioning as low as it would go (the air conditioning system was centrally programed to shut off at night, nothing we could do about it), then as the day went on it would go from 60 degrees with all machines off to just under a 100 by the end of the day.

    On my last move from one building to another I was thinking how buildings now should have some kind of special exhaust conduits built into the floor with exhaust ducts on the PC's like a gas dryer. That way the buildings air conditioning system wouldn't have to deal with all that, and in the winter time you could use that heat to help warm the building.

  • Here's a question... closer to home... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by lpangelrob2 (721920) on Monday May 16 2005, @01:51PM (#12546014) Journal
    Would you be willing to be willing to save energy by turning off your computers when you're not at work/home? Would you do it to forego being on the top of this list [berkeley.edu]? Or is finding aliens / folding proteins more important than saving energy?

    Actually, to take the planks out of my own eye first, I probably ought to shut down the PC at 5:00p myself. (I'm at work) :-) The Macs at home (should) automatically go to sleep, though they haven't lately...

    • Re:It's the software vendors' fault (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jakel2k (736582) on Monday May 16 2005, @12:49PM (#12545230)
      Umm... this is only with MS products. Most OSS software can be complied and ran on a 486. MS however adds a lot of overhead on top of what a server needs. A standard web server that is current would require at least 500MHz processor with 256Mb RAM and almost 2Gb of HDD space, (if memory recalls correctly.) Installing the newest debian, BSD, Gentoo or Slack without X, (since this is optional on these systems and a requirment for Windows,) could run on a 486, 32Mb RAM, (more is better,) and about 300Mb of HDD space.

      Of course you can install an older version of Windows to save on hardware requirements but you end up sacrificing security updates. Why do that?

    • 30% efficient? Your numbers are hugely off. That might have been true waaaaaaay back in the day before switching power supplies, but it's not now. If that were true, a power supply delivering 300 watts to the computer would have to pull a kilowatt from the wall, and two computers would be enough to trip a 15-amp circuit that is so prevalent in newer construction, three computers would be much more than enough to trip a 20-amp circuit.

      At normal load, most power supplies are around or above 70% effic
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