Green buildings, Green Server Farms? 263
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?"
Considering mac mini's take less power than cpus (Score:5, Interesting)
Green everything should be a good thing, but what if the cost of green than reclamation and regeneration?
Virtualization is the answer (Score:5, Interesting)
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. :-)
Why I want low power/low heat (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Considering mac mini's take less power than cpu (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Load balancing (Score:3, Interesting)
Who still runs 100-watt computers? (Score:3, Interesting)
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 to do. They're a bit more expensive, but far more energy efficient.
Move the servers (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Power is a big issue (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Web hosting is a bad example (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why I want low power/low heat (Score:3, Interesting)
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 draws next to no power and could easliy replace many of the space heaters wasting power in the average geek's basement.
solar (Score:2, Interesting)
Its funny that this topic appeared on /. today - I've been considering changing my computers to make them more energy efficient.
My electric bill has been increasing, thanks to having an ever increasing number of servers and workstations chugging away whilst I do development work on them.
I've also moved from Windows to Linux devlopment, and have been shocked at just how good Linux is... good as in how little it needs in terms of hardware:
The joke is that the Linux machines are far more responsive than the Windows machine (and how little space the OS and applications occupy - how I hate bloat). Sure, compiling seems slower, but when running code, they just fly.
So, by moving to Linux I don't need high-powered machines, which means the costs are much lower (both capital and running. Being a bit of a geek, I'm probably going to throw the PSU out of the Linux machine and replace it with a DC-DC converter fed by a solar-panel... so my computer running costs will be effectively free... and the capital outlay for the solar panels and DC-DC is rather modest (thing 100s not 1000s of Euros).
.Now, if more people switched to Linux, they could use less hardware hungry machines, which need less power (and could easily run from solar).
Bit torrent (Score:1, Interesting)
Power is a big issue-Thermal Sink. (Score:1, Interesting)
There use to be an alternative energy technique were heat was stored in a thermal tank. During the summer, instead of piping the heat to the outside (air conditioning). It was piped to the tank. When winter hit, the heat was pulled out, lowering the temperture in the tank. So when summer hit, the cycle reversed, and in a way you were pulling cold from the tank.
Re:8am, Day 1: STOP THE WASTE (Score:2, Interesting)
That's why many sites are virtually hosted on a single, more powerful box. It is usually much cheaper to simply buy a newer, more powerful box than to pay the maintenance costs associated with an older server that your vendor may no longer support.
I Couldn't Agree more, But... (Score:1, Interesting)
The guy who is their webmaster isn't much of a webmaster, but at least he's got a library sciences degree (this is another problem in many settings: elitism based on credentials). This guy can only drag and drop files using Windows shares from his PC to the web server. Most of what he does is double click on set up programs that install prepackaged, specialized, web applications for libraries. He excels at public relations and takes most of the credit for the work of his staff.
I think that you will find this is common to many environments. Unless there is a way where the admins and webmasters can just double click their way through life, low powered boxes running some Unix variant are going to be impossible to sell. Add to that the fact that many fields are being attacked by companies offereing substandard products that get sold to PHBs as panaceas and you have a no-win situation. The crap software is expected to solve every problem, but brings with it at least 100 times more problems than it solves. However, since the sales and packaging are so slick, it doesn't matter to the PHBs. They have no idea what's really happening in the IT departments.
Re:Considering mac mini's take less power than cpu (Score:5, Interesting)
Building Architecture (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Green Web Hosting Services (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Power is a big issue (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Who still runs 100-watt computers? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Who still runs 100-watt computers? (Score:3, Interesting)
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 playing a modern FPS fullscreen). Combined with a flat panel peaking at 19W, and my average still doesn't equal the draw of a single P4 Prescott core in isolation. And, in six months, I can do a drop-in replacement with a dual-core Athlon 64, with almost no increase in power consumption. On the Intel side, though a lot more pricey and with a bit less horsepower, the Pentium M has a power consumption profile that even puts the 90nm Athlon 64s to shame.
And that, I believe, sums up the intent of the parent article nicely... I have a machine that, for almost any use, really kicks some serious butt, without making the lights dim. Could I go for a dual-core P4, with dual SLI 6800 cards? Sure. Do I need an IDLE draw of over 400W, in exchange for a few more FPS? I think not.
Oh, and as a nice side effect of not drawing all that much power, I only need two fans in the case, a 900RPM 120mm in the power supply, and a 1500RPM 90mm on the CPU. It makes almost no noise, and I've never seen the CPU go above 50C.
Re:Power is a big issue (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Virtualization is the answer (Score:3, Interesting)
This provides you with massive scalability, but without the nasty upfront cost. And if you outstrip the hardware you've been given, Sun can send a guy out to plug in another motherboard (4 processors + memory) while your server is still running!