US Data Centers Wary of Sharing Energy Data With Feds 101
1sockchuck writes "The EPA has been seeking at least 100 data center operators willing to share data about their energy usage to help the government develop an Energy Star program for data centers. Thus far, only 54 data centers have signed up, which suggests that few data center operators are eager to tell the government exactly how much energy they are using. The EPA issued a report to Congress last year on data center power usage, and is already developing an Energy Star program to rate servers. Can a program designed to rank the energy efficiency of appliances and computer monitors be a useful tool in addressing the enormous energy consumption of data centers?"
!evil, just no trust (Score:2, Interesting)
Few? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Few? (Score:5, Interesting)
Transportation energy use is the key (Score:3, Interesting)
But it is a completely different story when it comes to the energy consumed in transportation. There is no viable alternative to gasoline for cars, diesel for trucks and kerosene for the airplanes in the near future. Nothing. And all the crude oil we import goes to transportation.
The politicians are clueless dumb idiots who go through the motions of doing something, on the crazy logic, "we must do something, it is something so we are doing it".
Re:Few? (Score:4, Interesting)
Total = Sum of the Parts (Score:3, Interesting)
The total energy used in a data center is just the sum of the energy used in the various component parts. The components include the various boxes of electronics, the power supplies, the lighting, and the cooling.
Every data center operator is intensely interested in power consumption. The power and cooling cost real, serious money. Any reduction in that cost goes straight to the bottom line. And, we have finite power and cooling for the building, so if/when the needs of the various boxes exceed those limits, we have to do expensive and disruptive upgrades.
If every component part (computer, network switch, ups, monitor, etc.) were labeled with its power and cooling requirements, data center operators would use that information to select equipment that costs less to operate. In the life cycle of a piece of equipment, the electricity to operate it is a big part of the cost. When we go to buy new equipment, we usually have to choose from among several different units that could fit the purpose. The numbers that determine the operating cost absolutely would be used during that selection process.
A publicity campaign, like "Energy Star" could help us to paint the business "Green". But the numbers are what we really need to make rational business decisions.
Goverment intrusion? Spyware? (Score:2, Interesting)
Ignored like a credit card application (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, that would be nice (Score:4, Interesting)
In any case, our data center is part of a larger facility and while it's easy to report on overall power use for the facility, it's mixed in with so much else that it's hard to get a good estimate for power use by the data center alone. As we found out the hard way, the UPS wasn't adequate for downtimes longer than 15 minutes. We've since made a big push to improve the UPS and reduce the number of physical servers in the data center (switching to virtual whenever possible).
Re:Might not have anything to share (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's Your Chance (Score:3, Interesting)
OK /.ers, how would YOU categorize or classify data centers to provide a little more sanity|classification|taxonomy to this generic study? For example:
Transaction Processing Center
High Performance Computing Center
Corporate Support Data Center
Web Host or ISP Data Center
Search Engine Data Center
Have at it.
Re:Transportation energy use is the key (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a long term strategy.
Re:Few? (Score:3, Interesting)
After filing his taxes for the year, the IRS popped an audit and claimed he didn't claim all his income because for a laundromat of his size with X machines, water usage of Y amount would equal Z in sales. They have this down to a science. I guess courts use this sort of information to calculate income from coin operated machines and such too in divorce cases and other lawsuits.
Anyways, I think the hesitation might be the government saying you used X electricity, you had to of made Y in sales. It would make sense from a perspective I don't think many people are aware of. The guy I know had to get something from the City stating that they used the line with permission of the facility owner in order to get out of the trouble of paying extra taxes. It could also be like you suggested and it is just too much of a hassle. But this story popped into my mind as soon as I read the summery.
Re:Whose Really Republican? (Score:3, Interesting)
Much of the legislation you mention was either inevitable, the work of their predecessors, or had little to no impact.
That said, even though I don't particularly like Bush at all, he has had a small number of bright moments. His most recent Veto of the $288 billion farm bill was absolutely the right thing to do, even though republicans and democrats alike overwhelmingly overrode the veto to let their pork-barrel projects go forward.