Data Center Managers Weary of Whittling Cooling Costs 198
Nerval's Lobster writes that a survey from the Uptime Institute "suggests something it calls 'green fatigue' is setting in when it comes to making data centers greener. 'Green fatigue' is exactly as it sounds: managers are getting tired of the increasingly difficult race to chop their PUE, or Power Usage Effectiveness. The PUE is a measure of a data center's efficiency. The lower the PUE, the better — and Microsoft and Google, with nearly limitless resources, have set the bar so high (or low, depending on your perspective) that it's making less-capitalized firms frustrated. Just a few years ago, the Uptime Institute estimated that the average PUE of a data center was around 2.4, which meant for every dollar of electricity to power a data center, $1.4 dollars were spent to cool it. That dropped to 1.8 recently, an improvement to be sure. But then you have companies such as Google and Microsoft building data centers next to rivers for cheap hydroelectric power in remote parts of the Pacific Northwest and reporting insanely low PUEs (below 1.1 in some cases). The Institute latest survey of data center operators shows only 50 percent of respondents in North America said they considered energy efficiency to be very important to their companies, down from 52 percent last year and 58 percent in 2011."
Don't use HVAC? (Score:4, Insightful)
I like the way Facebook say they don't use HVAC... yet their entire BUILDING is a huge HVAC unit!
Efficiency of scale works nicely with HVAC, if you can afford to get the building made to your specs.
on what scale is this issue? (Score:5, Insightful)
For instance, I suspect we waste more energy moving tap water in plastic bottles between cities.
Re:Doesn't really matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, electricity is one of the major costs of running a large data center - the amortized cost of a single server is probably only a few hundred bucks a year over its lifetime. The energy to operate it is typically a comparable amount, and the energy for cooling is even greater.
Now I wouldn't expect anyone to upgrade their cooling efficiency on a regular basis, but it's foolish not to consider both operating and cooling efficiency during a major upgrade - you may end up paying a larger sticker price, but it can lower your amortized costs significantly.
Re:Doesn't really matter (Score:5, Insightful)
In 2009 the EPA estimated that if historical trends for datacentre expansion continue (that is PUE remains steady as datacentres continue to be built) then USA datacentre power usage would consume 120 billion kWh/year. To put that into perspective a typical house uses about 12000 kWh/year. So datacentre usage was projected to be the equivalent of 10 million US households. Best case scenario currently puts this closer to 5 million US households.
That's just serving up data. Now add the insane amounts of network switching gear to allow data to get to the end users and then add the computing power of the end users themselves and you end up with a significant environmental footprint.
All this based just on environmental savings too. Don't forget energy costs money so by improving cooling efficiency there's significant opportunity for high ROI in the long run. Being energy inefficient these days is an express ticket to Chapter 11, especially for companies like Facebook and Twitter who had trouble monetising their services to being with. Many of these companies have a really large book value but very poor cashflows.
Re:Don't use HVAC? (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon just hires local surfs to peddle bicycles that power belt-driven fans. When a surf drops, they simply hustle them out and replace them with another. Communities are so glad to have such a huge employer, they look the other way...
Wouldn't those workers be replaced by labor cost saving robots?
Re:Fuck those companies (Score:5, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal [wikipedia.org]
Riiiiight.
Re:Fuck those companies (Score:2, Insightful)
They are not "only humans"! They are *Americans*! And *that* explains their fucked-up mindset of instead of *stopping destroying the planet*, getting jaded. Fuck that! Go fuck yourselves! Nobody cares how "jaded" you are! Reality check: YOU. ARE. ACTIVELY. MURDERING. AN. ENTIRE. PLANET! NOBODY cares if you like being yelled at and stopped at doing that! It's our existence on the line! And in that case, you can bet your ass that we'll end yours before you end ours! (And in the end, nature always wins. We're just not interested in going extinct *with* you.)
How fuckin' hard is that for you to get in your thick retarded ignorant delusional American skulls, you fucktards??
I realize talking shit about America is just so cool on /. Especially by anonymous little bitches like you. But why don't you take that electricity powered computer that is filled with toxic crap and use if for something useful if you are so concerned with "murdering an entire planet" instead of posting crap on /.? If you can't do that, then I would suggest you think of the environment and shove it up your ass and go live in a fucking cave.
It seems to me that most of the people I see bitching about the USA(who are not from there) tend to be from a country that was formerly a major power compared to the rest of the world. And after you and your countrymen got finished fucking up some large region you collapsed in on yourselves. Leaving someone else to un-fuck what you did. For the last half a century or so that has been the US. While we have done some colossally stupid things, I'm not sure there has been a more benevolent leading nation. Yes you can bitch about atomic bombs and wars all you want. But considering the capacity for destruction the US has, it has remained more restrained than most if not all before it. What do you think would happen if North Korea or Iran had the arsenal the US does? What if the Germans or Italians had in it in the 30's or 40's? Or the Ottoman empire?
I'm so happy that you come from such a peace loving enlightened country. And that you are such an enlightened individual. Oh wait, you're not. You just threatened my country with genocide. What have you and your countrymen done for the world? I'd seriously like to know what country you even come from. For all the stupid shit we americans do, have you ever looked at the amount of financial aid we give to countries that have absolutely no strategic value? Or the amount of food we give away, or the number of paid and volunteer americans who go to help other countries? As much as I hate war and violent conflict, I'm also not stupid enough to sit idol if my home is attacked. Fortunately with the current arsenal if you feel the need to "end our existence" I'm sure as a last resort we'll be plenty happy to turn your home into a shiny new glass parking lot.