Energy Savers

With the rapid rise of power and cooling costs in the data center now a top concern across the IT industry, bringing together key IT players and competitors alike to address the problems around data center power management has become a critical issue. But don’t panic: help is at hand.

Founded in February of 2007, the Green Grid is a collaborative group of IT vendors and end-users formed with the goal of collectively helping to find new ways to measure and reduce power consumption. The group aims to improve data center efficiency by defining meaningful, user-centric models and metrics; developing standards, measurement methods, processes and new technologies to improve performance against those defined metrics; and promoting the adoption of energy efficient standards, processes, measurements and technologies.

The Green Grid’s primary objective is to create a common language in order to define, measure and develop metrics and best practices around efficiency in the data center that can be employed industry-wide. Through education and the establishment of measurement standards, the group hopes to set a new precedent in the efforts around improving data center power efficiency. “Ultimately, we knew at the outset that in order to solve the issues our customers are facing regarding overall data center energy efficiency concerns, we needed to step back and look at the bigger picture,” says Dell’s Rick Shuckle, Director of the Green Grid. “When we looked at the holistic picture of the data center and its information service groups – silicon vendors, hardware vendors, power and cooling vendors, end-users, etc. – we realized we all needed to communicate better, understand the scope of the problem and then make sure our technology and equipment had the capabilities to address this challenge.”

Shuckle believes the definition of meaningful metrics is key to promoting energy efficiency for data centers. “Today we all have various metrics and models, but we ultimately need to speak the same language and have the same targets,” he says. “We can then develop standards, measurement methods, processes and technologies to help improve performance against those defined metrics. Getting those standards, processes, measurements and any new technologies adopted is the real goal and mission for the Green Grid.”

Finding common ground

Bruce Shaw, fellow Green Grid Director and head of Server and Workstation Marketing at AMD, agrees that establishing some common ground rules for approaching the issue is the only place to start – and offers significant advantages in terms of enhancing the business computing infrastructure. “The biggest advantage to the entire organization and to the high-tech community as a whole is the ability to save power while being able to do more computing,” he points out. “Being able to set the terms of the language is a crucial first step in that discussion. Once the language is set, we can then, as an industry, focus on the holistic effort as opposed to looking at various standalone pieces. If you are unable to look at it as an entire ecosystem, two problems suddenly arise. One is you fail against the ultimate measurement, which is how much power you pull from your local power station. The other is that you may end up doing things that, while you think they are helping, may actually be making the situation worse.”

He cites the simple example of a company that installed an air conditioning system to cool its data center. “After a few months of minimal improvement, they installed a second one to provide additional cooling. However, once they took a look at the holistic system, they saw that the second air conditioner was really just cooling the first one, which was simply pulling the air in the wrong direction across the data center floor and creating a convection current. It’s a valuable lesson: if you’re not able to measure and look at the data center as a whole, you may have greatly increased the amount of power you’re using and created more problems, layering one on top of the other. We want to save energy, we want to make a common language that everyone can work to, and we want to drive innovation into the industry – but ultimately, we want to help people make smart choices,” he says.

In this regard, raising awareness of the issues is essential and Shuckle maintains that anything his organization can do to encourage vendors and users to take action to tackle such issues themselves is a step in the right direction. “One of the things we did initially when we started this long-term effort to develop new technologies and specifications was to identify a number of areas that you could call low-hanging fruit – the best practices in the data center that people could easily follow today, but that only some of the more knowledgeable folks knew about,” he explains. “So what we’re doing right now is pulling together the right folks to identify these new directions and really address the need for energy efficiency. The next question is how to move forward as an industry and make the transition to future technologies and products so customers can understand how to best take advantage of them as they become available.”

Indeed, one of the things the Green Grid is most proud of is the fact that it has been able to get a range of companies, many of which compete with each other in the cutthroat high-tech sector, to collaborate in reducing power consumption. “The mere fact that you have the kind of companies that have founded The Green Grid come together in the first place is an achievement in itself,” says Shaw. “If you look at the roster of names – AMD, APC, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems and VMware, to name a few – many of them work together but many of them are also fierce business competitors. So having a body of equals that can come together, start a dialogue and form these technical workgroups is unlike anything that’s happened in the industry before. Clearly it’s recognition of the magnitude of the problem, and a recognition that it transcends any one company’s ability to solve it. It’s is going to require an industry effort to even begin to address the problem.”

Widening the net

To this end, the consortium has opened its doors to power utilities and end-user companies in an attempt to gather as much input as possible. Back in August, PG&E became the first utility to join the Green Grid, and will now include Green Grid efficiency standards to expand its industry-leading financial incentive programs for customers who purchase premium efficiency servers, data storage devices, routers and other computing equipment. “We’ve developed an industry-leading portfolio of high-tech energy efficiency programs and services for our customers, and learning what constitutes premium efficiency for computing equipment will help us expand our offerings,” explains Brad Whitcomb, Vice President of Customer Products and Services for PG&E. “We want to provide our customers with information and incentives for the most energy efficient high-tech equipment on the market.”

PG&E’s existing server incentive programs applies to replacement projects where the utility can measure and calculate energy savings from the removal of old, inefficient servers and replacement of them with fewer and more energy efficient ones. Data centers can use up to one hundred times the energy per square foot of typical office space, so the energy efficiency opportunities are significant. The Green Grid standards will allow PG&E to expand its incentive program offerings to include new purchases of premium efficiency servers and other computing equipment.

Undoubtedly, the utility is a powerful addition to the Green Grid ranks. “PG&E brings a highly-valued perspective,” says Don Tilton, another Green Grid Director. “The utility’s leadership and experience in developing innovative high-tech energy efficiency programs will enhance our efforts to improve overall data center efficiency. As more utilities join, we expect to collaborate on standardizing demand response and energy efficiency incentive and rebate programs across the industry to accelerate the adoption of technologies that support this goal.”

A leader in energy efficiency for over 30 years, PG&E’s programs have saved customers nearly $10 billion and prevented approximately 125 million tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere to date. Going forward, PG&E is doing even more. Between 2006 and 2008, the utility is spearheading nearly $1 billion in enhanced energy-efficiency programs, which will avoid the need for more than 600 megawatts of new generation – or roughly the amount of electricity produced at a large power plant. In February, PG&E announced that it is leading the formation of a nationwide coalition of utilities to discuss and coordinate energy efficiency programs for the high-tech sector, focusing on data centers. The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA), TXU Electric Delivery, Austin Energy, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and NSTAR all signed on to the coalition, and since that time several additional utilities have asked to take part in the coalition, including two utilities in Canada.

“Our customers and the industry are asking us to expand our programs, and to promote them to other utilities,” says Mark Bramfitt, Principal Program Manager for the high-tech sector at PG&E. “Having industry-accepted measurement protocols will form the basis of new programs, and we hope to complement the Green Grid’s efforts with our knowledge and experience.”

Information sharing holds the key

Shaw, for one, is certainly encouraged by the fact that so many people and companies are collaborating to address the issue. “While there’s certainly a lot of work to be done, the fact that you see companies that are such fierce competitors coming together to work on this problem is unprecedented in terms of its impact and scope,” he reiterates. “I think the industry as a whole has responded incredibly quickly with positive speed and energy to address this. This isn’t something that has been mandated by any one company; it’s a collaborative effort and that speaks volumes.”

This also suggests that multiple technology standards could emerge in the future, but this is an issue that Shaw and the other consortium members are preparing themselves for. “One of the great challenges that’s faced by the industry is there won’t be a one-size-fits-all solution for data centers or for enterprise customers,” he says. “It’s going to vary and that is what is driving this notion of shared best practices. There are potentially multiple existing standards and technologies out there as well as ones that haven’t been invented yet.” He suggests that finding the right solution will come down to being smart about the way companies look at the problem given the resources they have, in order to proceed in the most efficient manner possible. Shuckle agrees. “Our goal is not to endorse any particular technology, but rather to allow customers to understand better how that technology fits into their environment.”

It seems the high-tech industry is falling over itself to further the environmental cause, but the Green Grid is well aware that the job has only just begun. “There’s always room for improvement,” says Shuckle. “The real change comes when customers start asking for these types of things, and I think the message has been pretty clear across the industry that this has been a growing concern in the customer base. The growing use of computing resources is also a big part of the issue; it’s become a much bigger challenge as the appetite for computing power has gone up immensely in the last couple years.”

With the rate of information consumption likely to increase even further in the next few years, the movement towards energy efficient data centers couldn’t have come at a more critical time. “I think the last five years have seen a tremendous evolution,” concludes Shaw. “If you look at the amount of computing power that’s out there, I don’t think those trends will change. I don’t think any of us see the desire for information or the online delivery of multimedia content decreasing, and certainly companies will continue to invest in information technology as both a profit center and a competitive advantage, so we see the need and the problem only becoming more significant. Over the coming years, the Green Grid will provide a framework upon which to build as well as a data collection point to indicate where we’re heading. That’s our aim.”

Empowering the industry

PG&E currently offers a comprehensive portfolio of programs and service offerings for the high-tech sector, including financial incentives for the following:

Virtualization projects:
Incentives to customers who undertake IT virtualization projects in data centers that result in the removal of computing equipment

MAID systems:
Incentives for massive array of idle disks (MAID) systems that store rarely-used data to hard disks that are normally turned off, helping customers realize 75 percent or more in energy savings compared to typical systems

Energy efficient servers:
Incentives for customers who replace old, inefficient servers with new energy efficient ones

HVAC upgrades:
Incentives for projects that effectively reduce the amount of energy needed to cool data centers

80 PLUS power supplies:
$5 incentive per unit to manufacturers who integrate power supplies with a minimum efficiency of 80 percent or more into desktop computers and servers

LCD monitors:
$10 incentive per unit to manufacturers of energy efficient monitors

‘Sleep-mode’ software:
$15 incentive per computer for enterprise customers who purchase software that allows computers to ‘snooze’ when not in use

Establishing standards

The Green Grid has taken a methodical approach to establishing industry standards, as Rick Shuckle explains.

We’ve set up a technical committee and broken it down into four different working groups, each concentrating on its own piece of the problem. The first group is focusing on data collection and analysis, and we’re going to work with the member companies to collect and aggregate all the useful data that we can get on data center characteristics and performance that’s out there.

The second group is a data center technology and strategy working group, and they’re investigating and providing guidance on existing and emerging technologies that help address data center energy efficiency. This can be anything from different ways to run utilities to different types of IT equipment – so for example, if you’re looking at a certain type of data center, it might make sense that you look at ‘x’ technology; if you’re running a different type of data center, your best bet might be to look at ‘y’ type technologies.

The third group is a data center operations group. If you look at data center and computing requirements, they vary all the time. So how do we set up these use-models and identify the sort of operating scenarios that happen on a day-to-day basis? For example, the compute power out of your data center might not be the same during the day as it is during the night. So how do you get to that use-model and then how do you improve the efficiency on a day-to-day basis?

The fourth working group is based around this concept of metrics and measurements. They’re concentrating on identifying the right way to measure a data center and how to develop the right performance characteristics of everything that goes into a data center so that we can properly measure ourselves and see how well we’re doing. The first step in any closed loop process is to figure out how to measure yourself so you that can make improvements over time.