Is it worth it? Thats the question Stephen Bowe Phipps, data centre manager of the University of Hertfordshire asked recently after accumulating and reviewing a years worth of energy data from the renewly refurbished RARE-IDC Data Centre, well you can see what Steve had to say on Steve's blog post.
But to my mind it speaks for itself, after a refurb costing about £400,000 the facilty now boasts a PUE of sub 1.3 (from it has to be said the upper 3.xx) is using substantially less energy and therefore carbon and the project has raised capacity.
So, implementing the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centre best practices will save you money.
We can offer advice and identify products that will assist you in making your data centre more energy efficient, push us and we may be able to help you become IT efficient too.
Full congratulations to Steve and his team at the University of Hertfordshire, if you can get nearly £200k of savings from a 75sqM data centre, imagine what you coud do with an enterprise class data centre.
Go on, you know you want to, get in touch with us soon to start your energy savings and green IT journey.
Monday, 16 April 2012
Friday, 30 March 2012
PUE = 1
Well, next week I'm off to the 451 HCTS summit at the Russell Hotel in London followed by an Concurrent Thinking event on the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres. This has set me thinking this week about the real future for data centres. Many consultants in the field will talk about energy efficiency as being getting the PUE as close to 1 as possible and I note that there is an ongoing ratings battle between google and facebook about whose PUE is better, as if it mattered!
It doesn't, as we all know (don't we!) PUE is the ratio of the total energy into a facility divided by the amount of energy that is used by the compute function (if you don't know then visit the Green Grid website) http://www.thegreengrid.org/
This is expressed as a single number 2, or 3 or 1.16 or whatever, but it is NOT a measure of energy efficiency or indeed energy usage, it is just a number, and if I wanted to get pedantic I'd say that PUE is variable, as it actually is, because it is dependent on two factors, the first being the external temperature of the facility, as this links directly into the way your cooling system operates, warm outside, controls set to 21degrees, chilling will take place, 5 degrees outside, controls set to 21, no chilling takes place, thus colder outside less energy being used in chilling. So external temperature will affect your PUE, as will what your IT is doing, take for example 3 pm on the last Saturday before Christmas in a retail environment, lots of electronic transactions flowing through your payment systems, linked into your logistics systems for re-ordering etc, and you have a large IT load, contrast with 2am on a Sunday in August, do you think it's going to be anywhere near the same? Of course not, its going to be less or more depending on how your IT is used to support the business and the outside temperature, so PUE is variable and that delta could be quite wide so it amuses me to see the marketing spin put on the PUE figures. Another factor is two completely different organisations using PUE to trade insults "my PUE is smaller than yours" etc when their facilites are NOT comparable, a small retail chain for instance that has say 200 shops compared to a large cloud type search engine with multiple locations, but with huge facilities, say 100,000sq ft plus. The PUE cannot be used to compare, in fact the Green Grid website makes this very clear indeed, so marketing people huh? what can you do, well start by not spinning the truth would be a good start.
Anyway, I digress, the purpose of this blog is to think about those facilites whose PUE =1, WOW! 1 meaning that ALL of the energy in to the facility is going directly (do not pass AHU's, UPS, CRAC's Chillers etc, go directly to) IT. What does this mean? well it means that your facility is going to be using full fresh air, as it comes in from the outside, maybe with a filter to block those nasty particulates that reside in the atmosphere, and that you haven't provided any UPS's, so you're going to be at the will of your electricity company, and most importantly that you've saved money, and lots of it, and you continue to save it for every year that facility is operation (over your peers that is).
The capex costs of NOT providing resilience is something that you are going to have to explain to your IT and finance directors, ultimately its down to your risk appetite, can you withstand the loss of your facilities for the amount of time your power is down, do you have adequate backup, is your network resilient enough to go off site to a cloud facility to provide continuity? Do you in fact need to have compute on site? why not stick it all in the cloud and let them worry about the resilience, then because you only have network and the odd non cloudable app in your onsite facility, and you can get rid of that nasty HVAC system, that costs you the same as your IT to run and maintain.
If we all move to the cloud for our compute, we only need network, but that puts us in jeopardy, as we are now dependent on other organisations to support the platform that supports your business, its all down to risk.
I'll be at the event next week, please come and talk to me if you're there, it'll be emotional....
It doesn't, as we all know (don't we!) PUE is the ratio of the total energy into a facility divided by the amount of energy that is used by the compute function (if you don't know then visit the Green Grid website) http://www.thegreengrid.org/
This is expressed as a single number 2, or 3 or 1.16 or whatever, but it is NOT a measure of energy efficiency or indeed energy usage, it is just a number, and if I wanted to get pedantic I'd say that PUE is variable, as it actually is, because it is dependent on two factors, the first being the external temperature of the facility, as this links directly into the way your cooling system operates, warm outside, controls set to 21degrees, chilling will take place, 5 degrees outside, controls set to 21, no chilling takes place, thus colder outside less energy being used in chilling. So external temperature will affect your PUE, as will what your IT is doing, take for example 3 pm on the last Saturday before Christmas in a retail environment, lots of electronic transactions flowing through your payment systems, linked into your logistics systems for re-ordering etc, and you have a large IT load, contrast with 2am on a Sunday in August, do you think it's going to be anywhere near the same? Of course not, its going to be less or more depending on how your IT is used to support the business and the outside temperature, so PUE is variable and that delta could be quite wide so it amuses me to see the marketing spin put on the PUE figures. Another factor is two completely different organisations using PUE to trade insults "my PUE is smaller than yours" etc when their facilites are NOT comparable, a small retail chain for instance that has say 200 shops compared to a large cloud type search engine with multiple locations, but with huge facilities, say 100,000sq ft plus. The PUE cannot be used to compare, in fact the Green Grid website makes this very clear indeed, so marketing people huh? what can you do, well start by not spinning the truth would be a good start.
Anyway, I digress, the purpose of this blog is to think about those facilites whose PUE =1, WOW! 1 meaning that ALL of the energy in to the facility is going directly (do not pass AHU's, UPS, CRAC's Chillers etc, go directly to) IT. What does this mean? well it means that your facility is going to be using full fresh air, as it comes in from the outside, maybe with a filter to block those nasty particulates that reside in the atmosphere, and that you haven't provided any UPS's, so you're going to be at the will of your electricity company, and most importantly that you've saved money, and lots of it, and you continue to save it for every year that facility is operation (over your peers that is).
The capex costs of NOT providing resilience is something that you are going to have to explain to your IT and finance directors, ultimately its down to your risk appetite, can you withstand the loss of your facilities for the amount of time your power is down, do you have adequate backup, is your network resilient enough to go off site to a cloud facility to provide continuity? Do you in fact need to have compute on site? why not stick it all in the cloud and let them worry about the resilience, then because you only have network and the odd non cloudable app in your onsite facility, and you can get rid of that nasty HVAC system, that costs you the same as your IT to run and maintain.
If we all move to the cloud for our compute, we only need network, but that puts us in jeopardy, as we are now dependent on other organisations to support the platform that supports your business, its all down to risk.
I'll be at the event next week, please come and talk to me if you're there, it'll be emotional....
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
A Broadband Saga
Some of you may have seen some of my more vicious tweets to Sky and BT over recent weeks, and believe me they well deserved it, we were left without broadband services for over a month due to what can only be described as a complete and utter customer service failure.
Apparently, and I do not believe a word of it, Sky were unable to provide Broadband services at more than 0.3MB, this from a line that up until changeover from BT had been able to provide close on 2MB.
So, unwilling to go cap in hand back to BT to change back again we decided to see if any of the mobile broadband providers could offer us a deal.
Yes, it turns out they could, we had a 3 dongle for use on trips to London etc that was costing the company £14 odd per month, 3 upgraded the dongle to their new wifi dongle with speeds up to 20MB+ (when the cell is upgraded) which arrived when they said it would. We can connect up to 5 devices to it (which at the present time is more than enough) and we're getting more than 2MB at the present.
So, we've saved the £17 per month on the fixed broadband service, getting a faster upload and download speed and touch wood getting a better service and should get an even better service in the future.
If you're having problems with your broadband service, go see what the mobile providers can offer, you may be surprised.
Good Luck
Apparently, and I do not believe a word of it, Sky were unable to provide Broadband services at more than 0.3MB, this from a line that up until changeover from BT had been able to provide close on 2MB.
So, unwilling to go cap in hand back to BT to change back again we decided to see if any of the mobile broadband providers could offer us a deal.
Yes, it turns out they could, we had a 3 dongle for use on trips to London etc that was costing the company £14 odd per month, 3 upgraded the dongle to their new wifi dongle with speeds up to 20MB+ (when the cell is upgraded) which arrived when they said it would. We can connect up to 5 devices to it (which at the present time is more than enough) and we're getting more than 2MB at the present.
So, we've saved the £17 per month on the fixed broadband service, getting a faster upload and download speed and touch wood getting a better service and should get an even better service in the future.
If you're having problems with your broadband service, go see what the mobile providers can offer, you may be surprised.
Good Luck
Friday, 2 March 2012
Its getting better and better.
I'm creamed, absolutely creamed, since the start of the year I've been rushed off my feet.
First off, CEEDA, or the Certificated Energy Efficiency for Data Centres Award, this is a BCS initative and basically means that your data centre is assessed against a series of energy efficiency best practices that is closely linked to but not part of the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres, and I'm very sure that I've blogged about this previously.
Anyway, its gone mad, we have 5 assessments reserved, and at least another 5 where we are waiting on various contracts, board approvals or more information required. Its look like I'll be spending a lot of time overseas as well, as a number of potential clients are abroad.
Anyway, if you want your data centre assessed, contact me directly and I'll pas your details on to the engagement manager.
I was down at DCW this week, thats Data Centre World, met a lot of friends and business partners and was very well looked after by Simon Allen and Tom Absolom thanks guys!
Anyway, I'm going to cut this short and go look at a tender, as usual, no peace for the wicked.
Next Time..
First off, CEEDA, or the Certificated Energy Efficiency for Data Centres Award, this is a BCS initative and basically means that your data centre is assessed against a series of energy efficiency best practices that is closely linked to but not part of the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres, and I'm very sure that I've blogged about this previously.
Anyway, its gone mad, we have 5 assessments reserved, and at least another 5 where we are waiting on various contracts, board approvals or more information required. Its look like I'll be spending a lot of time overseas as well, as a number of potential clients are abroad.
Anyway, if you want your data centre assessed, contact me directly and I'll pas your details on to the engagement manager.
I was down at DCW this week, thats Data Centre World, met a lot of friends and business partners and was very well looked after by Simon Allen and Tom Absolom thanks guys!
Anyway, I'm going to cut this short and go look at a tender, as usual, no peace for the wicked.
Next Time..
Monday, 13 February 2012
Are we Green?
This is an interesting question and one I'll leave up to you to decide, once you've gone through the list below:
Travel: Carbon3IT Ltd use a smart 42 pulse, this costs £30 to tax, £290ish to insure, £35 to fill up and we get around 300 miles to a tank depending on whether we' re driving locally or to a client.
For longer trips and always for trips to London we use the Chiltern Mainline, it would be rude not to, seeing as we have a railway station on our doorstep.
In our office we use an electric aga for cooking, but it also fills the kitchen with heat, and surprisingly energy efficient, it works like a fridge and keep to a set temperature, we've turned off the small oven as well.
Every light except 3 have energy efficient lightbulbs.
Our main heating and water are from LPG gas, stored in a tank outside.
We've also had 300 mm equivalent of insulation installed in the attic, this on top of 50mm of some pebbly stuff that is an insulator.
We have draught excluders on every door
What we intend to do is as follows:
We want to build an extension that will be zero carbon, with solar panels, underfloor heating and if we can we'll install either a GSHP or an ASHP, everything will be from sustainable sources and rest assured that we will keep everyone up to date via this blog, all we need to do now is to find some money.
Technology wise, we have a Very PC PC, this is the broadleaf model and it uses 66% less electricity than its competitors.
We also run Greentrac on all our PC's and have instigated active profile management that is quite agressive, if you're not using the pc for 10 minutes it'll go into an automatic low power state.
We also use automatic power strips for both the computer area and the tv area that will turn everything off if a master component like the TV or PC are switched off.
Our electricity bills are approx £1200 per year, our heating/water bills are about £700, intend to reduce this by as much as we can over the coming years.
We also think we deserve some recognition for our business activities which after all are to reduce IT related energy consumption, we do this with our consultancy services, our assessment services and our products supply services (Greentrac, Very PC, Concurrent Command & Control products)
We have reduced our electricity and heating/water bill by active management such as washing up less, turning off components when not in use, turning off lights etc, but we know we can do better.
Travel: Carbon3IT Ltd use a smart 42 pulse, this costs £30 to tax, £290ish to insure, £35 to fill up and we get around 300 miles to a tank depending on whether we' re driving locally or to a client.
For longer trips and always for trips to London we use the Chiltern Mainline, it would be rude not to, seeing as we have a railway station on our doorstep.
In our office we use an electric aga for cooking, but it also fills the kitchen with heat, and surprisingly energy efficient, it works like a fridge and keep to a set temperature, we've turned off the small oven as well.
Every light except 3 have energy efficient lightbulbs.
Our main heating and water are from LPG gas, stored in a tank outside.
We've also had 300 mm equivalent of insulation installed in the attic, this on top of 50mm of some pebbly stuff that is an insulator.
We have draught excluders on every door
What we intend to do is as follows:
We want to build an extension that will be zero carbon, with solar panels, underfloor heating and if we can we'll install either a GSHP or an ASHP, everything will be from sustainable sources and rest assured that we will keep everyone up to date via this blog, all we need to do now is to find some money.
Technology wise, we have a Very PC PC, this is the broadleaf model and it uses 66% less electricity than its competitors.
We also run Greentrac on all our PC's and have instigated active profile management that is quite agressive, if you're not using the pc for 10 minutes it'll go into an automatic low power state.
We also use automatic power strips for both the computer area and the tv area that will turn everything off if a master component like the TV or PC are switched off.
Our electricity bills are approx £1200 per year, our heating/water bills are about £700, intend to reduce this by as much as we can over the coming years.
We also think we deserve some recognition for our business activities which after all are to reduce IT related energy consumption, we do this with our consultancy services, our assessment services and our products supply services (Greentrac, Very PC, Concurrent Command & Control products)
We have reduced our electricity and heating/water bill by active management such as washing up less, turning off components when not in use, turning off lights etc, but we know we can do better.
This week.
Its quite busy, we're off to the renewable energy expo at Malvern tomorrow or Wednesday, more info on this link http://www.energynowexpo.co.uk/ and then Cambridge for a CEEDA assessment visit.
In the meantime, we have a previous CEEDA assessment thats needs a review, this is routine, all CEEDA assessments are passed to an independent audit for scrutinity, and we get together after the visit and the auditors review to check that we're all happy with the award offered.
The wife has an interview tomorrow for a position in Strategic Planning, hope it goes well, the job is right up her street and I know that she can make a difference to the organisation and all their properties.
The Child is away with the Gramps, and we should see her on Thursday.
Friday is a birthday and on Saturday we're all going to see "Swallows & Amazons" in Coventry.
Thats it, until next time.
In the meantime, we have a previous CEEDA assessment thats needs a review, this is routine, all CEEDA assessments are passed to an independent audit for scrutinity, and we get together after the visit and the auditors review to check that we're all happy with the award offered.
The wife has an interview tomorrow for a position in Strategic Planning, hope it goes well, the job is right up her street and I know that she can make a difference to the organisation and all their properties.
The Child is away with the Gramps, and we should see her on Thursday.
Friday is a birthday and on Saturday we're all going to see "Swallows & Amazons" in Coventry.
Thats it, until next time.
Friday, 3 February 2012
IBM Greenwash?
You may have seen some press releases from IBM stating that they have been "awarded" the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres" for some 27 data centres throughout Europe. more info on this link IBM Press Release.
Unfortunately, IBM are not being entirely 100% truthful with this statement and I am sure that other commentators will be on their case soon enough.
So, whats the issue?
Well, I'm sure IBM are working very hard within their data centres to reduce energy consumption and to implement many of the code of coduct best practices, but all the EU has done is to ratify an application by IBM to be a participant to the code of conduct, this takes the form of an application to the JRC for participant status and a committment by IBM to implement as many of the best practices contained within the EU Code of Conduct in a 3 year period, and to provide environmental data to the EU JRC yearly.
So, basically, its not an award.
An award would be, if IBM had instigated an independent body to assess their data centres to the required standard, had the assessment audited and had then been awarded a level of award by an appropriate body such as the British Computer Society.
Unfortunately, this is not the case.
We applaud IBM for applying for recognition that they are intending to or have implemented the best practices as indicated in the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres but essentially this is a self assessment, we'd like them to go one step further and get these 27 facilities assessed for CEEDA, which is an independently assessed and audited review of how far they actually are in implementing the best practices.
Until that point in time, IBM are merely using their application to "greenwash" their environmental credentials, and whilst IBM actions have probably been taken with good intent and to aid the development of the EU Code of Conduct to a wider audience, it also boosts their own activities with a falsehood.
Carbon3IT Ltd could have stated that we were "awarded" endorser" to the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres back in July 2010 and this would have boosted our credentials, but we did not, we said that we'd been granted "endorser" status.
Unfortunately, IBM are not being entirely 100% truthful with this statement and I am sure that other commentators will be on their case soon enough.
So, whats the issue?
Well, I'm sure IBM are working very hard within their data centres to reduce energy consumption and to implement many of the code of coduct best practices, but all the EU has done is to ratify an application by IBM to be a participant to the code of conduct, this takes the form of an application to the JRC for participant status and a committment by IBM to implement as many of the best practices contained within the EU Code of Conduct in a 3 year period, and to provide environmental data to the EU JRC yearly.
So, basically, its not an award.
An award would be, if IBM had instigated an independent body to assess their data centres to the required standard, had the assessment audited and had then been awarded a level of award by an appropriate body such as the British Computer Society.
Unfortunately, this is not the case.
We applaud IBM for applying for recognition that they are intending to or have implemented the best practices as indicated in the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres but essentially this is a self assessment, we'd like them to go one step further and get these 27 facilities assessed for CEEDA, which is an independently assessed and audited review of how far they actually are in implementing the best practices.
Until that point in time, IBM are merely using their application to "greenwash" their environmental credentials, and whilst IBM actions have probably been taken with good intent and to aid the development of the EU Code of Conduct to a wider audience, it also boosts their own activities with a falsehood.
Carbon3IT Ltd could have stated that we were "awarded" endorser" to the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres back in July 2010 and this would have boosted our credentials, but we did not, we said that we'd been granted "endorser" status.
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