Chill out, data center power consumption isn’t that bad
Joe McKendrick, an editor for Database Trends and Applications magazine, has a good post about the panic around data center power consumption.
McKendrick cites statistics from a Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory study saying that computer servers accounted for 0.6 percent of U.S. electricity consumption in 2005. If you include facility infrastructure such as cooling, the number goes to 1.2 percent. But McKendrick says the study doesn’t take into account the energy savings that advanced IT has brought to the world.
Together, we’re probably talking about more resources saved than that used up by servers. Consider: It can be assumed that e-business has drastically reduced the amount of paperwork moving inside and between organizations, with an ensuing savings in tree harvesting and energy consumed for the physical delivery of such documents.
McKendrick adds that doesn’t mean we should stop trying to make servers and data centers more efficient, which some vendors and the federal Environmental Protection Agency are working on. He’s just saying: “Hey, take your finger off the panic button.”
Thanks to Data Center Knowledge for the link to McKendrick’s post.
Posted: May 3rd, 2007 under Data Center Power, Data center power efficiency.
The panic is cost-driven, not resource-driven. It used to be that you could move into a rack and use a single 120V/20A circuit, maybe two. Not anymore. Fill up a rack with servers and you’ll need a few 30A circuits, maybe even at 208V. You will pay for the amperage, AND you’ll pay for the usage. Colocation facilities are EXPECTED to have power capacity, and full redundancy of that capacity. So a circuit price doesn’t just include the price of grid power, it includes the price of backup power. Backup power has VERY high cost, most of it in consumables, such as batteries and Diesel fuel. Batteries have a limited lifespan, and Diesel fuel… well it just burns away when you start using it. Backup power systems should never be allowed to sit idle for long periods of time either; you have to give them exercise to keep them running well. So even if your grid power never fails, you still run up consumable costs. A handful of greater than a megawatt gensets burn fuel at a rate of hundreds of gallons per hour. So if you are running a datacenter you are paying these costs. If you are colocating in a datacenter, you are also paying these costs, either through a markup or a “power surcharge”.
People, as much as they’d like to think they are altruistic, do not make decisions based on conservation or resource management theory. They make them based on cost. They aren’t trying to save the planet, they are saving their wallets.
–chuck
Comment by chuck goolsbee — May 3, 2007 @ 12:15 pm
Awesome point, Chuck, I wish I had mentioned that in the post. If energy efficiency saves a data center money, that’s what matters most to the C-level execs. Environmental friendliness is just a pleasant byproduct.
Comment by Mark Fontecchio — May 3, 2007 @ 3:31 pm