There are plenty of ways to start measuring your data center’s Power Usage Effectiveness, or PUE, which is a comparison of the total facility power to the IT load. But in recent months Microsoft has opened the curtains on its own operations, thanks largely in part to two data center pros there, Michael Manos and Christian Belady.

Back in April, Manos spoke to us about Microsoft’s data center strategy. It was one of the first times the Redmond, Wash. The next month, Manos showed us a demo of Scry (video here), the tool the company uses to measure everything in their data centers.

Now Manos and Belady have written a series of three lengthy blog posts on PUE, why it’s important, and how to go about measuring it. For those of you out there still a little daunted by the task of measuring key analytics in your data center facilities, this could give you a good start.

On Tuesday, June 17, 2008, at the HP Technology Forum and Expo in Las Vegas, Nev., Adaptive Infrastructure Consultant for HP, Russ Wagner, presented the introductory breakout session on Strategies and Best Practices for Constrained Data Centers. He emphasized the importance of bridging the gap and breaking down the silos between data center administrators and facility managers — especially in any discussion involving transforming an existing data center or designing new facilities.

Wagner suggested that those facilities guys have a “bit” of experience and knowledge in important things like Ohm’s law, the three power phases, the pros and cons of low voltage versus high voltage power supplies, and the all important conversion factor from BTU to Watts. They also may know a thing or two about industry standards such as NFPA 75, International Electrotechnical Commission standards, National Electrical Manufacturers Association standards, or BICSI cabling standards. Facility managers also will have familiarity with complex cooling standards, facility weather dynamics, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD).

Getting the facility folks in the mix is important when considering a new data center, but considering the knowledge and codified industry standards that are available through key organizations including the Uptime Institute, American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), and the United States Green Building Council are also important. Membership in AFCOM was also suggested as a great way for data center personnel to share their knowledge and experience, and a great way for new entrants to the data center to learn from those who have been there and done that. He also suggested that data center managers and operators get involved in the Sustainable IT (aka Green IT) movement. Examples of this include The Green Grid, Climate Savers Computing, and the EPA Energy Star program for servers.

One of the main reasons that Wagner suggested involvement in and edification about these programs is because of the the critical resource constraints in data centers beyond the obvious power and space constraints, is experienced people. This is such a pertinent and timely issue, it was the topic of an article in the same day’s publication of The New York Times, “Demand for Data Puts Engineers in Spotlight.” The aging workforce that has worked in the evolving data centers of the past and learned the lessons is getting ready for retirement, said Wagner. This leaves a knowledge gap, and the best thing that older workers nearing the retirement point can do is join the organizations and help drive standards and information. The best thing that new entrants can do is learn from these sources of information. Together, these measures can help alleviate the big picture data center asset constraints.

Folsom, Calif.-based data center monitoring company Synapsense is looking to targeting computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software with its wireless data center monitoring system. The startup is two years old and has been shipping commercial products for six months. The company currently has 15 proof of concept projects at unnamed “Fortune 50” companies, plus support from the data center energy efficiency engineers at Lawrence Berkley National Labs (LBNL), according to Ray Pfeifer, vice president of business development at Synapsense.

Synapsense’s battery powered monitors track data center environmental conditions and use low power wireless [2.4 gigahertz] to communicate that data to a server. Synapsense’s software synthesizes that information and displays it as a live image [example below], which allows data center managers to look at real time maps of their data center and view air pressure distribution, humidity and temperature.

The following is an excerpt of a Q&A with Pfeifer:

Why wireless sensors? Why not wired?
Ray Pfeifer: The majority of the data centers are not new. The IT equipment refreshes every 3-5 years. The facility is there 15-20 years. Low power wireless becomes the first practical way to get in to monitor legacy data centers unobtrusively.

We can deploy in a 10,000 sq ft data center in a day to two days. It takes you weeks or months to do that with a wired solution. Because of the flexibility of wireless, as your data center changes, racks come and go, you can very easily reconfigure the wireless to match the environment. Some data center operators are moving 10-20% of their IT equipment in and out every month.

What specifically do the sensors monitor?
Pfeifer: Our standard installation measures the temperature on inlet and discharge of the racks, the temperature at the inlet and discharge of the Computer Room Air Coniditoner (CRAC) units, humidity at the CRAC units, and sub-floor air pressure.

But what we do with all this data is the interesting thing. A typical data center supplies anywhere two to three times the air that it needs because the majority of the air is being wasted. The strategic placement of the sensors allows you to adjust your airflow methodology. When you raise the return temps on the CRAH units, they become more efficient, you can shut units off.

The LiveImaging gives you a visual map: you can see where your hot spots are, you can see where you’re over-cooling. It enables a data center operator to reconfigure the data center and understand what they need to do to reconfigure it.

How does real-time imaging stack up against CFD analysis?
Pfeifer: There is some great CFD software out there, but the expertise to build a good model is pretty significant, so the people using CFD models are generally professional services folks. A full data center assessment is a $50,000 event for a 25,000 sq ft data center. The problem is, that’s a one time snapshot. They take your readings and they leave. In 90% of those instances, the facility guy looks at it, and it goes on a shelf. A year later, they hire someone else to do another one. If you put sensors cost effectively, do the analysis, collect data real time, you can present it visually to non-eningeering staff. Look at color. If it’s red, it’s hot. This is a dynamic tool that allows continuous commissioning the data center.

What’s the next step for Synapsense?
Pfeifer: The next piece that will complete the full solution will be energy metering, for both infrastructure and IT equipment, down to branch circuit level monitoring. We will also provide real-time DCIE/PUE and overlay it on your existing data center. We’re also working with the LBNL team as they develop DC Pro, the Department of Energy’s data center assessment tool. We’re putting those assessment tools into our software solution.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program is trying to collect information from anyone with a data center to help the EPA get a sense of what’s happening nationally with data center energy consumption. In this video from the Uptime Institute Symposium, the EPA’s Andrew Fanara discusses how data center managers can participate in the program, by measuring their energy efficiency in a standardized way.

You can download the forms for the National Data Center Energy Efficiency Information Program from the EPA’s data center Web site.

Sydney, Australia based-Ideas International Inc. has launched an open source-style website to compare and rate the functional capabilities of blade servers on Monday, April 7.

The IT research and analysis company’s new site for Collaborative Product Evaluation looks at medium-sized blade servers and will include enterprise-level blade server data by mid-summer, said Jim Burton, the vice president and senior analyst for entry-level servers and blades at Ideas International.

The site lets users compare various components of the servers that fall under the umbrellas of platform functionality, environmental footprint, virtualization functions, reliability, serviceability and manageability, and deployment considerations.

The information is based on the hardware specifications, interviews with end users, and performance data, Burton said.

“We establish the appropriate ratings, but it is an open source-style website, so users can affect these ratings too,” Burton said. Of course, Ideas International give the user feedback a credibility rating, so only statements supported by concrete data can actually bring a rating up or down, he said.

The site is pretty handy if you are on the market for blade servers, especially because the site allows you to make comparisons based on your priorities. If you need power efficiency, you can compare boxes based on that alone. Same goes for factors like “green-ness,” cost, networking and so forth, said Burton.

Ideas International also has evaluation sites for x86 virtual machine platforms and plans to create evaluation sites for Unix-based systems and Linux in the near future, so keep an eye out for those.

This is pretty impressive; colocation provider 365 Main has been taking advantage of Pacific Gas & Electic Corp.’s (PG&E) power saving program and saved $54,000 in utility costs at its San Francisco data center in 2007.

In all, 365 Main saved 7,477 kWh in 2007 by curtailing power usage below its energy-consumption baseline.

How did they do it? The first step 365 Main takes is inviting their utility provider, PG&E, into their data center at the start of each year for an energy audit to find areas where efficiencies can be added, said Miles Kelly, VP of corporate strategy at 365 Main.

“For example, this year we expanded the areas that utilize motion controlled lighting in the data center and also reinsulated the condenser water lines for the buildings massive air conditioning system. We also reduce lighting levels in public areas during peak days,” Kelly said.

The data center host also adjusted their weekly and monthly generator test schedules to peak days, which reduces their utility consumption by about 8% during test periods. “This adjustment of the testing schedule allows us to reduce utility consumption without ever affecting the reliability or N+1 redundancy of our power system,” Kelly said.

PG&E has gotten a lot of attention this past year for its part in promoting power savings in data centers. Their Critical Peak Pricing (CPP) program encourages data centers to cut back power consumption by offering seasonal discounts to customers that reduce or shift their energy usage away from peak periods.

In addition to savings incentives, PG&E also works with companies like IBM to consolidate servers, reduce heat and cooling requirements in data centers.

And 365 Main has been pretty aggressive in the “green” data center effort as well, if not for the public relations benefits alone. Earlier this year, 365 Main promised to build all its future data centers in line withLEED certification, which is basically a nice label the U.S. Green Building Council gives to companies that make an effort to be environmentally responsible. The standard is said to be tough for power hungry data center to meet though, and is most commonly achieved in buildings with lots of office space.

There’s been tons of clamour from environmental interest groups warning data center managers that if steps aren’t taken to reduce consumption, power availability problems will continue to grow and costs will rise, and several vendors and industry organizations have developed online tools to measure data center efficiency and promote power savings.

One of the many tools is from West Kingston, R.I.-based American Power Conversion (APC), a power and cooling services company, which has a free Web-based tool that rates data center power efficiency.

So, come on people. Let’s save some power.

Measuring dollars to servers: A lot of the talk about data center efficiency is about the costs. Energy and data center real estate cost a lot of money. But what are the servers worth? How much money is the computer making for your company? Jonathan Koomey, from Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and Stanford University, developed the recent measurements of server energy use. He says we need to prod industries to come up with a value for servers or computing units rather than just focus on the costs. In this podcast from the Uptime Institute Data Center Design Charrette, he describes how that could be accomplished.

 

 Koomey: Putting a value on servers: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Pitt Turner from ComputerSite Engineering Inc. and the Uptime Institute explains different ways to measure IT energy consumption in this podcast from the Data Center Design Charrette in Santa Fe, N.M., last week. Turner weighs the pros and cons of measuring at the uninterruptible power supply, or UPS, versus the power distribution unit to determine how much energy is going to servers and how much power is going to the data center infrastructure.

 

 Measuring data center energy use: At the PDU or UPS?: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

SANTA FE, N.M. — Last week at the Uptime Institute Data Center Design Charrette, I spoke with Roger Schmidt, distinguished technologist at IBM and chairman of ASHRAE Technical Committe 9.9 about ASHRAE’s role in standardizing a process for data center managers to measure their physical infrastructure energy use. A lot of data center managers want to reduce energy consumption but don’t have the tools or processes to measure their usage. In this podcast, Schmidt outlines ASHRAE’s role in dealing with this problem.

 

 ASHRAE to standardize data center energy use measurement: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Data center design consultants, analyst firms and industry groups have lobbied the U.S. Green Building Council to develop a data center standard for its LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system for green buildings. But to no avail: USGBC has no plans to address data center facilities. The current LEED rating system does not address the particular needs of the data center environment — you don’t get LEED points for operating your data center efficiently, but you can get one for a bike rack — old news.

Nonetheless, more companies are looking for ways to score points on corporate social responsibility checklists, and municipalities and governments are turning to USGBC’s LEED and mandating it as a design standard. The metric is available, and people get it — imperfect or not.

The LEED system is based on several “green” practices, and if you do things right you get points. So why not copy the LEED format which has been widely accepted and apply it to data centers? Give data centers three points for using server virtualization for server consolidation, three points for implementing blanking panels and sealing off bypass airflow.

Some groups like the Green Grid are looking into this type of points system for the future. Is this something that will work? What are the drawbacks?

While it looks like IT-centric organizations are going to be forced to reinvent the wheel with the green data center certification, it may not be too late to get USGBC on board. Where IT organizations haven’t had much luck lobbying USGBC, you might. End users that are looking into LEED-certified data center facilities need to put pressure on the organization as well.

Check out our LEED data center articles:

UPDATE: I was talking to Joe Prisco from IBM this week and he has developed a points-based system for determining data center energy efficiency or green-ness. His checklist (and how to use it) will be published in the December issue of the ASHRAE journal magazine. Keep your eyes out for that in your mailbox, and we’ll try to get a link to an electronic copy up as soon as it is available. Prisco hopes the USGBC or The Green Grid will adopt his recommendations and ASHRAE may publish a book in the future on his work.