Price of Power in a Data Center

mstansberry writes "Much like the rest of the country, IT is facing an energy crisis. The utilities are bracing companies for price spikes this winter and according to experts and IT pros, those prices aren't going to come down any time soon. This is thefirst article in a four-part series investigating the impact of energy issues on IT."

Comments

Hot Intel chips are big contributor

[Hulkster]

I think "crisis" is a bit sensational, but yea, power is a concern and it ain't getting any cheaper. This is certainly not helped by the power consuming (and heat generating) hot chips from Intel. Note that you have to pay for that "twice" since for every BTU they consume in electricity, you have to cool it in a data center. Ironically, Part 1 does not even talk about how the CPU itself is a big issue here ... maybe they'll cover it in the rest of the series. Speaking of which, wouldn't it be better for stuff like this to wait until the series is over before posting on Slashdot?

P.S. The submitter has a nice fishing web site and is holding about a 12" trout on his main page. Nice catch ... but I'd recommend he go on a fishing charter in Seward Alaska if he wants to catch some mongo fish. This trip was a major slayfest and my brother was Captain Crudd who knows how to fish with a beer in his hand.

Re:Hot Intel chips are big contributor

[Rei]

I saw a speech recently from the director of NCAR, Tim Killeen. NCAR does advanced climate change modelling. According to his speech, they know pretty much every factor now that has a relevant effect on global climate; their only limitation that they are aware of is processing power and data storage. As such, their computing requirements are growing notably faster than Moore's law.

Their current power bill is 40,000$/mo. At their new facility (you can see a design of it in this document), it will be far more. Most of the building will be for computers and associated equipment; the building is being largely designed for dissipating all of the heat. I recall he said it was to consume about 3 MW, so at 0.8 cents/kWh, that would be about 175k$/mo.

As an aside, it was a really fascinating presentation. They showed *their* model of Katrina (which was presented to the White House as an "experimental product"); it was spot on. Very impressive stuff indeed. At one point I asked him about proposed methods to induce global cooling such as dumping iron into iron-deficient waters. He stated that while he hadn't modelled that, their models already take into account natural mineral influxes and their effects on bacteria populations (and thus, the effects of those bacteria on the environment), so they could model that if they needed to. He also pointed me to some newer Vostok core data :)

Re:Hot Intel chips are big contributor

[demigod]

One thing I am skeptical of is the need to cool to like 60 degrees F that I've heard (and felt in one room). Good cooling is nice, but I know one guy that says they don't ever see problems until the temperature is above 80F, so businesses can save a lot by not being so freaking cold.

I always considered that as buffer for when you loose one of the AC units. That way if it takes all day to get it fixed, your only up to 80F and still OK.

Re:Hot Intel chips are big contributor

[GMFTatsujin]

At what point do the heat effects of their computers get folded into the climate simulation parameters themselves?

And virtualization may be the answer

[gtrubetskoy]

We have a page on our site with some calculations on how much energy is being saved because we're using Linux VServer and why dedicated servers are not environmentally-friendly (at least not with the current technology - this may change). The numbers are probably off a bit, but they give you some idea.

Also the street price for a 20A circuit in a datacenter is $200-$300, while the cost of a megabit is $100 or less. So a rack of servers that requires two power circuits and pushes 3Mbps (not an unusual scenario) costs twice as much in power than in bandwidth.

And here's another article on this issue. And another.

Energy price predictions

[grqb]

Energy prices are going to hurt everybody.

From here:
"EIA expects energy expenditures will be 18% higher this winter compared to last winter, which will be 8.3% of the annual gross domestic product, a record since 1987 when it was 8.4%."

And for those of you who want to find a way to save energy: Here's 60 Tips To Save Energy This Winter

Yeah, but at least you won't have to

[Tavor]

Run the heat in the winter with Intel chips! Just do batch-processing, or some intense rendering work.