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EPA Sends Data Center Power Study to Congress
BDPrime writes "We've all been hearing ad nauseum about power and cooling issues in the data center. Now the EPA has issued a final report to Congress detailing the problem and what might be done to fix it. Most likely what will happen is the EPA will add servers and data centers into its Energy Star program. If you don't feel like reading the entire 133-page report, the 14-page executive summary is a little easier to get through."
If you don't feel like reading the entire 133-page report, the 14-page executive summary is a little easier to get through.
Still too long. Can anyone reduce it to a single phrase or word? Thanks in advance
"... EPA!!! EPA!!!"
Having any Govt investigate efficiency is about as practical as the Madonna Commission On Chastity and Modesty. Computers are doing just fine at reducing their power consumption by many percent a year without the govt's "help".
Is that it? Seems like small potatoes to me.
The game.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Move all the data centers to Minnesota or Canada and use them to heat people's houses.
Or better yet! DatacenterBurgerKing with CPU-broiled whoppers.
...whose servers are among the most power-efficient available, and even more so with Niagara 2.
Disclaimer: I own a tiny bit of Sun stock. (But I bought it because I believe in them, not vice versa!)
you had me at #!
I've long been dumbfounded by the way datacenters charge. They seemingly all charge a hell of a lot for physical space, and then almost completely ignore power requirements. This seems incredibly strange, since datacenter operating costs are pretty much tied directly to power consumption (monthly electricity fees, UPSes, electrical generators, cooling, etc.), and only incidentally to physical space.
Further, the cost to handle each extra watt is multiplied thanks to cooling, power back-up, wiring, etc., while increasing the physical size of the building, constructing more datacenters, etc. is just a flat (linear) cost, and mostly just a one-time expenditure at that.
This strange arrangement is what has led us here. It's not the natural evolution of technology to cram as much power consumption into as tiny a box as possible. It's an artificial need, created by the idiotic distribution of fees common to datacenters.
If a few large datacenters declared their fees as a small $$$ value for each unit of space, and additionally a few dollars, per watt of power consumption, you'd see the problem naturally fix itself, through normal economic forces. As soon as watts are the defining factor, companies won't pay more for a cramped 1U server rather than an (inexpensive) 2U or 3U server. You will also see companies happy to pay more for lower-powered server hardware, as having them directly bear the energy cost will make buying efficient servers a significant savings to them.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
No doubt our congress will act swiftly by moving daylight savings time to conserve power.
I just grabbed the executive summary version, and didn't see any mention of virtualization..
To me, this seems like one of the more important aspects of power efficiency. Individual server efficiency is important, but the gains from higher utilization could be even more significant. Adding another core to a hypervisor will always be more efficient than adding a new system (CPU, Power Supply, disks, video, etc..). The energy efficient hardware can also be applied to the hypervisor hosts. Build efficient servers, and use as few of them as practical.
Many data centers are already greatly decreasing their server count using virtualization. This should be part of any data center energy efficiency discussion.
Climate controlled. There's this element among building planners that think any outside air is bad(TM). That's why, even in small buildings where you don't have to worry about pressure differentials blowing windows out like you do in skyscrapers, you can't open a frick'n window in the Fall or Spring when the air smells wonderful and there's this perfect chill in the air the just stimulates the brain.
I'm drenched in sweat here in Hotlanta (it's 82F and 66% humidity and climbing to 94) and I really miss New England's Spring and Fall.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
55 Mhz that's the law, exceed it and your looking at a speeding ticket.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
What you meant to say is "Hoover Dam at peak output produces 2 Gigawatts." What does make more sense is saying 48 million KWH per day or a bit over 17 billion KWH per year - assuming that there is enough water behind the dam to allow for continuous peak output, which is certainly not the case this year.I have found that stock switching power supplies as found in common computers are slightly more efficient when powered with 240 volts rather than 120 volts. Some more so and some less so. And virtually all of them can be changed over to 240 volts (having the correct 2-pole switching).
And by using 240 volts instead of 120 volts, you can run twice as many computers on the same power loss in the building wiring (same current, same size wire, same power loss due to heat, serving twice the load).
Direct DC fed power systems may or may not provide realistic savings. DC introduces new electrical safety challenges and costs (electrical arcs inside switches, circuit breakers, and fuses, cannot be cut off by AC's zero voltage crossing that DC does not have). This requires lower voltages for equivalent interruption safety. But if power supplies end up losing less power than the building wiring at the higher current, then DC may be the better choice.
We will need more in-depth study to determine if DC will save power or not at a given installation (it may at some and not at others). But for most installations, going from 120 volts up to 208 or 240 volts (depending in which is available) is as simple as rewiring the system (using 2-pole breakers ... requiring double size power panels) and verifying the computer power supplies are ready for the higher voltage.
208 volts is the likely line-to-line voltage in data centers powered by 3-phase (208Y/120) power in North America. Future data centers could be designed for a 416Y/240 volt power system which can also be used to power fluorescent lighting.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Yes, but how much less heat? DC rectifiers waste heat too. 3-phase power supplies on blade chassis are considerably more efficient than typical 1-phase pizza box power supplies. The blade system has an efficient entry cost an order of magnitude more than the pizza box, and 3 orders of magnitude less than the DC data center, but is closer to the DC data center in AC conversion efficiency. This makes it a very good compromise for the vast majority of enterprises that do not buy their data centers by the acre.
Don't get me wrong, I think DC is great, but until the market grows a lot more, it won't really be cost-efficient for the masses.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.