Slashdot Mirror
US Data Centers Wary of Sharing Energy Data With Feds
1sockchuck writes "The EPA has been seeking at least 100 data center operators willing to share data about their energy usage to help the government develop an Energy Star program for data centers. Thus far, only 54 data centers have signed up, which suggests that few data center operators are eager to tell the government exactly how much energy they are using. The EPA issued a report to Congress last year on data center power usage, and is already developing an Energy Star program to rate servers. Can a program designed to rank the energy efficiency of appliances and computer monitors be a useful tool in addressing the enormous energy consumption of data centers?"
Some people dont share data with the gubmints not because they are evil but because they dont trust the government. Rank the efficencies of data centers? Cant the people who own/run the energy centers do that themselves? You know, read the labels on the devices and such?
They've already gotten 54 out of 100 data centres. There are countries with a lower percentage of voters at the ballots! Besides which, I'm not surprised at this at all. No-one can be horrified at your electricity bill if you don't advertise it (especially to the EPA).
QuantumPete
So 54 data centers responded out of "over 100"? That seems pretty good to me. How many of the rest just didn't know how much energy they used, or couldn't be bothered to look it up?
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
But it is a completely different story when it comes to the energy consumed in transportation. There is no viable alternative to gasoline for cars, diesel for trucks and kerosene for the airplanes in the near future. Nothing. And all the crude oil we import goes to transportation.
The politicians are clueless dumb idiots who go through the motions of doing something, on the crazy logic, "we must do something, it is something so we are doing it".
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I'm not really surprised. I've seen decent sized data centers (100-500 machines) that did not track their power usage. They might not have any data to share with anyone anyway.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
seriously? maybe someone should point out how little the people trying to regulate these understand about them. i can point to a few other sources of pollution that would be much better to reign in for their practices before starting to look at datacenters: warehouses that are entirely lit 24x7, universities that don't set their computer monitors to "sleep" after several hours of non-use or even leave all of their end-user systems up all-night every night. that's without even turning to the automobile industry
Computer data centers use too much energy. Next thing you know, Congressman will be up in arms, hauling data center leads in front of a good public beating, and then passing legislation to tax excess profits. What would happen next? Data centers leave the USA in droves, 1,000,000 jobs evaporate, and the USA loses yet another industry due to a government that is as malicious towards successful enterprise as it is incompetent.
This is my sig.
Google probably ranks as the largest data energy user, having by far the largest number of data centers and nodes (approaching 3 million). On the other hand they've almost always paid attention to energy costs (except for their bad, bad, white home page), building custom low-energy custom servers. They probaly also have the lowest per petabyte energy consumption of large data centers.
I have done a number of projects for a number of companies focused on power saving in the data center.
One company was building a fan control system to reduce the power used by cooling fans in the racks. We just had a Slashdot article about being more selective about load distribution and shutting down systems not being utilized for the load.
Data centers use redundant power which is more expensive than line power because UPS system are never 100% efficient.
To top it off, servers put out a LOT of heat. That is two types of load: The power draw of the server and the power draw of the data center cooling system.
Data centers are a prime target for green work, and I bet with a little development work you could EASILY cut the power utilization by 30%. Upgrading and replacing four older machines with two newer machines will cut power usage.
Maybe software efficiency is important again as doing more with less power is greener.
Is the new MS one in Northlake IL that has it's own sub station on the list? You can see right off I-294 near the old Zenith sing.
There should of looked at a way to get some power off the 70 mph + traffic on I-294 right next to it.
The total energy used in a data center is just the sum of the energy used in the various component parts. The components include the various boxes of electronics, the power supplies, the lighting, and the cooling.
Every data center operator is intensely interested in power consumption. The power and cooling cost real, serious money. Any reduction in that cost goes straight to the bottom line. And, we have finite power and cooling for the building, so if/when the needs of the various boxes exceed those limits, we have to do expensive and disruptive upgrades.
If every component part (computer, network switch, ups, monitor, etc.) were labeled with its power and cooling requirements, data center operators would use that information to select equipment that costs less to operate. In the life cycle of a piece of equipment, the electricity to operate it is a big part of the cost. When we go to buy new equipment, we usually have to choose from among several different units that could fit the purpose. The numbers that determine the operating cost absolutely would be used during that selection process.
A publicity campaign, like "Energy Star" could help us to paint the business "Green". But the numbers are what we really need to make rational business decisions.
"... enormous energy consumption of data centers"
That is one of the few world problems that is already being solved. Intel and AMD and others are working on the next generation of processors, that use less power: Intel Says Chips Will Run Faster, Using Less Power. Intel is currently delivering processors built on 45 nanometer rules. (At that size, there are perhaps 1000 transistors in the width of a human hair.)
They are working on a 32 nanometer process, which has already been demonstrated. The next after that is 22 nanometers and then 16 nanometers and 11 nanometers as the Wikipedia articles say. The smaller conductor width rules use smaller transistors which use less power.
At the same time, they will make processors with wider silicon wafers, 18 inches wide rather than the 12 inch wide wafers they use now. The smaller devices and larger wafers mean that there will be many more processors per wafer, making the costs go down.
What these companies are doing is VERY impressive.
The companies have not been as good at proposing new uses for the greater processing power. Data centers need the greater processing power as well as use of smaller amounts of energy, but where else is more processing power needed? Will grandma's octo-core cell phone of the future not just report the weather, but calculate it? Will games use full ray-tracing?
I suspect that the greater processing power is needed, but all the needs haven't yet been discovered. To me, that's a very interesting problem.
Obviously you havnt been on 294 lately. Last time I saw 70 mph was November......damn construction.
What's in it for the data center? Of course they're not "eager" for new tasks on their To-Do list!
"Hi, we'd like you to generously share some internal data and in return we'd like to give you responsibilities and guidelines about how we'll let you give your data to us! Sweet deal, right?"
Presumably they are paying their power bills and thus have some incentive to take "reasonable" steps toward conservation. The government will need to use a carrot or a stick to coax this information from a busy business. I'm surprised simply announcing an interest in the information has netted as many responses as they've gotten.
Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
Perhaps a lot of the datacenters are more leary of "homeland security" putting spyware, etc in their datacenter. Once you let the goverment in to take a look, who knows how much further they will want to go.
Over 50 data centers have given into government demands for private data. There is wide speculation on why so many data centers have willfully fallen under the sway of the government. There are rumors about bribes involving lowering energy costs. How many more data centers will cave? Is your data safe?!
A unique way to learn a language: http://languageloom.com
There are probably at least Two reasons that this was ignored 1) The form letter from the Government was ignored like unsolicited credit card application. 2) The data center in question needs their people to work on projects instead of collecting information for said Government.
Calvin:Do you believe in the devil? Hobbes:I'm not sure man needs the help.
That's what she said
Our data center had a catastrophic failure last year when the generator test failed and the operators didn't notice they had no power until the UPS died 15 minutes later. Absolutely everything lost power, and we spent the day recovering systems from various messy states. The exception was our Tandem, used for our clinical system, which was kept alive by a series of D batteries powering the CPU. We used to make fun of those D battieries, but never again.
In any case, our data center is part of a larger facility and while it's easy to report on overall power use for the facility, it's mixed in with so much else that it's hard to get a good estimate for power use by the data center alone. As we found out the hard way, the UPS wasn't adequate for downtimes longer than 15 minutes. We've since made a big push to improve the UPS and reduce the number of physical servers in the data center (switching to virtual whenever possible).
They take all the other information, so why not this?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
So the EPA likes it because it's tractable. But in many organizations, most IT-related energy use is actually at the edge - factoring in thousands of computers, monitors, printers, edge switches, wireless access points, VOIP phones or digital handsets (a simple analog phone on-hook uses almost no power), etc. Dozens of computers in an open office area adds a significant amount of heat that has to be removed. And as more and more equipment runs uses Ethernet and TCP/IP, you need more and more network switch ports, often delivering PoE. I think a lot of organizations are going to end up pointing fingers at their IT departments because they can identify the cost, and it's easier to blame one group in one location than to face the fact that everyone's incremental usage adds up to significant numbers.
The article does not mention how many companies the FCC asked. It only mentions how many they had hoped would sign-up and how many did. So I wouldn't say it's such a good turn out.
I was on there 2 days ago going to IN Work zone 55 - 60 open parts with 4+ lanes each way 70+ the part going up to WI is bad.
The part by the data center is wide open.
OK /.ers, how would YOU categorize or classify data centers to provide a little more sanity|classification|taxonomy to this generic study? For example:
Transaction Processing Center
High Performance Computing Center
Corporate Support Data Center
Web Host or ISP Data Center
Search Engine Data Center
Have at it.
Invenio via vel creo
"their thermal design was 60c"
That slowed my reading until I realized that it means "60 degrees Centigrade".
People, of course the feds know how much energy the datacenters are using, they know how much TAX they are paying on all of their utilities -- it's simple.
sounds more like a Dat Room than a Datas Center
If you don't want to see that happen, vote Republicans into congress and the whitehouse
Hmmm. Here's the thing. The great irony of American politics is that despite Liberals being aligned to Democrats and Conservatives being aligned to Republicans, it is the Republicans that have actually passed most of the liberal legislation over the last 40 years.
Check this out:
Richard Nixon (R) - Clear Air Act, Clean Water Act, EPA
Jimmy Carter (D) - deregulates the transporation sector. His 1b loan to chrylser would later be dwarfed by the massive bailouts of savings and loans, and financial institutions under Bush I and Bush II.
Ronald Reagan (R) - signed amnesty for all illegal aliens then in the USA, appoints first woman to supreme court
George Bush I (R) - Revises the Clean Air Act. Signs the Americans with Disabilities Act. Massive federal intervention to bail out troubled banks.
Bill Clinton (D) - Essentially adds little or no new regulation. Deregulates wall street. Cuts federal budget across the board. Raises taxes slightly in 1993 but repeals more liberal measures and then cuts capital gains tax later in term. Balances budget, encourages private investment that economy roars.
George Bush II (R) - signs massive energy bill with subsidies and incentives for alternative energy. Extends Medicare with prescription drug program. Doubles federal spending on physics and medical research, adds Sarbanes Oxley appoints first african american secretary of state, and, now the kicker, if the stars align right, Bush might be the guy that signs a massive cap and trade CO2 bill working its way through congress.
This is my sig.
I think some of the data centers (or more correctly, the companies who operate them) may have some reluctance because of the potential regulation this may create...
1) Gather data from volunteer data centers.
2) Establish "Energy Star" rating.
3) Use "Energy Star" rating to regulate how big datacenters can be, what kind of layout they must have, etc., etc.
4) Demand that any company bidding on government contracts must be "Energy Star" level 5 or whatever. New regulatory branch to monitor all this...
In general the data centers probably feel no good can come from it. Energy is getting more expensive every day. There is an obvious profit incentive to use less of it to operate your datacenter. This needs no government regulation.
The nameplate rating usually doesn't reflect the as-built configuration. Fill all the hard drive bays and DIMM slots, add that extra processor, and you might come closer to the nameplate. On the other hand, if you don't fully populate the chassis, how useful is that nameplate going to be?
It might the case where datacenter designers are starting to consider electricity and cooling in total-cost-of-ownership when deciding between equipment. In the past, however, it was usually just how much did something cost upfront, because datacenters require lots of upfront capital and energy was cheap. That's why so many computers have abysmally inefficient power supplies - they're cheaper upfront.
Those are the people in charge of writing legislation.
There is a healthy impulse to create gridlock in DC. A R president often means a D congress, and vice versa.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Like anyone paranoid about their power bill, they are growing weed. A data center would be a great place to stash a grow room. No one to notice tons of power being consumed.
There have to be at least 100 Universities and Quasi-governmental data centers that could be coaxed into giving this information. Most universities take many federal grants, and companies like Freddie Mac, and Sallie Mae are heavily regulated.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
The headlines will look like this one Air quality board to fine Bay Area polluters
Every data center that exists has a high carbon footprint. The San Francisco Bay Area is host to a myriad number of data centers that'll now find it convenient to relocate to a more hospitable environment or purchase indulgences in the form of carbon offsets.
When it comes to killing a golden goose, governments have no competitors. That goes double for state governments looking to fill a $15 Billion deficit. That goes triple for messianics.
The hell with the fact that the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis remains a hypothesis and is not a fact. That won't stop the true believers from imposing their will on those of us who remain unconvinced they're right.
Power Requirements == Cooling Requirements.
:-D
Thermodynamics
I decided to check my energy usage on my desktops (two) and my laptop. What amazed me was just how much wattage the Desktop was using when you add the monitor and external 2.1 speakers. It was around 220-250 watts.
What was even more amazing was that the laptop and router together were only using 35-40 watts. It's also interesting to watch the power usage go up temporarily when the CPU is exercised and then to see it drop immediately back down. How do they get a laptop with a 15.4 screen and speakers to use that little juice?
I agree completely that the bigger issue in corporations is the energy used by the end-user. When you add up all the desktops using 200+ watts plus local printers etc, it really adds up.
I think there is a real future for thin-clients and some sort of centralized resources in the future, at least for larger departments and corporations. The costs of maintaining 100's or 1000's of PC's with licenses, administration, maintainence and energy costs is huge. If you can reduce that by thin-clients and virtualized servers, you could save a lot.
From ZDNet:
"The recruitment company, Reed, for instance, has reduced its PC power use by 80 percent by replacing 4,500 PCs and 400 laptops with 'thin-client terminals'. "
http://news.zdnet.com/2424-9595_22-200543.html
To top it off, servers put out a LOT of heat.
I'm too dumb to accept the conventional wisdom, so I've been prototyping a mini server that pulls 105 watts under maximum load (both CPU's at 100% and a RAID-1 rebuild, was how I defined 'max') and about 70 watts when mostly idle. It's 'only' a Core2Duo w/ 6MB of cache, but it's a 1.333 GHz FSB with memory clocked at half of that to minimize wait states, and that's plenty for the kinds of servers I usually need (web, mail, web database, etc.). If I need more I'll go wide; I think I can get 84 of these into a rack.
I'll be publishing a HOWTO, but for now there are just some pictures up here. Once I figure out what I think is a SuperMicro BIOS/linux problem and get the thing into production I'll finish the HOWTO.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)