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An Electricity-Cost-Aware Internet Routing Scheme
Al writes "Researchers from MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Akamai have developed a network-routing scheme that could save 'internet-scale' companies such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft million of dollars each year by moving data to locations with the best electricity prices for a particular day. The scheme simply considers both the most efficient routing path for data and the potential cost savings of routing it somewhere farther away. The researchers studied price fluctuations at locations across the country and used data from Akamai caching servers to test the idea out. In the best possible scenario — which would require more efficient servers — they estimate that companies could save as much as 40% on the electricity bills (tens of millions each year). Google already operates at least one datacenter that shuts down when temperatures get too high. Is this the next logical step for internet computing?"
You guys don't have FIXED electricity prices? WTF?!
Move all your datacenters to Canada right now.
At least this idea was previously published at Research Disclosure, a site intended as an inexpensive way to log prior art. It is the next logical step and I'm glad to see that companies are moving in that direction.
While at first this struck me as an interesting idea, it took me a moment to realize that this is just dynamic (err... at server runtime) outsourcing. So, really, this isn't very amazing. Still, I think this is a good idea for us consumers: it means electricity usages for certain areas can shrink, which could potentially help lower rates for the rest of us. For once, outsourcing might be good for the economy.
"Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad." [Ecclesiastes 7:3]
Will the savings from this measure be passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices?? If so, I'm all for it; else, screw this, I won't take a performance hit on the Internets just to make some CEO and stockholders even richer.
The end result of these sorts of schemes is that large companies will increase local demand and local electricity prices. The big users will get rebates and concessions, while small users, particularly residential customers, will get hosed.
At the end of the day, once a few large players do this, the benefits will be marginal for them, as electricity costs are mostly driven by peak load.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Wouldn't re-routing the data also use up electricity. And possible more electric power would have to be re-routed to the low-cost servers. This sounds like something dreamed up by an accountant. Since mains electricity still has an environmental cost, there would be no real benefit. Sounds like it came from the same stable as carbon-emission trading ...
Electricity costs are something you measure based on tariffs. If you have a load curve of a pattern, one particular place is the best place to be, so you can just move your building there.
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This is good for wind energy. Wind energy has the problem that it sometimes doesnt blow, and other times it blows too much ;-)
I have read it is possible to give pretty accurate wind predictions. This could be used to start servers in locations where it blows too much, and stop servers in locations where it doesnt blow.
Yes.
comcast and at&t get a hold of this and we are routed through china to get our email...
Don't forget moving data to avoid taxation (someone political/evil) is going to get the bright idea of taxing transactions in a data center eventually), prosecution (might have to move the people executing the transactions, I picture cruse ships in international waters for online porn and gambling eventually, which brings up the issue of pirates, but that's another topic), and law suits (someone sues, infringing a patent, divorce - migrate your business to a friendly location).
When asked whether deciding to route based on electricity prices, a spokesman for the group said "Hang the latency. We don't care if the packets take two or three times as long to get where they're going as long as our costs go down. Not only that, but we're marketing this as 'green networking', which means we'll be able to charge more for it. Everybody wants to be green these days. It's a great scam... I mean scheme."
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
On the subject of data center running costs, why are there not more data centers in Iceland? The cold climate (to minimize cooling costs, which can be 50% of the total power drain in hot climates) combined with cheap renewable geothermal electricity would make it ideal I think.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
So let's say Minneapolis has the cheapest power that day, but then they have more-than-normal consumption rates. Will brown-outs occur or will the power companies not allow the infringing data companies on the grid to keep the indigenous peoples' lights on? It would suck if I lived in town and my power went out because Google wanted to save a few $$.
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Dear "outsourcing" naysayers..
READ THE SUMMARY. Like, the part where it talks about prices across "the country." As in, the country that the named companies operate in, i.e. the USA.
How about placing an outdated nuclear sub on the sea-bottom near the arctic circle instead of sinking old ship off the warm coasts for coral reefs. It would have to be gutted, then filled with servers and a way to pump glycol in-and-out for cooling, the glycol would be chilled by cool arctic waters. You'd have electricity for as long as the on-board nuclear plant still had fuel. If done off the northern coast of Alaska you'd only need to run a few short fiber links to land. There's plenty of military bases, so connections are established.
Kevin
Irrational Diversions
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What to optimize here? Turning Echelon OFF will save at average 50% of energy.
Would there be any benefit to Google (or whomever) to install a crap-pile of batteries that would charge during the low-rates and run the data center during the high-rates? That way they wouldn't need to shut down the operation just because electricity is expensive at that moment.
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One problem in optimization for brick-and-mortar companies with huge supply chain is "minimum landed cost at best profit margin". A friend of mine does such calculations for such organizations and provides ways to fine tune the supply chain leading to direct savings. Throw in things like lowest latency and mininum number of hops etc the techniques apply to problmes for a company providing services related to the internet. For a company that spends a big portion on electricity to provide services to its consumers it is another parameter to optimize for (some of the cases he did inluded things like political stability/labour laws to check for advisabililty of setting up a center in a particular geographical region). It will be interesting to see the results on the screens of the end-users. I have started to feel that a few of the sites I access most frequently have slowed over time. Maybe, it is just me but maybe there is a real problem and some people are trying to solve these.
This is another case of look at what we can do tech-wise without looking that there are buisness solutions already in place. Any company that is the size of google etc. Where they are concerned about a particular risk in electricity prices would simply hedge these risks in the financial market... Not to say this tech isn't a nifty approach to things just is it the optimal solution biz wise
It is the next logical step and I'm glad to see that companies are moving in that direction.
Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars) had allusions to a new kind of economic system, partly based on Thermodynamics. The cost of everything was mostly determined by the energy input, including the energy advantage of using natural resources, like metal ores. (There's a whole heaping lot of metal in ordinary soil, but it takes a lot less energy per unit mass to get the stuff out of ores.)
I think you could morph the current economic system into one with a Thermodynamic/Information Theoretic one. Basically, the markets are such a system, but they also have various distortions built into them due to people's emotions, cultural inertia, and ignorance. Such an economic system would be inherently "green."
Someone in the Federal government realizes that they can tax all of that savings to increase revenue. They'll accuse these companies of being greedy profit mongers who aren't paying their fair share and tax the fuck out of the savings. They'll be moving data from state to state and the Federal government will have the jurisdiction to get involved.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The scenario that you describe tends not to happen because most people that big have industrial agreements with fixed prices for power. I've seen electric bills for guys like steel mills that use up 3MW to well, melt metal with. Or, an oil refinery. Those guys get bills based on a tariff which has a fixed demand price coupled with a fixed price per kw consumed.. so, any spot pricing fluctuations they are insulated from. There are minimum usage requirements that most of these guys meet.
This is my sig.
The kids these days probably don't remember this bit of text, but it used to be the standard warning before sending a posting out to a network which we talk about in exactly the same way you talk about fight club:
And that was just for sending text messages usually under 4 KB in size.
And now they talk about cost-aware routing?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I picture cruse ships in international waters for online porn and gambling eventually
These guys have a better architecture for what you propose:
http://seasteading.org/
The thing about Cruise ships, is that they are not a good place to keep valuable permanent assets, like your financial data. One Rogue Wave, and they are potentially toast, and all of your secrets are subject to salvage laws in international waters. Not good. But Spar Buoys of sufficient size are immune to all wave action, due to simple geometry -- the part in contact with the water sits vertically, and has a very small cross section to wave motion.
It's all about money once more!
It's not "green" at all, just about cost-savings.
I first thought it would be about routing with the lowest possible usage of energy, but no.
Sad...
Yves (aka theYinYeti).
Old newss. Google already shift load globally to reduce electricty consumption for cooling and is probably more important than saving a few percent on electrity cost:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/16/google_chillerless_data_center/
While Belgium is likely to be pretty expensive to live, I bet it's still cheaper than Iceland (though the whole country going titsup during the GFC may change that).
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"