{"id":1322,"date":"2008-02-25T20:58:36","date_gmt":"2008-02-26T03:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/?p=1322"},"modified":"2017-08-26T02:02:49","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T09:02:49","slug":"computer-industry-finally-going-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/computer-industry-finally-going-green\/","title":{"rendered":"Computer Industry Finally Going Green"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>From Innovations, a website published by Ziff-Davis Enterprise from mid-2006 to mid-2009. Reprinted by permission.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1713\" title=\"Data center heat dispersion\" src=\"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/Innovative_Research-300x240.jpg\" alt=\"Data center heat dispersion\" width=\"300\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/Innovative_Research-300x240.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/Innovative_Research.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>The graphic at right may look kind of cool, but it&#8217;s anything but.\u00a0 It&#8217;s actually a simulation of the heat distribution of a typical data center prepared by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.inres.com\/Products\/TileFlow\/tileflow.html\">Innovative Research<\/a>, a computational fluid dynamics company.\u00a0 It demonstrates graphically what all data center managers already know: the data center is nearly impossible to keep cool.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, this fact is costing us a fortune.\u00a0 As the price of oil breaches $100 a barrel, new attention is being focused on the possibilities of wringing big savings out of data centers by attacking their notoriously lousy energy efficiency.\u00a0 Some stats:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The      amount of electricity consumed by US data centers doubled between 2000 and      2006 and is expected to double again by 2011 according to the U. S. Environmental      Protection Agency (EPA).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A      typical 50,000-square-foot data center consumes about 57 barrels of oil      per day.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Data centers      consume 1.5% of all electricity in the U.S.,      the EPA says.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>About      40% of the power used by data centers goes to cooling, according to      several estimates. About 60% of that expense is wasted, however, because of      what you see in the graphic to the left.\u00a0      Data center heat distribution is extremely erratic and spot cooling      is complicated. Instead, companies use brute force and over-cool most of      their equipment just to be sure the hottest machines don&#8217;t melt.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Over      half the power that companies use to run their desktop computers is wasted      because the machines aren&#8217;t shut off overnight or don&#8217;t power down when      not in use, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.climatesaverscomputing.org\/\">ClimateSaversComputing.org<\/a>.\u00a0 Most companies could save between $10      and $50 per PC per year by using basic power management software,      according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greenercomputing.com\/\">Greener Computing<\/a>.      That adds up.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Nevertheless,      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.networkworld.com\/supp\/2008\/ndc1\/021808-ndc-power-cost-reality.html?ts0hb=&amp;story=ac1_ndc1\">a      majority of IT executives don&#8217;t consider energy efficiency in IT product      evaluations<\/a> and a half still haven&#8217;t taken the basic step of removing      unneeded servers, according to Network World.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These numbers are deplorable, but the Network World research identified an interesting explanation.\u00a0 Its survey found that 68% of IT manager respondents weren\u2019t responsible for their energy bills. In most cases, those costs were paid by the facilities department like PC Doctor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcdoc.co.uk\/\">PC Doctor is a Computer Repairs Company in Edinburgh<\/a>. If IT never even sees the electric bill, it has no incentive to reduce it.<\/p>\n<p>There is good news. Data centers are getting unprecedented attention right now as sources of significant cost savings, even if it\u2019s only because there\u2019s so much room for improvement. A recent PriceWaterhouseCoopers study found that 60% of 150 senior executive respondents rated energy costs as a top priority, which means at their IT managers will be getting an e-mail.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/money.cnn.com\/news\/newsfeeds\/articles\/marketwire\/0364506.htm\">IBM has made green data centers a key part of its marketing strategy<\/a>. Dell recently launched an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dell.com\/designregeneration\">international competition to design technology products with a greener focus<\/a>. Then there\u2019s ClimateSaversComputing.org, an initiative sponsored by Google and Intel in which technology providers agree to hit certain energy consumption targets.<\/p>\n<p>Members of the technology CEO Council were in Washington just a few weeks ago <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eweek.com\/c\/a\/Infrastructure\/Tech-Execs-Stump-for-Green-IT-on-Capitol-Hill\/\">to pitch the idea that investments in IT can save energy<\/a>.\u00a0 While there agenda was self-serving, there&#8217;s no question that the industry as a whole is turning its attention to fixing this mess.<\/p>\n<p>And its such an obvious mess to fix.\u00a0 Whether your motivations are the rapid payback, the positive environmental impact or the simple satisfaction of knowing that you&#8217;re not flushing money down the drain, why wouldn&#8217;t you want to make your IT operation more power-efficient?\u00a0 Next week, will look at a few ideas for just how to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Innovations, a website published by Ziff-Davis Enterprise from mid-2006 to mid-2009. Reprinted by permission. The graphic at right may look kind of cool, but it&#8217;s anything but.\u00a0 It&#8217;s actually a simulation of the heat distribution of a typical data &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/computer-industry-finally-going-green\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[159,208,211],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pTy95-lk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1322"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3743,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1322\/revisions\/3743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}