BC43:Virtualization and the Green Factor

Ed Harnish

Agenda• The Need for a Green Datacenter• Using ‘Greener’ Technologies

– Reducing Server Footprints– Moving to new Processor Architectures– The Benefits of Virtualization– Strategies for Moving from Physical to Virtual

Infrastructures– Working with Policy-based Workloads

• Potential and Real Cost Savings• Getting There: Specific Steps to Follow

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The Need for a Green Datacenter• According to a Ziff-Davis survey, Power Consumption and

Cooling in the Data Center, 71% of data center operators identified power consumption as being a key issue affecting data centers but only 38% reported that power consumption had influenced purchasing decisions. —Survey was sponsored by AMD

• “As part of NYSERDA’s mission to use innovation and technology to solve New York’s most difficult energy and environmental problems in ways that improve the State’s economy, it is of utmost importance that we proactively address the increasing energy demand of the rapidly expanding IT infrastructure in New York State.”—Source: New York State Energy Research and Development

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Defining the Problem• Utility and IT expenses do not come from the same budgets• Performance, initial cost, system compatibility are the key

factors in IT purchasing decisions• Operating Systems and mission-critical software can often

dictate hardware configurations• Manufacturers define performance and efficiency differently or

don’t do it at all• Space, heating, ventilation and air conditioning are seldom

considered when purchasing IT assets • Small to midsize businesses are unaware of the actual cost of

powering the equipment• Many organizations have no easy way of determining how much

of the power bill is attributable to IT equipment• No industry standard method of measuring server efficiency

Are IT managers ecological terrorists?Are IT managers ecological terrorists?4

Going for the Green Datacenter?• Datacenters consume up to 100 times more energy per square

foot than traditional office space• They are being constructed at an unprecedented rate• The amount of power used in running and cooling servers and

auxiliary infrastructure doubled between 2000 and 2005— Source: Dr.Jon Koomey, consulting professor at Stanford University and one of the foremost international experts on energy usage by IT equipment

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61 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2006, roughly 1.6% of total US electricity

consumption; currently costs the industry $4.5 billion per

year— Source: EPA

The number of servers will increase by more than 50% from 2005

levels by 2010— Source: IDC

This will result in an increase of about 75% of the amount of electricity

consumed by servers — Jon Koomey

Escalating Cost of Power

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More than 80 local utility and state energy-efficient programsare offering rebates for increasing energy efficiency!

In a recent survey, 63% of organizations have run out of space!Another 43% said they would run out in 6 months!

The Industry is going Green!• Dell, Intel, Sun Microsystems and AMD joined forces

to form The Green Gridhttp://www.thegreengrid.org/gg_content/– A non-profit organization that seeks to define best practices

for optimizing the efficient consumption of power– Initial results:

• The Green Grid Opportunity: Decreasing datacenter and other IT energy usage patterns

• Guidelines for Energy-Efficient Datacenters• Green Grid Metrics: Describing Datacenter Power Efficiency

• Europe is now charging a ‘carbon’ tax• California’s Pacific Gas & Electric is leading the way

by giving rebates of up to $4M per site for physical server removals http://www.virtual-strategy.com/article/articleview/1770/1/22/

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Using ‘Greener’ Technologies

• Four Key Steps:• Reduce Server Footprints• Move to new Processor Architectures• Implement Virtualization• Work with Policy-based Workloads

Review Datacenter Structures• Traditional Datacenters are facing significant

issues– Physical servers are taking up too much room– Physical servers are underused (5 to 15%)– Physical servers generate too much heat– Physical servers need more and more power– Physical datacenters need complex business

continuity solutions– Downtime is a constant issue that must be

eliminated– Hardware management is complex and must be

simplified9

Racks versus Blades • Too many organizations still use larger servers• Racks are quickly filling up

– 4U systems fill racks more rapidly– 2U or 1U systems take less space

• Blade servers are better– Blade system is 7U to 10U on average, but can include 10-

16 servers– Blade systems share components and are not so demanding

on power, cooling and space– Up to 80% cabling reductions– Up to 50% less heat– Up to 20% less power consumption

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Control Power and Cooling Systems• Processors are a key factor in heat generation and

power consumption• Consider new processor architecture for servers

– AMD is a ‘hot’ new choice — lowest heat generation in the industry

– AMD can help control power consumption — lowest performance-per-watt rating in the industry

– Support hardware virtualization since early 2005• AMD can grow with your needs

11http://enterprise.amd.com/us-en/AMD-Business/Technology-Home/Power-Management.aspx

Improved Processor Power Management

IDLE MHz

75%

IDLE MHz

CORE 0 CORE 1

MHz and voltage is locked to highest utilized core’s p-

state

35%

Dual-core

IDLE MHz

75%

IDLE MHzCORE 0 CORE 1

35%

IDLE MHz

10%

IDLE MHzCORE 2 CORE 3

1%

MHz is independently adjusted separately per core.

Native Quad-core

Native Quad-Core technology enables enhanced power management across all four cores

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Perf

orm

ance

Pow

er

Performance-Per-Watt Scalability

Consistent power and thermals help deliver better performance per watt

Greater

Performance

Same Power & Same

Footprint!

2003 2005 2007

Performance-Per-Watt

CPUWatts

CPUWatts

CPUWatts

Dua

lC

ore

Qua

dC

ore

Sing

leC

ore

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Host OS

Virtualization Layer

Guest 1 Guest 2

Free Virtualization Layer

Hardware

What many use What many use to startto start

What may use in What may use in ProductionProduction

Guest 3

Hypervisor

Guest 1 Guest 2

Hardware

Guest 3

Paid virtualization layer

Machine Virtualization Architecture

Technology that partitions a computer into several independent machines that can support different OS’s and applications concurrently.

The hypervisor is the underlying software which runs directly on the hardware and manages multiple operating systems.

A virtual machine is self-contained operating environment that runs on top of the virtualization layer and behaves as if it is a separate computer.

Create virtual version of an operating system◦ Series of files in a folder◦ Configuration files◦ Virtual hard drive filesThree main commercial solutions◦ Microsoft:

Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 (free)Virtual PC 2007 (free)Windows Server Virtualization (Hypervisor)

◦ VMware (currently holds 80% of market):VMware Server (free)Workstation 6.0Virtual Infrastructure 3.x or ESX Server 3.x or 3iVirtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI)

Citrix XenServerXenExpress v4 (free)XenServer v4XenEnterprise v4 or OEM

Operating System Virtualization

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“Virtualization technology is helping our customers realize significant energy and cost savings, while addressing critical data center capacity issues. By providing financial support, we hope to increase industry adoption of this technology.”Helen Burt, Senior VP of PG&E

“Virtualization technology is helping our customers realize significant energy and cost savings, while addressing critical data center capacity issues. By providing financial support, we hope to increase industry adoption of this technology.”Helen Burt, Senior VP of PG&E

Windows Server R2 Enterprise Edition INCLUDES 4 Instances

Old License ModelTotal: 5 Windows Licenses

New with Windows Server R2 EE: Total: 1 License

Supports faster VM provisioning because you don’t need to worry about licensing

Should be able to provision new VMsin less than 20 mins!

Windows Server Windows Server 20032003R2 EER2 EE

Virtualization LayerVirtualization Layer

WindowsWindows WindowsWindows WindowsWindows WindowsWindows

Physical host OS and up to 4 guests

Each additional Windows Server R2 Enterprise Edition license you add gives you up to 4 more guests

Windows Server Datacenter Edition allows unlimited guests

Use the Microsoft Virtualization Calculator at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/howtobuy/licensing/calculator.mspx

Windows Server R2 Enterprise Edition

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Hardware

Server Virtualization ScenariosServer Virtualization Scenarios

© 2007, Resolutions Enterprises Ltd.

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Test and Development

Business Continuity Management

Dynamic Datacenter

Production Server Consolidation

• Integrate virtualization layers into one single service architecture…in the Datacenter

Build the Datacenter Ecosystem

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Use a 7-Layer Virtual Architecture

P2V: Catalyst to Greening Datacenters

• There are several products both free and paid that support the physical to virtual move process

• Just point to a physical server and transform it into a virtual machine– But, is it that easy? In reality, no.– You must make sure that the P2V tool you

use can convert the system drivers from actual hardware to simulated hardware.

– Not all tools can do this.20

P2V: A Broader Outlook• The physical to virtual conversion is not

necessarily a one-time process• For example, Microsoft’s support strategy for

virtual workloads is on a ‘best effort basis’ (see KB Article 897615)– If the problem persists, they often request that you

return the system to a physical machine.• In addition, you need to ensure you can back

up and restore all systems, physical and virtual• The best strategy is to rely on a tool that will

combine both backups and system conversions21

Conversion at Work

22A combined tool supports any conversion situation

Policy-based Workloads• Physical servers are nothing but resource

pool much like the network infrastructure• Service offerings — the offerings that interact

with users — are running in virtual machines only

• Virtual service offerings (VSO) are powered on and off on an as-needed basis

• Resource pools are powered up based on VSO workloads

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Policy-based Workloads at Work

7am

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noon-1pm 1pm-4pm 6pm-7am8am-9am

Vendor Cassatt already offers automated power efficiency software;see their power saving calculator at: http://www.cassatt.com/tools/powersavecalc.php

Mainstream Virtualization• At VMWorld, VMware announced ESX Server 3i, a 32MB

hypervisor that is built into server firmware• XenServer announced XenEnterprise OEM which does the

same thing• Microsoft is soon to release Windows Server Hyper-V which will

be built in to Windows Server 2008• VMware, XenServer and Microsoft are releasing offerings in

support of SMB virtualization• On October 8th VMware announced VMware Distributed Power

Management to reduce power consumption in the Datacenter through intelligent workload balancing

This is just the beginning!This is just the beginning!

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New Server Form Factors

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HP BladeSystem c3000 can now blend servers

and storage in the same enclosure

www.hp.comKell Systems sells new

smart enclosures that fit in any office

www.kellsystems.com

SMBs and Remote offices will be able to

depend on the server in a box concept

Potential & Real Costs SavingsPower Savings $300 to $600 per virtualized serverCooling Savings Up to $400 per virtualized serverHardware Savings From $2,500 per virtualized serverLicense Savings (Microsoft) 75% of Enterprise license per virtualized serverProcessor Savings (AMD) Between 15 to 65% per processorPower Rebates (Selected Utility Firms)

Up to 50% total cost of the project

Government Rebates (Selected States)

Variable reduction rates on income tax

Space Savings 90% space reduction (based on an average of 10 VMs per physical host)

Feel Good Ratio!Feel Good Ratio! 100% because you100% because you’’re doing something good for re doing something good for the planet!the planet!

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• Control server proliferation– Don’t let virtualization lead you into more server proliferation

• Rely on data center ‘Green’ practices• Move to blade servers• Rely on new AMD processors• Start small and build on your successes

– Use free virtualization technologies at first– Create a complete system protection and physical to virtual

(P2V) conversion strategy– Ensure you use the right virtualization solution

•• Move to a dynamic datacenter when you feel ready!Move to a dynamic datacenter when you feel ready!

Getting There!

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Resources• The Green Grid Association

http://www.thegreengrid.org/gg_content/

• The Green Data Projecthttp://greendataproject.org/

• Eco-Datacenter Design Bloghttp://datacenterdesign.blogspot.com/2006/11/eco-friendly-solutions-build-green.html

• Standard Performance Evaluation Corporationhttp://www.spec.org/

• US Environmental Protection Agencyhttp://www.epa.gov/

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