greening the data center: the it industry's energy efficiency imperative

Greening the Data Center:

The IT Industry’s Energy

Efficiency Imperative

Larry Vertal, Senior StrategistAdvanced Micro Devices

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Why All the Interest in Data Centers?

• Critical national and global infrastructure

• Surging demand for data processing and storage

• Rising energy intensity leads to higher cost of delivering information services

• Power and cooling limits in existing facilities

• Driving data center building boom

• Cost of electricity and supporting infrastructure now surpasses capital cost of IT equipment

• Impact on regional power grids

Building the case for Government Incentives/Regulation… HR 5646

1. Directed EPA to study energy efficient servers and data centers

2. Directs federal agencies to consider energy efficiency for server purchases

Datacenter Energy Consumption Study

Results

Electric use for

servers and

infrastructure in

US in 2005: 45

billion Kilowatt

hours

Aggregate

electrical usage

doubled from

2000 to 2005

Electric bill for

servers and

infrastructure in

US in 2005:

$2.7billion

US: Energy Consumption

AMD commissioned a two studies conducted by Jonathan Koomey, staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and consulting professor at Stanford University

Datacenter Energy Consumption Study

Results

Electric use for

servers and

infrastructure in

Worldwide in

2005: 120 billion

Kilowatt hours

Aggregate

electrical usage

doubled

worldwide from

2000 to 2005

Electric bill for

servers and

infrastructure

Worldwide in

2005: $7.2billion

A Global Concern: Energy Consumption

AMD commissioned a study conducted by Jonathan Koomey, staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and consulting professor at Stanford University

The Growing Energy Challenge

ESTIMATING TOTAL POWER CONSUMPTION BY SERVERS IN THE U.S. AND THE WORLDJonathan G. Koomey, Ph.D., Staff Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and

Consulting Professor, Stanford Universityhttp://www.amd.com/us-en/Corporate/VirtualPressRoom/0,,51_104_543~115850,00.html

Servers account for close to 1% of US electrical consumption in 2005

US datacenters consume more power than five 1000 megawatt nuclear power plants – at a cost of almost $3 billion

Aggregate electrical usage doubledfrom 60 billion kWh/yr in 2000 to 120 billion in 2005 worldwide

Electric bill for servers and infrastructure worldwide in 2005: $7.3 billion

Annual US data center power consumption could power Las Vegas for one year*

*http://www.nevadapower.com/company/facts/

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Source: US EPA Data Center Study

Comparison of Projected Electricity Use

by US Data Centers 2007-2011

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7

Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007

Produce specifications, measurements, best practices, and benchmarks for data centers with regards to:

• Performance and use of servers, data storage devices,

and other information technology equipment

• Efficiency of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, cooling,

and power conditioning systems

• Energy savings from the adoption of software and data

management techniques

Passed by Congress & signed by President – December 2007

1. National Program

2. Establishes program in cooperation between EPA, Dept. of Energy & an “ Industry Data Center Efficiency Organization “

Datacenter Power Mix

What’s Consuming all this Power?

Lighting power consumption1% - 2%

Server Power Consumption Impacts Power throughout the Datacenter

Computer Room Air Conditioner power

consumption

23% - 54%

Battery Backup power consumption

6% - 13%

Server, network and storage power consumption

38% - 63%

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What’s Consuming all this Power?

For every 3 watts into the datacenter,only 1 watt actually powers the device!

~2 WattsCooling!

1 WattPowers the server or workstation

200 mWPower distribution and electrical power supply

10

17%

12%

38%

21%

12% Power Consumption

Cooling

Both Equally

Important

Suspect That Both

Are Issues But Do

Not Track At This

Time

Neither Presents An

Issue At This Time

Data Center Power Consumption And Cooling

Issues

Base: Total Respondents (1,177)

Q. Between the two, what is the primary issue you face in your data center today?

Power Consumption/Cooling Issues

Tracked By Company (Net): 71%

15%

16%

23%

25%

26%

44%Increased Amount Of Power Supplied To

Data Center

Stopped Buying More Servers And/Or

Consolidated Existing Equipment

Implemented "Cool Aisle/Hot Aisle"

Layout

Increased Size Of Data Center

Other

None Of The Above

How Addressed These Data Center Issues

Base: Power Consumption/Cooling Issues Tracked By Company (834)

Q. How has your company addressed this issue to date?

85% Have Addressed Data Center Issues

Yes

21%

Don't Know

10%

No

69%

Rack Space Go Unused

Impact on Rack Space Usage


Q. Does rack space in your data center go unused due to

power consumption and cooling issues?

Over 50%

1%

Under 10%

18%

21%-50%

20%

10%-20%

61%

Average Rack Space Unused: 18%

Base: Rack Space Goes Unused (250)

Q. What percentage of rack space goes unused

due to power consumption and cooling issues?

Yes

29%Don't Know

15%

No

56%

Data Center Power Consumption And

Cooling A Way To Lower Costs


Q. Is data center power consumption and cooling being investigated by business management as a way to lower

operational costs?

Yes, Affected

29%Don't Know

9%

Not Affected

62%

Power Consumption And Cooling Issues Affected Server

Purchase Decision In Past 12 Months


Q. Have power consumption and cooling issues

affected a server purchase decision in the past

12 months?

7%

25%

34%

40%

64%Used Server Vendor's Published

Specs

Used Server's Power Supply Rating

Conducted Power/Cooling Tests In-

House

Used Server Vendor's Power Budget

“Calculators”

Other

Base: Issues Affected Server Purchase Decision (336)

Q. How did you determine whether the chosen server met

your criteria?

Server Purchase Decision CriteriaAffected Server Purchase Decision

Base: Would Implement System Level Tools (834)Q. If system-level tools were available that would allow you to manage

power and cooling at the server rack level, would you implement

them? Which management package would you like to see these

tools integrate with?

Implementation of System-Level Tools To Manage

Power And Cooling

31%

9%

5%

9%

17%

29%HP Openview

IBM Tivoli

LANDesk

CA Unicenter

Other

Don't Know

Management Package Would Like To Integrate

71% Would Implement System-Level Tools 29% Would Not Implement System-Level Tools

Reasons Would Not Integrate

24%

20%

38%

52%

Don't See Benefit

Of Managing

Down To That

Level

Not Enough IT

Staff To Track

Another

Management Tool

Consider This An

Issue That Server

Vendors Should

Resolve

Other

Base: Would Not Implement System Level Tools (343)

Q. If no, why not?


Q. What type of processor powers the majority [75% or more] of the servers in your data center?

Q. What type of processor powers the balance of the servers in your data center?

Types Of Processors In Data Center

8%

4%

4%

8%

9%

67%Intel Xeon

IBM POWER

Sun UltraSPARC

AMD Opteron

Other

Don't Know 25%

11%

15%

20%

23%

24%Sun UltraSPARC

Intel Xeon

IBM POWER

AMD Opteron

Other

None, All Servers Are Powered By

The Same Processor Type

Processors Powering The Majority Of

Servers In Data Center

Processors Powering The Balance Of

Servers In Data Center

14%

14%

17%

25%

31%2U-3U

1U

4U-5U

Blade

Other

Server Form Factors Currently Installed(Average Percentage of Servers in Data Center)


Q. What server form factors do you currently have installed in your data center (breakdown by percentage)?

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Infrastructure Impact of Quad-Core

Datacenter-Level

Wattage based on 2P systems, 8 DIMMs, TDP wattage for ‘Dempsey’, ‘Woodcrest’ & ‘Clovertown’ is estimated based on current publicly available processor and chipset values, AMD estimates, and an incremental 100watts for fans, storage, and power supply. (see, eg: http://techreport.com/etc/2006q2/woodcrest/index.x?pg=2 and is subject to change. The examples contained herein are intended for informational purposes only. Other factors will affect real-world power consumption.

Datacenter Power Budget7 Megawatts

Increased Power Increased Power

and Thermals can and Thermals can

result in result in

expensive facility expensive facility

upgrades:upgrades:

$ facility build$ facility build--outout

$ electricity cost $ electricity cost

$ power distribution$ power distribution

$ HVAC equipment$ HVAC equipment

14% Wasted 14% Wasted

Space with Space with

QuadQuad--Core Core

XeonXeon

10% Wasted 10% Wasted

Space with Space with

DualDual--Core Core

XeonXeon

Example: SecondExample: Second--

Generation Generation

AMD AMD OpteronOpteron™™

processors with processors with

upgrade path to upgrade path to

quadquad--core within core within

existing power & existing power &

thermal thermal

envelopesenvelopes

Dual-core

100 Racks

8000 total cores

Quad-core

100 Racks

16,000 total cores

Dual-core

90 Racks

6840 total cores

Quad-core

85 Racks

12,240 total cores

Transition toQuad-core

DifficultTransition toQuad-core

POWERLIMITED

POWERLIMITED

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One “Brain” to Four “Brains”:

Greater computing but same power & thermals

Greater

Performan

ce

Same Po

wer

25% better performance

30% better performance/watt

Example: Example:

SecondSecond--

Generation Generation

AMD AMD OpteronOpteron™™

processors processors

with upgrade with upgrade

path to quadpath to quad--

core within core within

existing power existing power

& thermal & thermal

envelopesenvelopes

Performance-Per-Watt Scalability

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Putting Quad-Core to Work

1 Core 2 Cores 4 Cores Multi-Cores

Optimized Software

Un-optimized Software

Software need to be properly coded to take advantage of multiple cores

Development tools can help create multi-threaded applications− Compilers

− Java

− MSFT .NET Framework

− Libraries

Perf

orm

ance

Core Count

Silicon drives performance gains

Software drives performance gains

Multi-Threaded Software Considerations

Launched in February 2007, today more than 158 member companies

www.thegreengrid.org

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In 2006, AMD partnered with IT industry leaders to create

The Green Grid consortium

• A global consortium dedicated to developing models, metrics and standards and to promoting energy efficiency for data centers and information services delivery

• Founding Members: AMD, APC, Dell, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Rackable Systems, SprayCool, Sun Microsystems and VMware (EMC)

The Green Grid

Understanding the Issue

• Despite the fact that power consumption is one of the most important issues facing IT today, there is a lack of guidelines and resources available for those looking to drive a change:

– Prior to the formation of The Green Grid, there were few standards efforts for measuring energy efficiency in the data center

– Most information on data center efficiency is departmentalized and proprietary

– No clear roadmap for future data center design and operations; IT managers need information on what to start implementing now

Technical Work Groups

• Data Collection and Analysis– Investigations and analysis into data center efficiency

problem space

• Data Center Technology and Strategy– Existing and emergent technologies for data center

efficiency

• Data Center Operations

– Use models, operational strategies and best practices

– Equipment standards

• Data Center Metrics and Measurements– Data center characteristics and performance metrics

– Measurement protocols for data collection

Announced at February

the Technical Forum

• Data Center Rating System – industry discussion on data center ratings with a number of parties – including California Energy Commission, DOE, Electric Power Research Institute, EPA, European Commission and The Green Grid – who have started working on data center energy efficiency rating systems

• Data Center Productivity – session highlighting The Green Grid’s progress in developing metrics for data centers that relate useful work performed within data centers to the resources required to complete that work

• Measuring DCiE Today – panel discussion on what various companies are doing with regard to monitoring and measuring DCiE and PUE in their daily operations

Delivering on the Promise

The Green Grid is the industry voice on energy efficiency for data centers and business computing ecosystems

• Defining meaningful, user-centric models and metrics

• Developing standards, measurement methods, best practices and technologies to improve performance against the defined metrics

• Promoting the adoption of energy-efficient standards, processes, measurements and technologies

THANK YOU