SNAP SHOT: DATA CENTER TRANSFORMATION

Federal agency IT organizations are starting to alter how they finance and manage data centers and components (servers, storage and networks) to avoid costs and support the ongoing government-wide trend toward consolidation and virtualization in data centers, which is reducing the number of IT facilities and operating locations. Because virtualization merges workloads onto fewer servers and storage devices, reducing the number of servers to accommodate more work decreases the energy needed to operate servers and saves valuable floor space as well.

At the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, server sprawl was reduced by implementing rack-dense blade servers and virtualization software to better manage and allocate server resources. Storage area networks (SANs) improved storage management and higher density tape backup subsystems and new fans were also installed to lower energy costs and save space within the EPA’s data center infrastructure. Meanwhile, the EPA reports that data centers consume more than 60 billion kilowatt hours of energy, or about 1.5 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption. The EPA also predicts data center power consumption with no additional efficiency gains will nearly double from current rates, and the collective power bill will grow to $7.4 billion in 2011. After heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, data centers consume the most power in government buildings. The growth of servers and storage is straining power and cooling capacity. Meanwhile, increasingly network-intensive software and services are also consuming ever more power from government IT budgets.  

The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) signed into law in 2007 to reduce energy usage, now requires government agencies to seek new methods to improve energy efficiency. Agencies are now instituting green initiatives that track resource usage, carbon emissions and efficient utilization of resources such as power and cooling for their data centers. Federal agencies are also
starting to implement policies and technologies that can help conserve power, reduce cooling costs, maintain availability and support disaster recovery, while sustaining operational growth in those data centers. Some agencies are instituting a four-year refresh cycle on computers. Others use only Energy Star® rated monitors and computers, as those monitors go to sleep after 10 minutes and CPUs go to sleep after 30 minutes. They can also be centrally managed by a server. In fact, Energy Star is currently formulating power consumption ratings for servers. As data center energy costs escalate, IT organizations must understand the energy efficiency of the servers they plan to purchase, because there are significant differences.

Another way to reduce data center energy use includes improving airflow management. Agencies can deploy power transformers and uninterruptible power supplies. Installing rack-based power-distribution units (PDUs), for example, to take advantage of switching-mode power supplies (SMPS) can effectively reduce server power usage. Intelligent PDUs can switch individual receptacles on and off remotely. By incorporating an intelligent PDU with power-management, unused servers can be turned off to save energy. Servers that aren’t needed for 24/7 operation could be switched off for any periods when they aren’t in use, eliminating unnecessary energy consumption. Perhaps the biggest savings opportunity involves uninstalling equipment that has become technologically obsolete. Industry observers estimate that up to 30 percent of servers in any given data center are no longer in active production, although they continue to consume energy. Federal IT organizations must turn off those servers, remove them from the physical racks and properly dispose of them.

Another way to reduce data center energy consumption is to invest in storage tiering, which establishes a storage hierarchy so that inactive or less critical data can be moved to less expensive storage tiers. Industry observers maintain that federal IT organizations should assign an individual or group to take ownership of ‘green’ projects. The group should evaluate technologies that use less energy and work with procurement officers to establish policies for buying more energy efficient systems.

Gartner Inc., in Stamford, Conn., for example, suggests that IT organizations start by focusing on one segment first, such as desktops or servers, then using what the agency learns to address a broader product base. Another important tip is to benchmark the progress made to conserve energy. Calculate how much electricity a data center currently uses and document the link between direct IT power utilization and costs avoided. For aging federal data centers, a new cooling system should be at the top of IT managers' wish lists.