What
Can Be Done to Make Data Centers Greener?
“Enter
virtualization, which promises to bring to the data center what
carpooling brought to a highway clogged with single-passenger vehicles”
[8].
There are a few basic steps that can be taken to make data centers greener. The first is naturally to design and use more energy efficient servers. Second is to employ virtualization software. Next, new data centers must incorporate better, greener design features to promote more efficient energy use including water-cooled systems. Finally, data centers should seek out renewable energy to supply their energy needs, thus reducing their GHG emissions.
Designing and using more energy efficient servers is the easiest way to reduce energy consumption. Google’s “Commitment to Sustainable Computing” website claims that their Google designed data centers use significantly less energy than a typical data center [9]. Google estimates that as much as a third of energy supplied to a server is lost when that energy is converted from AC to varying, lower levels of DC power. Since 2000, Google has focused on more efficient power supplies and estimate that they have reduced the amount of wasted energy from AC-DC conversion to 15% from 33% [10]. Edward Stanford of Intel Corporation believes that designing 400V DC power data centers will yield a 7-10% reduction in total energy input. Yet such a radical change to data center design is still years off as it will take time to develop the necessary electrical standards [11].
Virtualization is a computing technique that allows one physical server to run multiple virtual servers simultaneously. These virtual servers can be running multiple instances of the same OS or different OSs. This strategy can be enacted without resorting to costly upgrades and has multiple benefits: “besides getting better hardware usage, virtualization reduces data center floor space, makes better use of computing power, and reduces the data center’s energy demands” [12].
If you would like to watch an animated explanation of server virtualization you can click on this YouTube video titled “What is Server Virtualization?”
LIBR 500: Foundations of Information Technology, School of Library, Archival and Information Science, University of British Columbia
Neil MacDonald
November 17th, 2008