 | Issue: | Asia-Pacific III 2008 |
| Article no.: | 8 | |
| Topic: | Reducing ICT energy consumption | |
| Author: | Anand Sanghi | |
| Title: | Vice President Marketing, Asia-Pacific | |
| Organisation: | Emerson Network Power | |
| PDF size: | 261KB |
About author
Anand Sanghi is Emerson Network Power’s Vice President for Marketing. Prior to this role, Mr Sanghi was Vice President for Emerson Network Power’s Service Business in Asia. Mr Sanghi joined Emerson as Business Planner for Emerson Climate Technologies in Hong Kong. He held several roles of increasing responsibility, including Manager of the Refrigeration Business and Marketing Manager for North Asia Air Conditioning. He later became the Director of Planning and Business Development for Emerson Electric Asia Pacific. Mr Sanghi is the key resource speaker on Energy Logic Solutions in the symposium series in Manila. Anand Sanghi received a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and an Electrical Engineering degree from the India Institute of Technology, Chennai.
Article abstract
Burgeoning demand for Internet services and the introduction of new services compel providers to increase their processing capacity and energy consumption. Rising energy expenditures are now a major concern at data centres. Studies have shown that there is a cascade of energy usage in data centres; reducing consumption at the server level results in several times the initial reduction in overall data centre usage. By following a 10-step roadmap, energy use can be reduced by up to fifty per cent.
Full Article
As demand for new Internet services, such as music downloads, social networking, video-on-demand (VoD), Internet telephony and other rich media grow, communications companies are constantly challenged to upgrade their support infrastructure. They are also increasingly concerned with the energy consumed to support this increased demand. Growing energy consumption in the digital world is a ‘demand-side’ story. With millions of users joining social networks, and organizations expanding their online business, the electricity consumed by the supporting equipment and infrastructure will increase proportionately. In the United States, the growth in data centre servers doubled energy consumption rates between 2000 and 2005.1 Given the increased energy consumption, energy efficiency has emerged as one of the top data centre concerns. Data Centre Users’ Group (DCUG) data shows that energy efficiency has recently emerged as one of the top data centre concerns. In the United States alone, the Internet will grow at least 50 times by 2015, requiring a dramatic expansion of bandwidth, storage and traffic management capabilities in core, edge, metro and access networks. The estimated cost of these infrastructure upgrades will be about US$137 billion worldwide.2 Likewise, Asia’s bustling economy is spurring demand for energy, which in turn has also raised concerns on energy security and environment sustainability. Asia’s dependency on imported oil is expected to grow from 55 per cent in 2004 to 89 per cent in 2030. Notably, Asia will continue to depend on imports from the Middle East for almost all of its increased energy demands.3 By 2010, the global online population should total over one billion users, of which 40 per cent will be in Asia.4 Another underlying demand driver is the huge appetite for increased computing capacity of the Asian business community. Emerging industries such as the nascent travel and e-commerce industry will also contribute to the equation. Energy-efficient IT infrastructure As the consumption and cost of energy increase to accompany the growth of the digital economy, business organizations are beginning to realize the importance of controlling and cutting energy costs to remain competitive. Among the cost-cutting opportunities, reducing energy consumption and optimizing the IT infrastructure is a proven strategy for managing costs. Aligning the business with IT, and delivering services in a controlled and cost-effective manner, provides a good return on investment (ROI). An intense analysis of data centre energy-saving opportunities resulted in a ten-step roadmap for IT and communication infrastructure optimization. Targeting the ITC community, the roadmap’s holistic approach offers the opportunity to reduce energy consumption by up to 50 per cent, reduce the floor space occupied and free up the installed power and cooling capacity. It is a logical and quantified approach to minimizing energy consumption. Not only does this help improve operating costs by reducing energy consumption, it also helps businesses meet their aspirations to be green in a sustainable way. The core of the roadmap’s approach addresses the demand and supply dynamics of the facility. This enables IT equipment and supporting systems energy reductions that greatly reduce total data centre energy consumption without compromising performance or availability. With the cascade effect, saving 1 Watt at the server results in an overall reduction of 2.84 Watts in the data centre’s energy consumption. The ten-step roadmap enables reductions of up to 50 per cent in overall data centre energy usage; frees up two-thirds of its floor space; and, saves up to one-third of UPS (uninterruptible power supply) capacity and 40 per cent of cooling capacity. All of the technologies used in the roadmap are available today and many can be phased into a data centre as part of a scheduled technology upgrade to minimise capital expenditure. The roadmap prioritizes actions for data centre managers, and provides a guideline regarding the information and technologies that data centre managers need to optimize their facilities. A vendor-neutral approach suggests data centre managers and designers, IT equipment manufacturers and infrastructure providers should collaborate to optimize data centre efficiency, beginning with policies that encourage the use of energy-efficient technologies, especially low-power processors and high-efficiency power supplies. A recent energy symposium in the Asia-Pacific region, with the theme Enabling Energy Efficient IT Infrastructure, shared this vendor-neutral roadmap and promoted public awareness on energy savings. This symposium has already reached over three thousand ITC professionals. The symposium covered 15 major cities in 11 countries in Asia: Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, India and Australia. The event brought together industry and market leaders, CXOs, facility managers, IT professionals, consulting engineers and ecosystem partners on a common platform to share ideas, resources and information to empower IT professionals in meeting IT infrastructure challenges. Symposium survey yields key results The survey deployed during the Energy Logic series has found that the top three major concerns for data centre managers in Asia are Availability/Uptime, Energy Efficiency and Heat Density. Availability, energy efficiency and heat density are the top three major concerns among data centre managers. A survey revealed that although energy efficiency is a major concern, most data centre managers have not yet taken steps to address the issue. Of the data centre managers surveyed, 46 per cent revealed their concern, but have not yet implemented a strategy to manage energy costs; 15 per cent do not know how to tackle the situation; and, only 13 per cent have started deploying highly energy-efficient equipment. Most data centre managers/users believe that use of highly efficient power and cooling equipment can greatly reduce energy consumption. Survey indicates that the main drivers of energy efficiency measures are corporate directives, the desire to get more capacity out of the current IT infrastructure, and rising energy costs. In summary, rising energy consumption and escalating energy costs in data centres are a key concern for businesses. The good news is that data centre managers now have a concrete and actionable roadmap that enables them to implement an energy strategy without compromising availability.
