Feds Push IT to Expend Less Energy

Computerworld - IT manager Vince Delperdangs environmental science degree is well suited to the era of global warming  especially in light of a prediction by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that power consumption in data centers will double over the next four years unless companies become more energy efficient.

In a report issued to Congress this month, the EPA called on IT managers to adopt best practices for managing power usage, install new energy-saving technologies and make going green a priority. Otherwise, they will continue contributing to global emissions problems, the EPA said.

IT is just a complete burden on the environment, said Delperdang, who manages IT operations at ODonnell/Atkins Co., a real estate brokerage firm in Irvine, Calif. The burden he speaks of also includes other aspects of IT, such as the solvents used in manufacturing and the mercury built into chips.

Delperdangs combined interest in computers and the environment has sparked his interest in reducing ITs power consumption. Unlike many data centers, his is metered so that he can measure how much energy different technologies use. When Delperdang moved off of four direct-attached storage systems to a storage-area network from Pillar Data Systems Inc., the meters enabled him to track power usage levels, so he knows he was able to triple storage capacity and add new servers without consuming more energy.

Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC), a nonprofit company that creates performance benchmarks widely used by server vendors, plans to publish a power-usage test suite by years end.

Delperdang said he thinks the energy efficiency data produced by the SPEC benchmark will be overstated in the same way that fuel mileage estimates for cars typically are. But as long as its a level playing field, the information may be valuable, he said.

CFOs May force Issue

Ken Brill, founder and executive director of The Uptime Institute Inc. in Santa Fe, N.M., said IT managers should pay attention to the EPAs report and take action to cut their power usage.

But, he added, big changes may not take place until companies chief financial officers take notice of data center power bills and seek to reduce them. Either IT can deal with this, or the CFO is going to deal with it, Brill said.

Jonathan Koomey, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who has been advising the EPA on data center energy issues, predicts that SPECs new benchmark will prod vendors to improve the energy efficiency of servers. It also should encourage sensible decision-making by users, Koomey said, adding that they now have no way to base a purchasing decision on energy efficiency.

Thomas Zimmerman

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