Digital Realty Trust and PUE, two years on

In May 2008 Digital Realty Trust was one of the first corporations to go public with its data center Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) figures. At a conference in London in April Jim Smith, CTO of Digital Realty Trust, summarized two years’ experience measuring and managing PUE and DCiE (Data Center infrastructure Efficiency). You can see what Jim had to say in this video on the DatacenterDynamics TV site. A great example for all of us.

“One Schneider” has the data center in its sights

Sanef Telecoms is the first company in France to deploy a solution combining products from Schneider Electric and APC. For Etienne Mercier, project manager at Sanef, the latest power and cooling technologies deliver an improved environment and a measureable return on investment. To manage the migration of the data center to a dynamic infrastructure, monitor business activities and deliver new distributed on-demand services Mercier has deployed a new global solution from Schneider Electric baptized “One Schneider”. The objectives of One Schneider are denser, more efficient, more predictable, more secure data centers, delivering modularity, flexibility and ease of administration for the enterprise. Schneider Electric is seeking to develop an effective model covering the design, deployment and operation of the datacenter to deliver integrated, standardized responses for faster deployment and improved energy efficiency.

End-to-end data center optmization
The “One Schneider” offering brings together IT and non-IT skills from Schneider Electric itself and associated companies including APC by Schneider Electric, TAC, Infra plus and Pelco. Their complementary skills and knowledge cover clean rooms, controlled climate environments, power distribution, precision air conditioning, security, facilities management and information systems infrastructure. With the associated services offerings this represents a very comprehensive response to the key issues face by today’s CIOs as they look at how the data center needs to evolve to meet the challenges of the next few years. The innovative approach is more concerned with improving the information systems environment globally rather than seeking “point” improvements at the level of individual components. The key success measures? Reliability, high availability, and energy savings delivered by the overall deployment.

Energy efficiency: a question of control

On January 20th a new generation environmentally-friendly superstore opened its doors in Sens, France. Part of the Intermarché chain of food and household goods retail outlets, the Sens store is aiming to reduce energy consumption and overheads while improving customer comfort thanks to an energy management solution by Johnson Controls, baptised Econeo. “From the beginning we took the decision to use environmentally friendly technologies in building the hypermarket” says Didier Poirot, owner and managing director. “Our main objective was reduced energy consumption. The Johnson Controls solution maximizes our energy efficiency, and we expect to reduce overall energy consumption by 30%.”

The hypermarket uses cooling systems based on recycled CO₂ for a much reduced greenhouse gas impact compared with traditional cooling systems. Heat generated by the refrigeration systems is recovered and recycled to heat the store, in particular the “comfort corridors” separating the chilled/frozen food areas with higher-temperature zones for a more comfortable customer experience.

Sustainable development is part of the DNA at Johnson Controls. A range of technologies and services allowing enterprises to reduce their environmental impact covers redesign of heating and lighting installations, biomass heating solutions, integrated facilities management systems and specialized metering. Johnson Controls is now calling on European companies and the public sector to sign energy performance contracts, with the objective of increasing the energy efficiency of buildings. According to Tom Lowery, the company’s vice president for Europe and Africa, immediate action is required to cut the production of harmful greenhouse gases. “If we care about our planet, we need to act now.”

Google confirms containers

Rumours that Google houses its datacenters in shipping containers have been around for some time, but Google has — up to now — kept silent on the question. At the recent Google Efficient Data Centers Summit, Google engineers finally came clean on containers. Container-based datacenters have been in operation since 2005. A single standard shipping container can house up 1000 servers pulling 250 kW of energy, for an energy density of around 8 kW/m². Server racks are suspended from the ceiling of the container, leaving the floor free for the water-based cooling system. Temperature in the container’s cold aisle is kept to 30°C. A full datacenter requires several dozen containers.

More from the summit on Google’s corporate web site, and a video presenting the container technology:

The next generation datacenter is up and running

In the current economic climate the route to the green datacenter for many enterprises implies cost reductions, optimization of existing equipment, and selective outsourcing. The ideal solution to going green — a new datacenter, built from scratch using the most ecological technologies — is an option available only to a lucky few.

Business & Decision, an international consultancy specializing in business intelligence, CRM and e-business deployments, is one of the few. Determined to reduce its environmental impact Business & Decision decided to build a new generation datacenter for its subsidiary Interactive Eolas.

A new datacenter in the French Alps

Eolas is based in Grenoble, in the French Alps, a region with abundant water and energy resources. Business & Decision was able to take over an industrial building vacated by Alstom, built to take advantage of underground water sources which Business & Decision now use for an innovative cooling system. “We’re going beyond the state of the art, with a system we call Active Cooling” explains Jean-Michel Franco, Business Solutions Director with Business & Decision.

Based on the know-how of a well known local architect and a “co-build” partnership with suppliers including Intel and Schneider, the project is currently advancing rapidly with the datacenter expected to be operational by September 2009.

Delivering measurable results

Reduced power consumption and virtualisation are key elements of the Eolas development. “Maximizing virtualisation isn’t yet standard practice in every datacenter, but it’s an essential part of this project” says Jean-Michel Franco. But the story doesn’t end with the overall architecture of the datacenter; for Business & Decision measurable results are a priority. “PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) is easy to calculate, but it’s not enough. We’ll also be using Data Center Productivity (DCP) to measure results” he adds.

Business & Decision sees a role as an active contributor to Green IT and is developing a “Green Etiquette” label “to encourage a more responsible attitude by vendors, for example with policies for recycling”.

The future’s Green for AXA Tech

Since late 2006 Green is the colour for AXA Technology Services (AXA Tech). Every employee is expected to contribute to reduce electricity consumption and paper usage by 5% each through simple actions such as switching off monitors or printing less. But with information systems representing half the total energy budget at AXA Tech — 350GW, out of a total of 700GW — a more aggressive strategy was needed.

A dedicated Green Team
“We decided a clear strategy was needed. The first, essential, step was to set up a team in every country, with a manager whose responsibility was to define a program and get buy-in from every department to identify solutions which would make a real contribution” explains Fabrice Lock, Innovation Program Manager at AXA Tech. Lock was speaking at the Innovation Forum accompanied by Axa Tech’s Director of Sustainable Development, charged with cost reduction and optimisation of IT services, including servers, storage, cooling systems and other services. The task is more difficult than it sounds in an industry where innovation is key to success, and where continual change is the norm.

The first results were visible in 2007, with €6M in cost savings. An additional €3M in savings is expected for 2008. Amongst the initiatives, virtualising the datacenter infrastructure has avoided the need to build a new datacenter, with the associated capital and operational costs.

A breath of fresh air for the datacenter

Year-round cooling for the datacenter carries high costs, both financial and environmental. Is it really necessary? An experiment carried out in the New Mexico desert by Intel gives some interesting answers.

Intel engineers reasoned that with servers typically designed to support operational ambient temperatures of 37°C (98°F), the datacenter can still effectively be cooled by free air at temperatures as high as 33°C (90°F). The decision was made to install a test bed using 900 blade servers in a trailer facility in the New Mexico desert. The trailer was divided into two halves — one half cooled using an industry-standard approach to climate control, the other half cooled using free desert air.

The Intel engineers were also interested in challenging assumptions about the impact of humidity, dust, and large temperature swings on server reliability. No attempt was made to control humidity in the free-air datacenter, and a simple household dust filter prevented larger particles entering but didn’t block fine dust.

The results? After ten months in the desert, the 450 dust-covered servers in the air-cooled half of the datacenter returned an overall failure rate of just 4.46%, only marginally higher than Intel’s (climate controlled) corporate datacenter (3.83%) — for savings in power consumption alone which would amount to $2.87M for a 10MW datacenter. For new-build datacenters, eliminating capex on cooling systems would add to the overall savings for the corporate IT budget.

The full report (PDF) is available in a brief on Intel’s web site.

IBO’s underground datacenter reduces energy consumption

With customer demand growing, IBO, a colocation and hosting services provider based near Clermont Ferrand in central France decided it was time to build a new datacenter. “We wanted to work with a single supplier capable of delivering a global solution meeting our needs for high availability, future growth, and low environmental impact” explains Frédéric Chaumont, General Manager of IBO. “APC had the most innovative solutions coupled with extensive experience in building next-generation datacenter facilities.”

With environmental impact clearly identified as a priority, IBO obtained additional support from the Auvergne regional authority, from SIDE, a Michelin subsidiary focused on industrial development in regions where the company has manufacturing facilities, and from OSEO Innovation, a French government initiative supporting technology innovation.

Datacenter 3.0, according to Cisco: Green, naturally!

Robert Scoble, journalist (FastCompany) and blogger visited Cisco’s next generation datacenter a few days ago, a visit hosted by Cloud expert James Urqhart. Key objectives: reduce costs, reduce the environmental impact – make it Green.  The tools: virtualisation, automation, and cloud computing. A 20 minute trip to the heart of Datacenter 3.0!

A new all-Green Datacenter for Sanef

Sanef is on of the biggest toll-road operators in France, with over 1700km of motorways in the north and east of France under management. It also has extensive telecommunications operations managed through a subsidiary, Sanef Télécoms. With its datacenter close to saturation, Sanef Télécoms decide to it was time build a new one.

“Following a preliminary technical study we identified various vendors capable of helping us to develop a next-generation datacenter – flexible, delivering dramatically lower power consumption, and supporting high-density installations. APC, besides answering all our technical requirements, demonstrated that they offered a high level of expertise and the full range of skills necessary to design a long-lasting, highly available datacenter. Flexiblity was also important and APC’s modular solutions are the perfect answer to the environmental issues we’re dealing with today” explains Philippe Duthoit, Director of Sanef Télécoms.

Free cooling

Building of the 250m² high-security facility started in May 2008.  To ensure maximum uptime while limiting the environmental impact of the datacenter, Sanef Télécoms has deployed two APC Symmetra MegaWatt UPSs, along with 16 InRow RC precision air-conditioning units.

“We wanted to deploy a free-cooling solution which respected the environment.