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Nov 19 2008   4:52PM GMT

EU launches Code of Conduct for Data Centers



Posted by: Bridget Botelho
Virtualization, DataCenter, data center consolidation, Data center power management, Green data center, Data center policies, EU Code of Conduct for Data Centers

The Sustainable Development and Energy Innovation of the U.K.’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has challenged the IT industry to prevent further climate change with the official launch of the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centers on November 19.

The Code of Conduct was created in response to increasing energy consumption in data centers and the need to reduce the related environmental, economic and energy supply impacts. It was developed with collaboration from the British Computer Society, AMD, APC, Dell, Fujitsu, Gartner, HP, IBM, Intel, and many others.

Those who choose to abide by the voluntary Code of Conduct will have to implement energy efficiency best practices, meet minimum procurement standards, and report energy consumption every year.

The UK is also the first country in the world to approve legally binding climate change laws to reduce greenhouse gas emissions; data centers in the U.K. are responsible for about 3% of electricity use, and the goal is an 80% reduction in greenhouse gasses by 2050. EffectsofGlobalWarming.com

America is far behind Europe with climate change policies, but it looks like it might finally be getting its act together in terms of protecting the planet. Climate change legislation and carbon emission regulations promise to become a reality under President-elect Barack Obama, who has pledged to enact global-warming legislation.

Unfortunately, the legislation would impose a cap-and-trade system on utility companies that could raise the price of power an estimated 20% across the board, so getting as efficient as possible before the legislation takes effect would be a wise move.

To that end, vendors have come up with highly efficient servers and lower watt CPUs that perform just as well as their higher power predecessors. There is also software to control power consumption and to cap server power usage, and finally reliable virtualization software to increase server utilization, so there really are no excuses for running under-utilized systems these days (and if there are excuses, I’d love to hear them).

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Jul 23 2008   3:19PM GMT

Oregon state data center consolidation blasted by auditors



Posted by: Matt Stansberry
capacity planning, DataCenter, data center consolidation

Oregon is facing a data center crisis. A recent audit found that the state botched a $63.6 million state data center consolidation. While the auditors turned up several flaws — the biggest one seems to be that the new facility is already running out of room!

According to a recent Oregonian article: Officials confirmed Friday that part of the state’s data center operation — including 43 employees — has spilled over into a separate building in Salem. One agency, the Department of Consumer and Business Services, pulled out of the new 45,000-square-foot center because of insufficient power supply. Another, the Department of Education, has refused to locate its network there because of security concerns.

The project has been in the works for three years and has had five project directors since its inception. Scott Harra, director of the Department of Administrative Services inherited this nightmare and his staff is trying to consolidate servers to gain capacity. But this step is coming way too late.

Why would you plan a data center consolidation without consolidating the servers? “Instead of consolidating operations, agency servers and other computing equipment were simply picked up and moved to a new place,” The Oregonian reported.

How do you plan capacity and build a data center without looking at your server and application needs first? Why did they put all those legacy servers on a truck and plop them down in a new room instead of porting those applications to higher efficiency, virtualized machines?

And it’s not as if the planners didn’t have a clue. According to the Oregon State Data Center Website, ComputerSite Engineering reviewed the design documents and awarded the Uptime Institute’s Tier III availability standard to the initial project. The facility also applied for the US Green Building Council’s LEED rating. These folks had an ambitious plan that went awry.

According to a source near the project that asked not to be identified, the various state agencies did not want to relinquish control to a centralized project manager, but that control had to be relinquished to make the new site work. It may be that the agencies did agree to move in, but did not do any of the consolidation work normally done in conjunction with a new site. I don’t claim to understand the Byzantine inner workings of state government, but if you could shed some insight into how this might have happened (or how it could have been avoided) please leave a comment. It’s literally my tax dollars at waste.

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