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Sentilla Energy Manager 3.0

Joe Polastre — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:14:59 -0500

Sentilla Energy Manager 3.0

Today, Sentilla announced version 3.0 of Sentilla Energy Manager. My role at Sentilla is varied, but one of my responsibilities is creating and managing the product roadmap. With version 3.0, I'm really excited about how much we've added into this release. SEM 3.0 is truly revolutionary, providing a ton of features and functionality that no other vendor provides. It is built on our Sentilla Software Platform, which is in its 4th generation, is very robust, and has served as the basis of all of our products since 2006.

Industry Updates: Facilities+IT and Open Source Data Centers

Joe Polastre — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:14:49 -0500

Industry Updates: Facilities+IT and Open Source Data Centers

The last few weeks have been busy, with VMWare buying EMC's Ionix assets and the "open source" data center. I've been talking to the press and commenting on some blogs about the progress, and am posting a round up here.

First, there's an article in Automated Buildings about the need for IT and Facilities to come together to best manage energy in the data center. This is a position that I've held, because the data center is not there to be a cooling plant. Instead, IT impacts facilities and everyone must have a view of what's going on to run efficiently and effectively.

There was an announcement about an Open Source Data Center initiative between Mike Manos and GreenM3. I commented on the blog post, and James Niccolai from IDG wrote up a nice article about the topic and interviewed me for my take on the topic. I'm still skeptical about how this will actually move forward, and who will be doing the heavy lifting to build the architecture required, but I'm following it closely.

Data Center Efficiency Starts with the Software

Joe Polastre — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 23:53:35 -0500

Data Center Efficiency Starts with the Software

With a lot of the data center energy efficiency focus on facility improvements and virtualization, I've decided we need to take a step back and look instead at the applications. As Moore's Law has increased the capabilities of servers, and disk density has doubled (roughly) every year, we're no longer as constrained as we used to be by physical resources.

I am, at the heart of it all, a computer scientist. In grad school, I spent a lot of time working on optimizing software that runs on embedded systems -- little microcontrollers with limited resources. At the core of these systems was power. If you wrote your code inefficiently, not only would it fail to fit on the device, it would also burn through batteries. And as data center operators know, a server without power is a VERY BAD thing.

So why is it then, that we don't look at how efficiently our applications are written? There's no apples-to-apples energy comparison, and few people take energy into account when buying a software package. My prediction is that will change. In a few years, when you evaluate whether to buy (or renew) SAP or Oracle, you'll ask about the energy operating cost of those software packages over the life of the contract.

We Can Do Better

Joe Polastre — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 13:06:28 -0500

We Can Do Better

On a recent flight, I had the pleasure of watching a number of episodes of E2, a PBS show narrated by Morgan Freeman. The shows cover a number of environmental topics and features Stephen Chu, former energy expert at LBL and now Secretary of Energy. If you haven't seen them, I highly recommend finding a few episodes. Unfortunately, only the "design" episodes are on hulu, the "energy" and "transport" episodes have not been posted online.

A couple of things stood out at me, and I came away with a feeling that we could do better at achieving energy efficiency and energy independence. Not just because we should as a planet-saving activity, but because we've actually gone backwards in efficiency in the last 100 years.

First, consider this statistic: The first Ford Model T accepted both Ethanol and Gasoline, and got 25 miles to the gallon. Today's cars average 21 miles to the gallon, and while it only costs $50 to outfit a gasoline car at production with Ethanol capabilities, few cars are actually "FlexFuel".

Sentilla Energy Manager Named Green Product of the Year

Taryn Irulegui — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:42:02 -0500

Sentilla Energy Manager Named Green Product of the Year

Sentilla is honored to win another product award. We’re very excited that energy management has gained so much traction this year. But it’s no surprise. As the UK embraces the Carbon Reduction Commitment and with the publication of the European Code of Conduct for Data Centres, it has become clear that a solution is needed for managing and tracking data center energy use. The award validates the need for energy management in data centers and Sentilla is humbled to be part of this movement.

Gear up to manage energy in 2010

Joe Polastre — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:22:16 -0500

Gear up to manage energy in 2010

When it comes to management, one of the things I ask customers is what management tools they use. There's always a laundry list, some open-source (like Nagios) and some from large software vendors (like Tivoli). These IT management tools are used to get a handle on computing, storage, networking, and applications -- 4 of the primary assets in a data center. But when I ask what they use for energy management, there's usually a blank stare. Energy, as you may have guessed, is the fifth major asset. As with any of these assets, if you run out of capacity, your applications go down. If you don't manage them proactively, your performance suffers. Energy is no different. And with pressure to reduce cost, improve performance, plan for increased or decreased capacity, or mitigate potential risks, management tools are the key to accomplishing these tasks.

Awareness of the importance of energy in the data center has grown dramatically in the last few years. And due to the importance of energy in business continutity and contribution to data center operating costs, it is logical that it is time to get a handle on energy in 2010.

Does data center location matter?

Joe Polastre — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:45:53 -0500

Does data center location matter?

On the same day, two opposing articles have been published with completely opposite points of view. On one side, Brian Fry argues that location no longer matters and we should build data centers in the most efficient locations and supply fiber connectivity to them. On the other side, Paris Burstyn argues that location and latency are business critical for companies resulting in Equinix's acquisition of Switch and Data.

At the center of Brian's argument is that low cost, low carbon power is good for data centers. If you can live with your data centers a few milliseconds away from everyone else's, then your IT operations can be greener and cheaper, a win-win scenario. But in the world where every millisecond counts, that's not the right solution for all industries.

Six Steps to Efficiency or How to Achieve 40%

Joe Polastre — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:22:18 -0500

Six Steps to Efficiency or How to Achieve 40%

Figuring out how to implement the right efficiency plan in the data center is a daunting task. I often start discussions with customers by asking "How much electricity does your data center use?" and "How much are you paying for electricity?" While these may seem like such amazingly fundamental questions, you'd be surprised by how many people don't know the answers or respond with "Let me go and look that up."

Further confusing the issue is vendors claims about what they can achieve. Have you heard the marketing campaign about virtualization reducing your energy bill by 80%? Sounds compelling right? The trouble is, you're not going to virtualize every server in your facility and shut off every chiller. Let's say 20% of your servers can be virtualized (such as staging, dev, and test), and your servers consume 70% of your IT energy consumption, which is 45% of your facility's energy consumption. So if we add that up, .8*.2*.7*.45 = 5%. That means that, for your data center, 80% savings just became 5%.

This means that data centers really need to figure out what their strategy is. And, of course, you want the biggest bang for your buck. By measuring your baseline, applying the various strategies to it, and calculating ROI, a plan can be formulated that makes sense of the efficiency measures for your specific facility. I've written an eWeek HowTo titled How To Achieve 40% Energy Savings In Your Data Center.

The Hype of Green IT

Joe Polastre — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:20:18 -0500

The Hype of Green IT

Kevin O'Marah from AMR Research claims that Green IT receives a disproportionate amount of attention compared to other green initiatives. His blog has stirred some discussion in the office and here I'm weighing in on the topic. Understandably, Kevin's post was likely intended to stir up discussion, so I realize I'm playing into what the blog was likely designed to accomplish. (Oh, and try googling "carbon accounting" if you want to catch the hype curve.)

Measuring Success In The Data Center

Joe Polastre — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:02:53 -0400

Measuring Success In The Data Center

It is not always clear what the right way is to measure the success of your data center's energy strategy. While many would promote PUE as the right way to go, it does not tell the full story. Think about these examples:

A data center is commissioned, but no IT equipment is installed. The PUE is infinitely high, but it doesn't mean the data center is inefficient. As IT equipment is added, the PUE drops but the data center's efficiency did not improve.
As servers and storage are consolidated or virtualized, the overall power consumption of the data center decreases. Not only is there a reduction in the IT power, but a smaller corresponding reduction in the cooling required. While the net is a win (more power capacity and less power usage), PUE typically increases.

These aren't the only bad examples of PUE, but they illustrate the fact that it is simply a ratio and it must be understood when talking about it.