Information Technology&Smart Grid

Energy Efficient Information Technology

Heather Brotherton

2

What is Information Technology (IT)?

Information + Technology Technology: fire, wheel Early information technology: Dewy

decimal system Information collections continue to

expand Compiling data into information became

exponentially labor intensive

3

Information Systems Information systems make it possible to

process large amounts of data into information

Now that we have good information how do we quickly share research findings?

Networking; the internet

4

Ubiquitous Communication The internet gave rise to ubiquitous

real-time communications Anyone can transmit: Files Photos Video

We use the internet to connect with others

5

Convenience Bank by phone Turn by turn directions Researching purchases Home buying Meal planning Home automation Smart Grid

6

Smart Grid: House Concept

7

End User Implementation

8

9

Smart Grid & IT

Information technology and the power grid are interdependent 2003 North East Blackout The extent and duration of the

outage was due to a race condition in the SCADA system

10

Smart Grid & IT

Smart Grid expands this interdependence However it also enhances the reliability

and redundancy of the SCADA systems More situations are automated to avoid

human error

11

Data Centers & Smart Grid Can coordinate energy consumption

during Low periods Periods where a high percentage of

renewable energy such as wind or solar is available 

12

What types of IT processes could take advantage of this?

Batch jobs such as running Reports Back upsScheduled maintenance

13

Big Data Problem

All of these integrated systems will create vast amounts of data This data will be used for modeling to

make real time decisions This data will depend upon information

systems infrastructure to maintain; creating additional IT processing and archive loads.

14

What’s the big deal storage space is cheap?

Not really Hard drive usage must be powered Additional load for backups Can be a huge deal in a virtualized

environment Memory usage is also decreased by 34% Multiply that by 100 in a virtual environment,

the resource savings is huge

15

Storage Problem Vast amounts of data some will be used

in real-time situational analysis to allow Independent Systems Operators to make operational decisions. Past data may not be accessed daily, but

will need to be readily available for generation of reports to make strategic decisions

Accessibility to large amounts of data creates substantial energy overhead

16

Energy Efficient Data Storage

Hard Disk Drive (HDD) vs. Solid State Drives (SDD) HDD

Uses 80% of maximum power draw at start-up SDD

Linear proportion usage to power relationship This means that any HDD active, but

running at under 80% utilization is wasting energy.

17

Energy Efficient Data Storage

So is the answer to use all solid state drives? That is one possible answer, but it is

currently an expensive answer. Other possibilities:

Storage consolidation Virtualization is one possible method of

achieving this goal Shared storage arrays are another

18

Storage Problem Increased use of

technologies such as memcached for frequently accessed data This technique uses

RAM caching Used in conjunction

with compression this can be very useful for transactional loads

Hybrid SDD/HDD storage systems managed intelligently

19

Data Center Power consumption In 2005 data center power usage was

1% of the worlds power consumption. The current power usage is estimated to be as

high as 1.5% world wide and up to 2.2% of US power consumption.

20

Data Center Power consumption Why should you care?

Every year there are rolling blackouts though the summer because utilities cannot keep up with demand.

Energy costs are higher than equipment costs.

Loss of electricity or computing capabilities can pose national security risks

21

Efficiency Basics Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)

developed by the Green Grid is a widely accepted measure of data center efficiency.

PUE Calculation Total data center energy consumption

IT energy consumption=PUE

22

PUE explained A PUE of one means that all energy

consumptions is being used by the servers, storage devices and networking equipment. Reaching one is the goal, but may not be

possible currently… However, Google has reached reach a Power

Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.16.

23

There is a better way…

According to Google “if all data centers operated at the same efficiency as ours, the U.S. alone would save enough electricity to power every household within the city limits of Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.”

24

Google Google tracks its PUE Data centers are run at 80 degree Fahrenheit or

more This “conforms with both the American Society of Heating,

Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers' recommendations and most IT equipment manufacturers' specs.”

Data centers can be cooled without chillers Remaining chillers have disabled “dehumidifying and

reheating functions on CRACs. Most are set to dehumidify air to 40% and reheat air if the return air is too cold, but these functions aren’t needed.”

Each data center element is designed to operate at optimal efficiency

25

Google: How did they do it?

Power Supply The average power supply converts power from

AC to DC accounting for 30 to 40% in power loss.

This process also produces heat

Google power supplies do not perform this costly conversion and have an integrated UPS. “We’ve also cut out 2 of the AC / DC conversion

stages by putting back-up batteries on the server racks themselves.”

26

Google: Custom Servers Parts are omitted “on servers that aren't

needed for our applications. Hardware is limited to what is necessary for the applications to run, and does not include unnecessary components such as peripheral connectors or video cards. We also optimize our servers and racks to use minimal fan power, and the fans are controlled to spin only as fast as necessary to keep the server temperature below a threshold.”

27

Cascade Effect

28

Facebook Facebook recently adopted a novel

power distribution design that removes uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and power distribution units (PDUs) from the data center.

The new design shifts the UPS and battery backup functions from the data center by adding 12 volt battery cabinets

Facebook’s datacenter has a PUE of 1.07

29

Role of Software ”(T)he only way to have software consume

zero resources is not to run it at all. Even running very well-behaved software at the minimum will, in practice, require some resource overhead.” Virtualization Power Management Node Management Scheduling Lean Operating systems Software development De-duplication

30

Virtualization Virtualization is useful for consolidation

of under utilized servers DO: consolidate servers that typically

have usage under 70% DO NOT: consolidate servers that have

usage higher than 90% Unless the server resources are more than

enough to cover usage patterns including the other virtualized servers consolidated into the new server

WARNING: Consolidating several high usage servers on one server may be a recipe for disaster.

31

Virtualization Remember: Virtualization can lead to

the need to rework cooling in the data center.

Fewer machines could lead to unnecessary cooling of space no longer occupied by servers. This could result in wasted cooling.

32

Lean Operating systems Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) are not

efficient 1 watt can be saved at the server level

though using a command line only server operating system

The overhead of the GUI is about 100 threads

This does not mean no Windows server OS

Windows server 2008 R2 Core Uses less disk space

Standard 7.5 GB Core 3.5 GB

33

Software Development CPU UTILIZATION

Write event-triggered not time-based checks Use batch processing for processes that

cannot be event based Make sure batch jobs can be adjusted for time

conflicts MEMORY UTILIZATION

Avoid memory leaks Release memory when it is no longer needed,

don’t wait for the system to do it foru you.

34

Software Development I/O UTILIZATION

Buffer/batch I/O requests EFFICIENT SYSTEM STACK

“Features to reduce power consumption of underutilized system resources have become pervasive in even the largest systems, and the software layers responsible for managing those resources must evolve in turn”

Implement policies: Increase performance of resources in use Reduce power consumption for resources

not in use

35

Software Development(Continued) “Resource consumers clearly have a significant

opportunity either to contribute to or undermine the efficiency of the broader stack. Though getting programmers to think differently about the way they design software is more than a technical problem, tools such as PowerTOP represent a great first step by providing programmers and administrators with observability into software inefficiency, a point of reference for optimization, and awareness of the important role software plays in energy-efficient computing."

36

Hardware What is better one really powerful

server of several low powered servers? Answer: It depends. Many low powered servers are ideal for

transactional loads Powerful servers are better for simulation

and computation

37

Conclusion "Any intelligent fool can make things

bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.” ~Albert Einstein

In IT this kind of thinking results in huge payoffs when implemented correctly.