Http://rare-idc.herts.ac.uk How Much? A study into accounting for Carbon and power in the Data Centre Steve Bowes-Phipps Data Centre Manager University

http://rare-idc.herts.ac.uk

How Much? A study into accounting for Carbon and power in the Data Centre

Steve Bowes-Phipps Data Centre ManagerUniversity of Hertfordshire

• Business Drivers

• The CARBS Project

• Challenges

• Learning

• Outcomes

• Summing Up

What? & When?


• The project supports the following UH initiatives:

– The Carbon Management Plan– KPIs for Sustainability

• Green ICT Strategy

• HEFCE encouragement to reduce Carbon footprint• Need to minimise IT operational costs• Making best use of existing scarce resources• Assessments of cloud computing versus running services in-house are required

for all new service acquisitions/replacements• Lack of a framework to refer to• Understanding what is driving power usage within the university’s data centres• Can service users help to reduce our Carbon Footprint?• Providing capacity planning data for future data centre requirements

Business Drivers


• 12 month project funded by JISC 2012-2013• Working with Concurrent Thinking • Employs inexpensive hardware • Makes use of internal server system metrics (where available)• Accurate measurement of power usage within systems and across hardware

domains• Create a real-time environmental dashboard for individual services and the data

centre(s) as a whole

The Carbon Accounting & Reporting of Baselines for Services Project

(CARBS)


• Aims & Objectives:– Hardware and software model for providing real-time financial & carbon costing of two or

more internally delivered IT services– Comparisons of output from JISC baselining resources and actual results as calculated by the

project– A report on the experiences of power & carbon cost accounting for services and its

comparability to the costs of external service provision through the cloud– Public blog tracking the path through the project and learning along the way– Presentation(s) to the JISC community– To work with the JISC community and wider sector to share the experiences and approaches

to assist other organisations to benchmark, further develop carbon cost accounting approaches for IT services

The CARBS Project


• No such thing as a “simple” service anymore• Not all systems follow the rules• Different communications protocols (MODBUS, SNMP)• DCIM products are immature and constantly evolving• False economies: you get what you pay for!• Operational processes can be an obstacle to implementing service monitoring

Challenges


• The total operational cost is a function of the ratio of disk storage in use by the service against that allocated elsewhere + the ratio of unallocated storage to that allocated to the service

• In English:

– We know how much storage is in the SAN, but we are only interested in what is being used for the service we are trying to meter. We have storage that is in use by the service and can be costed and we have spare capacity on the SAN that is powered up but not in use by any service

1. Meter the PDUs in the cabs that house the SAN2. Get the disk allocation for the Service3. Get the total allocated capacity of SAN4. Meter the actual Service used storage of its full

allocation5. Get the unallocated storage of the SAN6. Calculation will be: (1*4/3)+(1/(2/3*5))

Apportioning the Cost of the SAN


• Pre-Project

– More difficult than it looks!– Prototype– Scope project out carefully– Is everything SNMP-enabled/compatible?– MIBS

• Do you have them?• Check dependencies• Research OIDS

– Take a full audit of your data centre– Make any changes beforehand

Learning


• During the Project

– Keep Stakeholders informed– Manage changes – Work closely with your DCIM vendor

Learning


• Post-Project

– Manage changes to the data centre– Check validity of reported values regularly– Keep Stakeholders informed– Build SNMP compatility and functionality into future procurement requirements– Don’t have a DCIM?– SusteIT’s Carbon Footprinting Tool can be made even better:

• Use PUE to provide facility overhead• Add in Carbon cost to get a true picture• Don't trust the server estimators, test one of each type of server and use this

base data to provide your wattage figures

Learning


• Achievements

– Complete carbon and power cost accounting for the Voyager book-lending system– Better awareness of the value of virtualising or replacing servers– Better informed as to cost comparison between cloud and in-house– Successful implementation of the infrastructure required to provide carbon and cost

accounting for most services within the university’s data centres– Increased awareness of sustainability efforts at the university– Increased focus on carbon costing during project initiation process– A specific assessment of SusteIT’s carbon footprinting benchmarking tool against

real-world data– Learning documented throughout the project in our blog

(http://blogs.herts.ac.uk/carbs/)

Outcomes



Voyager Dashboard

• Achievements

√ Complete carbon and power cost accounting for the Voyager book-lending system√ Better awareness of the value of virtualising or replacing servers√ Better informed as to cost comparison between cloud and in-house√ Successful implementation of the infrastructure required to provide carbon and cost

accounting for most services within the university’s data centres√ Increased awareness of sustainability efforts at the university√ Increased focus on carbon costing during project initiation process√ A specific assessment of SusteIT’s carbon footprinting benchmarking tool against

real-world data√ Learning documented throughout the project in our blog


Outcomes


• Drawbacks

– Large number of assumptions in model– Reliance on rack PDU data creates problems if they are not fully functional– A specific assessment of SusteIT’s carbon footprinting benchmarking tool against

real-world data– Increased awareness of sustainability efforts at the university– Increased focus on carbon costing during project initiation process– Learning documented throughout the project in our blog


Outcomes


• The Voyager service cost is composed of the following elements:

1. Power from the PDUs in the rack where Voyager is located2. A proportion of the power taken from the PDUs where the SAN storage is located3. A proportion of the facility power, based on the PUE and the share of power

required for 1 & 2 above4. Carbon cost for the power consumed

• Specifically excluded:

– The network

• Interesting Note:

– Server at very low loading but consuming almost twice Oracle’s estimated power draw

Summing Up



Blogs: http://blogs.herts.ac.uk/carbs/ http://blogs.herts.ac.uk/rare-idc/

SusteIT’s ICT Energy & Carbon Footprinting Toolhttp://www.susteit.org.uk/files/category.php?catID=4

Thank You

Any Questions?

http://blogs.herts.ac.uk/carbs/

http://blogs.herts.ac.uk/carbs/

http://blogs.herts.ac.uk/rare-idc/



http://www.susteit.org.uk/files/category.php?catID=4

http://www.susteit.org.uk/files/category.php?catID=4

Documents

Http://rare-idc.herts.ac.uk How Much? A study into accounting for Carbon and power in the Data Centre Steve Bowes-Phipps Data Centre Manager University