Green Computing

T-109.4300 Network Service Business Models

Lecture 22.4.2010

Teemu Muukkonen, M.Sc.(Tech)

teemu.muukkonen@tkk.fi

Agenda

• Why Green Computing?• Views on Green Computing• Environmental issues and business• Environmental issues of ICT• Office ICT and energy• Data Centers and energy

– Finnish ICT industry– Interview answers

Agenda

• Centralization and energy effectiveness• Cloud Computing• Business cases – Google, Academica, Tieto• What can this all offer for Finland?• Research propositions• Literature

Why Green Computing?

• Environmental issues– Social responsibility important for business– Climate crisis happening around us – ICT constitutes of about 2% of world carbon dioxide emissions– Resource depletion will eventually be a problem

• Green computing is economically efficient– Energy is estimated to be even 30% of data center costs– Most of the energy is wasted– Desktop computers are not so different– Saving energy is a true win-win scenario

Views on Green Computing

• Awareness of ICT’s negative enviromental effects has risen– Manufacturing, logistics, runtime electricity

• My interest: data centers– In Finland estimated ~0,8 TWh/a altogether by Efore’s Reijo

Mäihäniemi (paper mill is 1-2 TWh/a)– World total in 2005 according to Koomey [5] : ~150 TWh/a (Finland

total comsumption 2005: 85 TWh/a)• Energy is a major cost factor in data centers

– Estimates vary from 5 % to 30 % of total costs– For a volume server, purchase price is equivalent for about 1,5 years of

24/7 elecricity consumption• In general, service oriented business models (SaaS, cloud

computing) are becoming more common – Does Finland have opportunities as a service provider?

Views on Green Computing –The framework used

ICT Industry

Energy industry

NuclearFossil fuelsCO2

Renewables

SoftwareHardware Services

Materialproduction

CO2

TransportationCO2

Customers

ConsumersBusiness

Environmental issues and business

• Traditionally protecting environment has been seen as expensive and hindering business

• Porter and van der Linde stated in 1995 [1], that pollution is inefficiency in the process and thus harmful for business– Supported by examples where reducing pollution resulted relevant

improvements in business performance– The article is widely discussed, both pro and contra

• Green or responsible image as a marketing method– Toyota Prius, The Body Shop, Ben and Jerry’s etc.

• The BCG portfolio matrix can be added with environmental dimension to form the Ecologically-oriented portfolio matrix [3]

Environmental issues and business –The Green Marketing Strategy Matrix [2]

Environmental issues and business –Ecologically-oriented portfolio matrix [3]

Environmental effects of ICT

• Based Berkhout’s and Hertin’s paper in 2004 [4]• Direct effects (first order)

– No positive effects– Negative effects: production, use disposal

• Indirect effects (second order)– Positive: improved efficiency, de-materialisation, virtualisation,

detection and monitoring of environmental changes– Negative: partial substitution

• Structural and behavioral effect (third order)– Positive: Growth on ”light” industries, green consumerism– Negative: Stimulating growth, re-materialisation

• The total outcome is currently unknown– Regardless of that, positive indirect effect are use commonly to justify

the direct effects.

Office ICT and energy

• Office ICT is based mainly on PC’s– PC’s often overkill in terms of processor power– PC’s used quite inefficiently – idle time

• Solution #1: Turn off the PC’s and monitors when not needed– Estimated at 50 to 100 euros / year / PC– Usual excuses

• PC’s start slowly• Updates and backups done during the night

• Solution #2: Virtual deskopt infrastructure (VDI)– New way of thinking the desktop demanding for CIO’s and

users

Data centers and energy

• Discussion about data center electricity comsumption– 1999-2001 wide discussion in the U.S.– Beginning 2007 wide discussion worldwide

• Major contributor in ICT energy use– 20 % to 30 % of ICT energy use in total– Concentrated and manageable

• Most important energy inefficiencies in data centers– Idle time electircity use– Cooling– Electricity distribution

Data centers and energy

• Most important efficiency improvements– Virtualization– Blade servers– Airflow management

• How efficiency is measured– Traditional: Energy densities and PUE– Newer: CUPS/W, DCeP, CADE

Data Centers and energy – Finnish ICT industry• I conducted interviews in 2009

– 12 companies or organizations• 7 data center service providers• 2 operators• 3 other organizations

• The main themes from the interviews– Virtualization as an effectivity booster– Constraints from the buildings– Cost pressures of electricity consumption (DC)– 24/7 demands (DC)– Heat reuse (DC)– Improving transparency of energy costs (DC)– Airflow management in the data center (DC)– Centralization effects on effetiveness (DC)– Life cycles (DC)

Data Centers and Energy – a Framework Based Finnish ICT Industry

Data Centers and Energy – Results from Finnish ICT Industry

Data Centers and Energy – interwiew answers from Finnish ICT Industry• Environmental policies are common, but they are not

applied on data centers– Costs are driving energy improvements in data centers

• Data center services are not widely marketed as green• Strategic situation for data center services

– Service demand is on the rise– Hardware is getting more energy efficient– Growth in service demand is dominant over energy efficiency

improvements– Both hardware and energy are packed more densely– Energy is economically relevant issue

• Affects competitive positioning– ...

Data Centers and Energy – interwiew answers from Finnish ICT Industry• Strategic situation for data center services

– Centralization and consolidation are claimed to bring economical and energy effectiveness

• Where’s the proof?– Cooperation between companies rare and informal

• Attitude towards cooperation differs between firms

• Data Centers– Energy densitie vary from 0,5 to 2,0 kW/m2, PUE from 1,6 to 2,5, both

quite normal figures– Virtualization penetration from 10 to 30 % of logical servers (2 to 5 % of

physical servers)– 75 % of the organizations were planning a new data center or a current

data center renovation

Centralization and energy effectiveness

• This is a selling point for data center services• Makes perfect sense

– Economics of the scale– Consolidation effects

• Idle time can be reduced• Small server installations ecome effective

– Some energy efficiency improvements not available to small data centers

• Has not been scientifically tested– What is the effect of data connections?– Is there unneccessary redundancy due to SLA requirements?

Cloud computing

• Cloud computing – hype or just utility computing renamed?• This time all the big companies are on the move• Cloud computing is centralized

– If centralized computing is energy efficient, the cloud is• Will cloud computing result in energy or material savings on

terminal devices?– PC manufacturers might oppose this– Or will the business transform to netbooks and iPads?

• Or will cloud computing offer more services for PC’s?• Some estimates even compare cloud computing to the transfrom in

electricity production and distribution at the end of 19th century

Business cases – Google, Academica, Tieto• February 2009 Google announced the purchase of Summa paper

milla in Hamina– Currently being converted to a data center– Let’s brainstorm, why?

• November 2009 Academica announced a new data center consept– Helsingin Energia buys the heat from the data center– Helsingin Energia provides district cooling– Claimed to be state-of-the-art on energy effectiveness

• March 2010 Tieto announced a new data center– Fortum will buy the heat from the data center

• Who’s next?

What can this all offer for Finland?

• Finland is a good place for data centers– Energy is relatively cheap– Labour is not as expensive as in Central Europe or U.S.– Climate is cold and lots of lakes and rivers

• Free cooling widely available• Heat reuse possible in cities

– Electricity grid is in good condition– Communication infrastructure is in fair condition– No earthquakes and volcanos or other major natural disasters– Stable society– ICT know-how traditionally good

Research propositions – Finnish competiviness• Further reasearch is needed because

– By relying only on our natural competitive advantages the advantage will erode

– Energy has to be managed• Current state-of-the-art technologies should be exploited• Organization structure has to support energy management

– Cooperation is needed between• Academic institutions• Data center service providers• Software companies

– Energy wil not necessarily be cheap forever

Research propositions – Academic interest• We do not know for sure

– About the energy use oc ICT itself– About savings that can be made on other industries with the

help of ICT– What is the total effect of centralization?– Will cloud caomputing be the revolution it is advertised to be?

• Possible research approaches (Master’s Thesis?)– A study focused on communication networks– A study focused on terminal devices (PC’s etc)– A study about data centers with a more wide coverage

Literature

• About the relationship of business and environment– [1] Michael Porter and Claas van der Linde. Green and competitive: Ending the

stalemate. Harvard Business Review, 73(5):129-134, 1995.• The Green Marketing Strategy Matrix

– [2] Jill Ginsberg and Paul Bloom. Choosing the right green marketing strategy. MIT Sloan Management Review, 46(1):79-84, 2004.

• Ecelogically oriented portfolio matrix– [3] Anne Ilinitch and Stefan Schaltegger. Developing a green business portfolio.

Long Range Planning, 28(2):29-38, 1995• Classification of environmental impacts of ICT

– [4] Frans Berkhout and Julia Hertin. De-materialising and re-materialising digital technologies and the environment. Futures, 36(8):903-920, 2004

• Energy consumption in datacenters– [5] Jonathan Koomey. Worldwide electricity used in data centers. Environmental

Research Letters, 3(3):1-8, 2008.– Other works by Koomey, Cremer et al., Jennifer Mitchell-Jackson’s Master’s

Thesis