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Green ITJoseph Martinich

Founders ProfessorUniversity of Missouri – St. Louis

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Where Are We Going?

• What do we mean by Green IT?• How Can I/we achieve Green IT?• Specific simple actions we can take to make IT

green

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What Is Green IT?

• Focus is to reduce harmful environmental impacts of organizations and people– Help to create a more sustainable world

• That’s nice, but what’s in it for me? – My job is to make IT systems work. – Trying to make them green is just an extra burden.

• True?

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• Green IT provides an opportunity to:– Reduce costs– Increase revenues AND

– reduce environmental impacts

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• Green IT has three components– Greening OF IT– Greening BY IT– USING IT to promote green initiatives and

behavior

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• Greening OF IT– “… efficient and effective design, manufacture,

operation, use, and disposal of computer and communication systems (including hardware, software, storage, and networks) aiming for minimal or zero impact on the environment.” (Murugesan, 2013)

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– How?• Energy efficiency• Using sustainable energy• Using fewer material resources• Using less harmful materials• Promoting and facilitating reuse, repair, and recycling of

IT equipment

– Payoff?• $$$$$$$$$$

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• Greening BY IT– “… using IT … to support, assist, and leverage

applications and activities in several other domains and industry sectors to reduce energy and resource consumption and carbon footprint.” (Murugesan, 2013)

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– How?• Enable dematerialization (replace physical goods with

digital goods, online meetings)• Re-engineer and optimize business operations within

an entire supply chain (e.g., better reverse logistics)• Make buildings, operations, vehicles, etc. more efficient• Provide platforms for environmental management,

emissions and used resource trading• Energy and waste auditing and reporting• Help environmental decision making: DSS, KM, etc.

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• Using IT to promote green initiatives/behavior– How?• Social media (e.g., promote energy efficiency or

recycling within an organization or community)• Green electronic games• Interactive visualization

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Our Focus Today: Greening of IT

• Suppose you were put in charge of IT operations, and instructed to make IT operations greener

• What is the first thing you would do?– Why?

• What are the next two things you would do? – Why?

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How To Be Green and Green

• Learning to See– “The biggest opportunity to save money is to look at

where you’re spending money.” • Quote from consultant in health care/insurance industry!

– So: Audit your operations• Why? What is the purpose? What do we want to find

out?– Where and how much money you are

spending/wasting– How and how much you are impacting the environment

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– What type(s) of audit?• Energy Audit• Waste/Material Audit

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• Energy Audit– How much energy (mainly electricity) is being

used for IT purposes? • Would like metered data, but IT operations often not

separately metered/sub-metered (unless dedicated facility)• Electric bill data (and any sub-meter data) still useful

and important to understand energy use and potential cost savings• Good to know electricity tariff structure and use

patterns (peak load, time of use, seasonality charges)

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– Where and how is it being used?• Walk the facility and identify all uses of

energy/electricity related to IT operations– Servers– Routers– Computers and Monitors– Tele-video and other telecommunications equipment– Printers and other peripheral equipment– HVAC and fans for IT equipment and facilities– Lighting for IT activities

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• Determine floor space used (for efficiency and bench-marking purposes)• Determine the hours of operation for facility and

equipment• Determine staffing schedule of operations

• Compute energy efficiency metrics– Ex: For a data center => Power usage effectiveness (PUE)

PUE = (Total Facility Energy/IT Equipment Energy)Want value close to 1.0, but many centers > 2 or 3

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• IT Energy– Why should we go through all this effort?– Is it really that much of a (controllable) cost?– IT is a clean business; does it really have that

much of an environmental impact?

– YES and YES

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• Some IT Energy Facts– For a typical office operation, more than 60% of

the electricity used is for computers and monitors

– “Electricity used to be a small cost of data centers; now it makes up 40-50% of operating costs, and over the life of a server the cost of electricity may be twice the capital cost of the server itself.”

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– “As much as 30% of a typical small office-based organization’s electricity bill may be due to powering and cooling servers running around the clock even when performing little or no work.”

– Only 5-15% of data center electricity is for productive purposes (actual processing)• The rest is for cooling the room and servers and to keep

idle machines “on” waiting for work

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– Worldwide, data centers require more than 40 gigawatts of power load• 2-3% of global electricity

– In 2013 data centers consumed 91 billion kWh in the U.S. (enough to power every household in NYC)• This is just data centers not all IT equipment

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– A single large data center can use as much power as a mid-size city• Facebook DC in Altoona, IA uses 140 mW!!!!

– A typical 500 square meter data center (small to medium size) consumes 27,000 kWh/day (the use of about 1000 houses)

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• Many/most IT operations are very energy inefficient.

• Why? • Misaligned incentives: – Lease structure: Utilities are “free” – IT doesn’t pay for its electricity use (or waste disposal,

or many other resources)

• Lack of knowledge– Green IT is usually not part of IT training/education

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• Potential cost savings– “U.S. organizations squander $2.8 billion/yr to

power unused machines (PCs).”– Many organizations report millions of dollars of

savings per year (individually) from simple changes, such as virtualization, low power mode usage, turning off machines, more efficient programs, and opening the doors and windows!

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How To Be Green and Green

• Start with the simple and cheap stuff– Use power management software/controls (sleep

mode)– Turn off computers/equipment when not in use– Turn off the lights– Use computer virtualization– Buy/use energy-efficient equipment– Don’t over-cool server rooms– Use ventilation and natural cooling of server rooms

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• Use power management software/controls– Powers down equipment to low-energy state

when not in use– Individual devices• Desktop PC: 40-60 watts (much better than “old days”)• LCD monitors: 15-30 watts• In sleep mode computers and monitors use 1-5 watts• Note: When a screen saver is running the monitor and

computer are NOT in sleep mode! They are using normal power.

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– Example: • PC and LCD monitor “on” 8000 hr/yr =>

8000 hr/yr x 75 watts = 600 kWh/yr At $0.10/kWh => $60/yr; at $0.15/kWh => $90/yr

• If PC and monitor go to sleep mode 5000 hr/yr =>5000 hr/yr x 70 watts (reduction) = 350 kWh/yr savedAt $0.10/kWh => $35/yr saved; at $0.15 kWh/yr => $52/yr saved

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– Examples• Iowa State U.

– Installed energy-saving software on 500 computers at a cost of $3000/yr, but projected to save $50,000 a year in energy costs

• Partners HealthCare in Boston– Idle computers go to standby mode: saved 5.5 million kWh/yr

in direct energy and $1.4 million/yr (saves on cooling also) – with minimal initial cost

• UW – OshKosh– 2900 PCs; power mgt. controls turned on (zero cost except

labor). Annual savings of $76,500.

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– But computers cannot receive software updates or be accessed remotely (VPN) if they are in sleep mode • No longer true• Cheap/free software exists to wake computers from

sleep mode remotely• At a minimum, monitors don’t need to be on

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• Better Yet: Turn off equipment when not needed– Reduces energy use of PC/monitor. Use power

strips: turns off peripheries (modems, printers, speakers, etc.) at the same time

– Does NOT harm equipment– Microsoft now considers leaving computers on

when not in use to NOT be best practices simply for security reasons

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• Turn off the lights! Everywhere … when not needed– Example 1: Dual level lighting, office• Three three-light fixtures in my office• Two switches control 4/5 28-watt fluorescent tubes• If 5-tube switch turned off just 4 hours/day, 5 days/wk

=> 1040 hr/yr x 140 watts = 145.6 kWh/yr saved => That’s $14.56/yr PER OFFICE per year

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• Savings are even larger because savings likely to occur during peak load hours (reduces peak demand and peak usage charges), and it extends the life of the lights, reducing maintenance costs

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– Example 2: Dual level lighting, restroom• Three four-tube fluorescent fixtures (28 watts per tube)

and one LED “safety light” (can’t be turned off by public)• If fluorescent lights turned off just 8 hr/day (e.g., over

night) and off 16 hr/day on weekends => 3744 hr/yr x 336 watts = 1258 kWh/yr saved or

$125.80 /yr per restroom

FREE MONEY!

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– Servers don’t need lights• 1000 sf server room typically has 30+ fluorescent lights

(28-32 watts each)• To light the room 24/7 => 840 watts x 8760 hr/yr =

7358.4 kWh/y = $735.84/yr in electricity• Potential savings is 50-99% of this• This also reduces cooling load

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• Use computer virtualization– Uses one computer/server to do the work of

several– Eliminates the costs of buying and operating extra

computers and reduces energy costs dramatically– Microsoft used virtualization to reduce server cost

at one facility by over $1.5 million annually– BMC Software eliminated 2000 servers using

virtualization – saved $10 million over 2 years, including $500,000/yr in electricity

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• Buy/use energy-efficient equipment– Use laptops and tablets when convenient• Laptop: 15-45 watts• Tablet: 10-40 watts

– Large variation in energy-efficiency of “similar” equipment• Include electricity use/cost in your purchase decision

– Newer equipment may be much more energy-efficient; energy savings could pay for upgrade

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• Don’t overcool server rooms– Not like the old days– Newer servers can operate fine at higher

temperatures• Every one degree increase in thermostat setting saves

2-3% on electricity use

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• Use outside air/ventilation for cooling when possible– Yahoo! did this and reduced energy use by 60% – Can be very cost effective (even in Arizona), but

requires study and planning– Issues• Timing (e.g., super cooling at night when air is cold)• Humidity

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• Facility Design Actions– Bury data centers in the ground• Easier to cool; uses natural cooling of ground

– Design HVAC to maximize use of ventilation• An Intel study estimated that air cooling can cut the

cost of a 10 mW data center by $3 million• Locate in cold climates or by cold water

– Iceland, Scandinavian countries, UP, Maine, Washington

• But can work in hot, dry climates as well

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– Normal building design features (shading, windows, insulation, white roof, etc.)• Shading is very effective• White roofs usually good for data centers because they

are single floor

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– Design/layout of data centers and server racks• Basic design principles can save a lot of energy– Facebook now designs its on DC’s and has cut

energy use down to 1/3 of “normal” DCs• Simplify the servers– Strip out unnecessary components and housings– Expose mother boards for better cooling– Arrange racks to isolate hot and cool air to make it

easier to cool and recover heat– Etc.

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– Recover heat for reuse• Pella Windows vents hot air to the ceiling and then uses

it elsewhere in the building or vents it outside (in summer) – also reduces AC load

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• Another suggestion – Get rid of equipment that is not being used– “Comatose” servers, printers, etc.: plugged in and

using energy, but doing little or no work– Study of LexisNexis Atlanta DC• More than half of servers were comatose• Nearly ¾ of servers were using less than 10% of their

computational ability

– Sun Microsystems instituted a “bring out your dead” program and got rid of 4000 servers

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• Software– More efficient software design – How software is programmed affects energy

efficiency• Fewer operational steps• More efficient steps• Less memory allocated for steps

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– eBay: • “… by using the DSE dashboard, some of our software

engineers saw that by slightly decreasing the memory allocated for an application in a pool of servers, they could remove 400 servers from the pool … This insight helped us eliminate nearly a megawatt of power consumption and avoid spending more than $2 million to refresh the servers. This simple software tweak helped us lower power consumption, decrease costs and increase system performance, ultimately increasing our revenue per transaction.”

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• Waste/Resource Reduction

• Waste Audit– How much waste is being generated?– What is in the waste stream?– What happens to the materials in the waste

stream?– How much is the waste stream costing us?

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– Few people know how much they are spending on waste disposal or how their costs are determined

– Potential to save thousands of dollars a year simply by better matching waste collection and recycling services (number and size of dumpsters and frequency of collection) to match the waste stream

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• Waste Audit => waste stream analysis– How do we reduce, reuse, recycle our wastes?

– Simple actions with little cost

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• Paper– Default double-sided printing– Users “pay” for printing (internalize costs)– Publicize/report paper use of department/unit– Recycle used paper

• Recycled office paper is valuable

– Recent research• Pair up large recycling container with small trash

container

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• Printer cartridges– Recycle (worth a few dollars)– Buy re-manufactured/re-filled cartridges – Remind/train users to minimize white on dark or

shaded printing– When font style not important, use toner-efficient

fonts

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• Hardware/equipment– Try to buy energy-efficient equipment– Encourage and support manufacturers that design

their products to be truly green• Long life• Easy to repair• Easy to recycle• Minimize use of haz/toxic materials

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– Work with suppliers• Minimize packaging

– HP/Compaq saved $6/computer by changing packaging that “could survive a fall down Mount Everest” to something more reasonable

• Minimize inserts/manuals– Make them electronic wherever possible

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– Recycle used equipment• Quite valuable and can be a serious environmental

hazard if not disposed of correctly• Most electronics can be refurbished and re-used• Parts can be salvaged• Remaining parts and plastic can be recycled.

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– Buy used equipment and furniture• Can be very cost-effective for many uses• Excellent for sustainability• Excellent for job creation and supporting sustainable

supply chains

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• Monitor, monitor, monitor– Watch energy use, paper use, waste and recycling,

etc. to prevent back-sliding (Snackwell effect)

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• Free resources available– Energystar.gov/lowcarbonit– Energystar.gov also offers free 1-hr webinar – Can arrange a free conference call with IT energy

efficiency expert for free, who will answer your questions and walk you through software or system issues

– Google for Green IT webinar(s)