[LINK] Data Centers Waste Vast Amounts of Energy, Belying Industry Image - NYTimes.com

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

The idea that servers that are more fully utilised are more efficient is 
simplistic and may be wrong.

In a discussion with Intel last year I asked them if the relationship 
between consumed power and CPU clockspeed was linear.

The answer is no, it's not. It turns out that if you halve the clock 
speed, the CPU power consumption drops to less than a quarter. This 
doesn't translate exactly to overall server power consumption but there 
is a significant benefit from not running servers at full capacity.

It needs the system to be self aware in that it slows the clockspeed as 
the compute load drops, but it is a power efficient alternative to 
operating system virtualisation where the utilisation of a server is 
pushed close to the limit.

This means, potentially, that
a) reducing the amount of ICT equipment could increase power usage and 
decrease efficiency and

b) by using third party cloud computing facilities an enterprise could 
not only increase power usage and decrease efficiency of its systems but 
lose visibility and control of its power usage.

As usual, a simple solution may turn out to be simplistic with 
unforseen, negative consequences.

-- 

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Canberra Australia
email: brd at iimetro.com.au
web:   www.drbrd.com
web:   www.problemsfirst.com