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

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

On 27/09/2012 9:15 AM, Tom Worthington wrote:
> On 26/09/12 10:04, Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
>
>> The idea that servers that are more fully utilised are more efficient
>> is simplistic and may be wrong. ...
> In general, a more fully utilised server is more efficient in its use of
> power. It is difficult to throttle a server down to save power and still
> have it ready to meet demand quickly. You can slow the CPUs a bit, but
> the rest of the server keep running at full power.

That's not what Intel told me and certainly doesn't agree with what I 
know about mid-range platforms such as p-series, which have extensive 
power management capabilities based upon compute demand.

>> Third part data centre operators have a conflict of interest ...
> No, one of the measures used to rate data centres is power efficiency.
> If the data centre owner crams in too much equipment, the power
> efficiency drops.
>
> The way this efficiency is rated at present is crude but such measures
> exist, such as Data centre infrastructure efficiency (DCiE):
>
> DCiE = (Main IT equipment energy consumption)/(Total facility energy
> consumption) * 100

None of which says that third party data centre operators don't have a 
conflict of interest.

-- 

Regards
brd

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