can the cloud be green?
TRANSCRIPT
Emerging Green ConferencePortland, OR
September 23, 2015
Peter May-Ostendorp, PhD, LEED AP O+MPrincipal, Xergy Consulting
Can the Cloud Be Green?Emerging Standards, Programs and Metrics for Decision-Makers
Research funded by:
The Growing Environmental Footprint of the Internet
• Data centers: the world’s 13th largest country
• Mobile broadband and video streaming driving growth in traffic
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Adapted from: Jonathan Koomey. 2011. Growth in data center electricity use 2005 to 2010. Oakland, CA: Analytics Press. July. <http://www.analyticspress.com/datacenters.html>
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
2000 2005 2010
Data Center Electricity Use (TWh/yr)
Outsourcing from devices to cloudsICT environmental impacts increasingly occur at the cloud and not the device level
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12
Greenpeace USA
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Section
oneClicking Clean A Guide to Building
the Green Internet
29%
34%
21%
16%
Devices
Networks
Data Centers
Manufacturing
Devices
Data Centers
20%
47%15%
18%
29%
34%
21%
16%
Devices
Networks
Data Centers
Manufacturing
Devices
Networks
Data Centers
Manufacturing
20%
47%15%
18%
Main components of electricity consumption for the IT sector,
2012. From “Emerging Trends in Electricity Consumption for
Consumer ICT”
Main components of electricity consumption for the IT
sector, 2017 estimate. From “Emerging Trends in Electricity
Consumption for Consumer ICT”
Percentage of global electricity consumption due to CE-ICT for
best/expected/worst case scenarios. From “Emerging Trends in
Electricity Consumption for Consumer ICT”
Global electricity consumption in TWh/yr for best/expected/
worse case scenarios. From “Emerging Trends in Electricity
Consumption for Consumer ICT”
Electricity demand growth of the ICT sector
Main components of electricity consumption for the ICT sector
2012 2017
12.0%
11.0%
10.0%
9.0%
8.0%
7.0%
6.0%
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Worst Case
Expected Case
Best Case
3,500
3,000
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
Worst Case
Expected Case
Best Case
Source: Emerging Trends in Electricity Consumption for Consumer ICT
Can today’s electronics be green without a green cloud to support them?
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Is the cloud clean or dirty?Yes.
The cloud can be dirty. The cloud can be clean.• NRDC, LBNL,
Accenture and hyper-scale cloud providers emphasize potential benefits
• 2x to 48x reduction in emissions moving from on-site to cloud infrastructure
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Greatest opportunities exist in smaller market segments
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Source: Scaling Up Energy Efficiency Across the Data Center Industry: Evaluating Key Drivers and Barriers. NRDC, 2014.
Considerations for Green Data Centers
1) IT equipment + facility = data center
2) Cradle to grave
3) All impact areas: raw materials depletion, hazardous materials, energy, atmosphere, water, recyclability, corporate responsibility
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A Decade of Progress
• 80 PLUS– Power supply efficiency guidelines
• ENERGY STAR– Servers, storage, large network equipment (soon)– Portfolio Manager for data centers
• Green Grid– Key operational metrics for greening facilities (PUE,
WUE, CUE)
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Beginning to Think Holistically:NSF 426 and IEEE 1680.4
• First comprehensive environmental performance standards for servers
• Covered:
• Moving toward a merged standard that is eligible for implementation on the EPEAT Registry
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Energy efficiency Design for repair, reuse, recycling
Management of substances Product longevity
Preferable materials use Responsible EoU/EoL management
Product packaging Corporate responsibility
Holistic sustainability goals mostly possible today through existing tools
Some illustrative examples:
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Design and Equipment Procurement
Operations and Maintenance
Facility
LEED New ConstructionASHRAE 90.1 (90.4 soon)
LEED Operations and MaintenanceENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager
IT EquipmentENERGY STAR80 PLUSNSF 426/IEEE 1680.4 (soon)
???
The Missing Link: IT Operations
• Today’s programs and performance metrics (PUE, CUE) address the facility, not the IT in it
• 20-30% of servers are idle, obsolete or otherwise unused
• For remaining servers, utilization between 12–18%
• Focus areas– IT utilization– Performance-energy
benchmarks
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Source: Cisco.
Energy Use in Typical Data Centers
Benchmarking:Data Transparency Drives Change
• Consistent measurement of environmental performance metrics• Anonymous comparisons within a peer group• Driving consistent energy improvement in other building types
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What if I don’t run a data center?
Big opportunities for data closets and server rooms:• Green equipment
procurement• Improve equipment
utilization• Consider move to
cloud at equipment retirement
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The cloud is (usually) greener
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PAGE 3 | Is Cloud Computing Always Greener?
KEY FINDINGS: “GREEN” CLOUDS AND “BROWN” CLOUDSAs illustrated by figure 1, the comparison between a typical server room not utilizing efficiency best-practices and a typical cloud service as defined by our study still shows large carbon efficiency gains from moving server functions to a public cloud, even in areas where electricity is generated from coal, such as in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. Even there, the cloud has a lower carbon output by a factor of two, or a 50 percent reduction, than on-premise facilities that have servers running only a single application. But when the cloud service provider is located in areas where more clean energy is used, such as the Pacific Northwest, the carbon savings increase dramatically to nearly a 48 times improvement, reducing the carbon emissions by 97 percent.
On the other hand, figure 1 also shows that an on-premise server room that implements energy efficiency best-practices can be far “greener” than a “brown” cloud that does not optimize server utilization and PUE, and is powered by high-carbon electricity.
KEY FACTORS IN THE RELATIVE FOOTPRINT OF CLOUD VERSUS ON-PREMISE COMPUTINGOur analysis found that there are three factors that most influence the relative impact of cloud vs. on-premise business computing, presented here in order of importance:
1) Higher utilization of servers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that typical U.S. servers operate on average in a range of 5 percent to 15 percent capacity while drawing 60 percent to 90 percent of their maximum power. Sharing servers across applications, and across customers in the case of cloud computing, can increase average server utilization to 50 percent or higher.
2) Carbon emissions factor of the electricity powering the servers. Two identically sized and designed data centers using power from high-carbon sources such as coal, or from lower-carbon sources such as renewable energy, will have a very different carbon footprint (varying by a factor of nearly four depending on the region in the United States where they are located).
Figure 1: Comparison of Deployment Scenarios (Office Productivity Applications)
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45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0On-Premise
w/ No VirtualizationColocation
w/ No VirtualizationOn-Premise
w/ VirtualizationPrivate Cloud Public Cloud
WORSTCASE
AVERAGE
BESTPRACTICE
WORSTCASE
AVERAGE
BESTPRACTICE
WORSTCASE
AVERAGE
BESTPRACTICE
WORSTCASE
AVERAGE
BESTPRACTICE
WORSTCASE
AVERAGE
BESTPRACTICE
Car
bon
Emis
sion
s pe
r U
ser
(kg
CO
2e/y
ear)
Source: Scaling Up Energy Efficiency Across the Data Center Industry: Evaluating Key Drivers and Barriers. NRDC, 2014.
Greening the whole cloud
• Greening a cloud requires managing a global portfolio of facilities to performance goals
• Likely to involve a diverse mix of facility types15
Cloud
• Stand-alone• Co-location• Other clouds
Facilities• Building shell• HVAC• Lighting• Power delivery
Systems• Servers• Power supplies• Storage• Network equipment
Devices
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