solar energy and cloud computing is it possible

Article on solar energy in the data centre and cloud computing

Author

Ben Stones

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IRC: Ben-Stones-UK

Title of article

Solar energy and cloud computing: What is it, and is it possible?

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Provisional Final(in review)

Last revision date

6 December 2012

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Ben Stones, Suhaib Logde

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Solar energy in the data centreSolar energy in the data centre is not something particularly new, however more and more businesses that have the capital and infrastructure are increasingly seeing the benefits of solar energy as a primary source of electricity. In fact, there are completely green data centres that are fully powered by renewal energy. Unsurprisingly, companies like Apple and IBM have data centres that use electricity that is generated from green sources like solar panels. Apple has a new data centre in Maiden, North Carolina that uses entirely renewable sources – and 60 percent of this renewal power will be produced on-site.

There are very big benefits from using solar energy – first of course is the environmentally-friendly factors of producing, and making use of, renewal energy and the long-term cost-efficiency of solar panels and renewal energy sources.

Over half of IT decision-makers in a recent survey conducted by Computacenter consider power efficiency as a top priority in the data centre. But why? There are many factors why, but with power-efficiency comes greater cost-efficiency. Having a green data centre is not meaningful if the hardware in the data centre is not efficient on power usage – which backs up the increasing discussion in the industry regarding the potential for low-power servers running ARM-based processors. It's absolutely possible, and there are business-use scenarios for ARM-based servers which provide a better power to performance ratio than processors based on the x86 architecture.

In the survey, 71% said they considered IT efficiency as “very important”. If unnecessary resources and money is being spent, less can be spent on the areas that contribute towards business growth and opportunity. What's worth spending more money on business operations when cost savings can be made?

Interestingly, the survey showed that 5% of UK companies that were surveyed did not rate IT efficiency as important, likely because of the short-term expenses involved.



Cloud computing in the data centreWhat is cloud computing?

First and foremost, what is the “cloud” when it comes to “cloud computing” and web hosting services? Cloud computing is a term that comes from the use of an abstractive illustration to visually describe the technical infrastructure of a cloud computing service. Cloud computing is the use of computing resources spread across a cluster of servers and hardware devices to deliver services over the Internet, with a service provider focusing on the management of the hardware and infrastructure, and the customer being able to fully and properly focus on core business operations without the headaches and concerns of managing the back-end infrastructure, hardware and software that is necessary in large-scale operations.

What is cloud hosting?

Many could debate over what is classified as “cloud hosting”. When it comes to a cloud hosting provider, on the back-end there are multiple servers, remote storage and hardware devices linked in a cluster inherently providing redundancy, performance and scalability that is not possible in a traditional set up consisting of many independent servers.

In a traditional environment, if the server that hosts your website or online operations goes offline resulting from a hardware, software, network or power failure, your website or online applications will also go offline – which can be devastating for eCommerce stores and online businesses. Even then, there may be certain failures that are possible that are not the result of any problem with the server – such as network switch failures. Granted, our data centres have redundancy on every level, but failures on the network-level are possible if there is not redundancy in place.

So how is cloud hosting beneficial?

Cloud hosting is inherently beneficial for businesses and professionals that need an uptime- and mission-critical solution. In a cloud hosting environment, the front-end services are protected from downtime (and subsequently the potential for loss of business and revenue) because if one server fails, any affected services are simply



moved onto another live server in the cluster. For example, if you have an eCommerce store hosted on a virtual machine on server A and the server fails, your virtual machine will be immediately moved onto server B in the cluster.

Solar energy and cloud computing: Massive cost-efficiency...When data centres can save money on power through the long-term, using solar energy and other forms of renewal energy, these savings will be ultimately passed down to customers which means everyone benefits – for example, with co-location services. If the data centre is benefiting from stricter cost-efficiency with the use of renewal energy, it will be a high probability they will pass these savings down to their own customers because of industry competition.

Of course, the question regarding solar energy is – “is it a reliable solution?” It's an important question to ask, because you can't rely on a new primary source of power unless it is reliable enough to replace other solutions that are more reliable but may not be sourced as environmentally-friendly. Solar panels are the most useful only when the sun is shining. When it is raining, or is a very cloudy day, solar panels do not work at their maximum capacity because there is less light it can convert into electricity. Of course, during the night, solar panels produce absolutely no electricity because there is no light it can convert. So in the case of a home environment, you'd be relying on backup generators for the night time and/or the electricity grid when the solar panels on the roof cannot convert electricity – whether during the night time or during very poor weather that may affect the performance of the solar panels.

As well as the performance considerations, cost is another prohibitive factor that businesses (and home users) would want to take into account.

The data centre and ARM-based servers

Intel are very serious about the competition from manufacturers producing ARM-based processors. The benefits of processors designed on ARM architecture is that they use



much less power than an x86 processor, although x86 processors always have the performance advantage. While ARM processors have taken centre-stage in the mobile market (which Intel are finding very difficult to get a hold on), have they got a place in the server market? In certain situations, yes they have (or could have); although when it comes to the mainstream market, there is no real need or demand for servers with ARM-based processors – at least, right now.

Going forward...Looking at the near-term future, the effort on IT efficiency will be a primary focus for IT decision-makers going forward. If more companies make bold moves to use renewal energy sources because of the long-term benefits it provides, their competitors will likely follow suit because it can ultimately result in a substantial advantage in the long-term future – not just from a financial perspective.

It's interesting to see how the IT industry, on a larger scale than ever before, is adopting green technologies (and technologies that are greener), and how much the industry is changing. Over the last decade there has been major innovations in processor, hardware and software technology. The data centre solutions that are available today – while ever more complex than a decade ago – are major inroads in the continued innovation, improvement and efficiency of IT services for everyone.



solar energy and cloud computing is it possible

Technology