I recently posted about Tivoli Pulse, but it seems I also had some other notes in the hopper. For example – I found these facts cited by IBM pretty interesting. I think you may too.
- Over 78% of data centers were built before dotcom era
- Data centers use 10-30x more energy per square foot than office space
- For every 100 units of energy piped into a data center, only about 3 units are used for actual computing- more than half is cooling.
- in distributed computing environments up to 85% of computing capacity can sit idle
With those facts in mind, Tivoli has
a. integrated energy management into all of its console and service management tooling, enabling chargeback and accountability for energy throughout IT. This information can be used for carbon credits or utility rebates in certain geographies.
b. signed deals with building management firms like Johnson Controls and Siemens, to ensure information about energy consumption in facilities can be correlated with IT usage.
All of this stuff is driving IBM’s Dynamic Infrastructure story. Cote was at an event with that team this week, and cites some relevant numbers in his regular roundup, so I might as well include them too! 😉
- 70% of data centers were built before 1985, and will need rebuilding (via @merv).
- Waste makes opportunity: “85% idle compute capacity. $40B of supply chain wasted. 70 cents per dollar just to run the systems. 1.5x data doubles every 18 months.” (Jim Stallings’ slide)
- Of IBM’s 194 datacenters worldwide (just under 6M sq ft), IBM’s own operations are run in just 7 (via @jeunice)
Automation and Virtualisation are the key technologies available today to improve data center efficiency. Sometime in the future Cloud Computing will be another potential avenue of improvement.
disclosure: IBM is a client. The numbers here were supplied by the firm.
monkchips says:
May 1, 2009 at 11:01 am
some facts about data center efficiency http://tinyurl.com/cpzv6b
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TomRaftery says:
May 1, 2009 at 11:04 am
Some facts about data center efficiency from IBM http://bit.ly/r3dP8 via @monkchips
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epic9x says:
May 1, 2009 at 11:13 am
interesting numbers on datacenter efficiency: http://tinyurl.com/cpzv6b
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sceptre1067 says:
May 1, 2009 at 11:14 am
Hmmm… now to get my ceo to see this. RT @monkchips some facts about data center efficiency http://tinyurl.com/cpzv6b
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Berkay Mollamustafao says:
May 1, 2009 at 11:22 am
“Of IBM’s 194 datacenters worldwide (just under 6M sq ft), IBM’s own operations are run in just 7”
Looks like there is an opportunity here for IBM. Shouldn’t IBM upgrade some of it’s own datacenters with all the good stuff they say they have and document the costs and return?
– current cost of the datacenter (energy and ops)
– total cost (tools, services, etc.) of upgrading the datacenter
– energy and ops costs after the upgrade
– how long it would take to recover the investment
James Governor says:
May 1, 2009 at 12:24 pm
berkay – they have been doing that. there is *plenty* of data center dog-food eating data out there
dehaaspeter says:
May 1, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Interesting : Some Facts about Data Center Inefficiency:
I recently posted about Tivoli Pulse, bu.. http://tinyurl.com/c5ykq7
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rwang0 says:
May 3, 2009 at 6:10 am
Check out James Governor’s perspectives on Data Center Inefficiency http://bit.ly/MZusr
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John Newton says:
May 15, 2009 at 8:31 am
I find it very hard to believe that 78% of data centers were built before the dot com era. Maybe 78% of IBM mainframe data centers, but even that is hard to believe.
I guess it shows that people don’t use data centers or they don’t count the closets (even air conditioned closets) that they put departmental servers in as data centers.
All this shows is that there must be a huge latent demand for cloud computing, not data center energy monitoring.
James Governor’s Monkchips » Cloud Computing: On Structural Advantages and Lessons From History #EMCWorld says:
May 22, 2009 at 12:05 pm
[…] center space in all sorts of useful locations”. Perhaps – but how modern are these resources? According to IBM 70% of data centers were built before 1985, and will need rebuilding (via […]