FEATURE IIM
A Case Study of Improved Efficiency through IIM Carbon Conscious By Laura Poulter
How AOL data centres reduce energy consumption and find unused capacity among the racks with intelligent power management solutions.
AOL aims to maintain high marks in corporate sustainability. To keep its utility costs and carbon footprint low, the global web services company employs a number of energy-saving and conservation initiatives. It has created innovative green buildings, implemented a teleworking program for its employees, and put into action a number of conservation measures ranging from using fluorescent lights to daylight harvesting, and building automation systems to automatically turn off lights, heating and cooling in its building. For its efforts, the company has been recognised with a number of green awards in recent years, including the EPA and Department of Energy ‘Energy Star’ Award. The most significant energy consumption comes from data centres, with thousands of servers and switches, which host AOL’s content and route messages globally. To minimise utility costs and carbon footprint impact, action has been taken to create reliable, sustainable and energy-efficient data centres.
Measuring for efficiency
AOL’s IT team needed details on how much power the servers, routers and switches consumed. They wanted easily accessible information on energy consumption at each and every power outlet throughout their data centres,
so that they could gather an accurate picture on energy usage in order to take steps to improve energy efficiency. “Our primary goals were to lower
energy usage and find capacity, so that we could operate highly efficient and highly available data centres,” said Will Stevens, Senior IT Director at AOL. “We wanted a solution that could be deployed in our existing data centres, as well as one that would work in new locations. The key requirements for us were outlet-level PDU metering and switching, data collection capabilities, analytics and reporting, and the support of open interfaces.” AOL deployed Raritan’s intelligent
rack power distribution units capable of metering power at both the PDU and outlet level in real time. With a separate processor for each outlet and secure connectivity built into the intelligent rack PDU, the company was able to gather energy intelligence on each piece of equipment plugged into the PDU – information such as the power being drawn and real-time rack temperature and humidity. Servers, UPSs and other IT
equipment were plugged into ports on the back of the intelligent PDU, which plugs into a power source. Each PDU has an LED power meter and serial and Ethernet ports. With a click or two on a web dashboard, IT staff are able to obtain power information for each piece of equipment, as well as information from temperature and humidity sensors from anywhere in the world. Power details gathered include data on voltage, current, power factor, apparent power, active power and energy consumption in kilowatt hours. Information
Psychrometric Chart (operational view of temperature and humidity sensors in data centre) 26 NETCOMMS europe Volume I, Issue 6 2011
from the iPDUs, as well as from basic rack PDUs made by other vendors, is
gathered by Raritan’s Power IQ energy management software. The Power IQ Web-based dashboard brings such details together in one central console, providing management, charting and reporting, as well as power control over systems. This solution enables AOL to monitor rack temperatures and then send alerts if temperatures exceed certain user-defined thresholds and industry guidelines set by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). The thermal analysis feature is designed to help managers monitor rack temperatures and report whether the data centre is within ASHRAE guidelines. The tool gathers rack temperatures then plots the readings on a chart to show whether an organisation is in acceptable ranges. “You can determine where hot spots are in your data centre and how much you can raise the ambient temperature without risking your IT infrastructure,” explained Stevens. Additionally, AOL is taking advantage
of its ability to centrally manage PDUs. Firmware and configuration management and health monitoring for all their PDU units can be done with Power IQ. Mass firmware upgrades for all Dominion PX devices, for example, can be performed through a single point of access. The energy solution is also being
employed to find valuable rack space using real-time power draw information of equipment instead of relying upon nameplate data. In many cases the actual draw is about 50 percent of the wattage or amperage listed on a device’s nameplate. “By graphing energy usage and
trends and tracking our carbon footprint, our vendor’s solution is helping us identify areas where we can conserve,” Stevens commented. “It helps us identify devices that are wasting energy, such as servers that are turned on but are doing little or no computational work or areas where there is overcooling. Not only does the energy management solution help us reduce costs, it provides real-time monitoring as well.”
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