Category Archives: Going Green

Green Your Data Centers and Keep More Green In Your Bank Account

Supply and Spend Management Professionals everywhere, take heed, you can save bags upon bags of money by forcing IT to Green your data centers – and please the grippies (green hippies) at the same time as you drastically reduce your energy requirements, and, consequentially, your carbon footprint. That’s right, you can save energy and the environment as a side-effect of implementing IT technology that not only saves you money, but performs better overall! And all you have to do is make sure IT buys the right technologies from the right vendors, and not just the vendors that give them the most free toys or the most free passes to the tech expos. So read this post carefully. The technologies described within will not prevent IT from supporting your current application infrastructure or affect any SLAs you might have – although it might mean that IT has to upgrade their skills and / or get comfortable with new technology. (And if you’re not willing to learn on a daily basis, and you’re in IT, you’re in the wrong profession — and shouldn’t be surprised if you’re told to shape up or ship out.)

As I informed you in a recent post on how IT is our greatest threat to our energy future, your corporate data center is a huge energy hog, and likely sucks up considerably more energy than the rest of your office-based operations combined. Why is this the case? First of all, those big-boxed traditional servers suck up considerably more power than an average workstation, especially since they usually have redundant always-on power supplies, with power requirements in the 700W to 1,500W range being quite common. In other words, each server generally sucks up three times the power of a normal workstation, 24/7, whether it is used or not. But mostly your data centers are huge power hogs because of the huge amount of heat a large number of servers in a compressed space will generate and the simple fact that if the room is not cooled to at least normal room temperature, they’ll overheat, melt, and take not only your hardware investment, but your data (which just might be your most valuable asset) with them. Today, it often costs more to keep your data centers cool than it does to fill them with equipment. If you reference a recent article from Hewlett Packard on Electronics-Cooling.com, and recalculate the 3 year energy cost to acquisition cost with today’s prices (where you can get a fully configured 1U server for (well) under 3,000 and where the average retail price of electricity is now over 11c per kWh and rising fast), you find that, today, the average cost of keeping a server powered and cool is at least 30% more than the server itself!

So what can you do? You can start by using servers with power efficient chips, virtualization, and dynamic CPU allocation to reduce your power requirements. These initiatives can decrease power requirements substantially. Lower power hardware requires less watts to run. Virtualization allows you to reduce the number of servers you require by packing more applications onto fewer servers. And dynamic CPU allocation allows you to automatically shift processes between processors and, during down times, power down one or more cores to reduce energy requirements. This means that your server room can run at full capacity during the normal work day when it is being hit hard by every employee in your operation, but automatically power down by 75% (or more) overnight when almost no one is utilizing your systems and networks.

Then you can reduce your cooling requirements by using rack-based (liquid) cooling that focuses on keeping the servers chilled, and not the entire room they are housed in. Even in a jam-packed server room, your servers aren’t even going to take up a third of the space. This means that not only are you chilling a lot more space than you have to, but you have to chill part of the room cooler than it needs to be as, chances are, the vents won’t be right next to all of the servers. However, a rack based solution that only chills the servers only sucks up the energy needed to chill the servers, and this tends to reduce your power consumption by at least 15% to 20% alone! Furthermore, you can then install a heat exchanger to route the vented heat throughout your office building and use your servers to heat your building in the winter! That’s two hits of energy savings for the price of one!

So where can you get this technology? IBM and Sun are making leaps and bounds in virtualization, IBM and HP are leading the way with rack-based cooling solutions, and all three are leading the way in energy efficiency in their server offerings. (However, it appears that IBM has the best dynamic CPU allocation as it’s virtualization is dynamic and allows you to time-slice processes down to 1/10th of a CPU and use shared pools to insure a sleeping core isn’t powered back up until absolutely needed.) So, contrary to some propoganda, you’re not necessarily restricted to one vendor if you want to save energy, and thus you can use the competition between these vendors to save huge bundles of money.

At this point, you’re probably asking “How do I start?” and “How do I figure out how much money I really could save by helping IT go green?“. The answer is you start with a data center audit that examines your current infrastructure, your current network, and your current user support needs, and comes up with an optimal data center design using best-of-breed technology that will meet your current needs with less energy and less hardware investment requirements than it would cost to upgrade your data center using your current technology and infrastructure design. (And yes, you’ll save money on hardware too since virtualization will let you do more with less!) Then, as you replace and retire existing hardware, you can replace it with the right hardware – and cooling systems, for your needs and watch the savings rack up year over year (especially since today’s virtualization platforms tend to be more extensible and upgradeable in addition to lasting longer).

If you’re looking for someone to call to help you with this audit, I’d recommend you consider NCS Network. The first provider in Canada to offer a green data center solution, they have years of experience in designing, maintaining, and auditing data centers. In addition, they have partnerships and relationships with Sun, IBM, vmware, MiTel, Cisco, Wyse, Citrix, Xen Source, red hat, APC, Novell, and, of course, Microsoft. If you mention that you heard about them on Sourcing Innovation and book an audit before September 30, 2008, they’ll give you 10% off of their standard rates.

In full disclosure, although I do not own any shares in NCS Network, or get any commission for referring you to their services, there is a partnership between NCS Network and the doctor‘s company, whereby the doctor may serve as their Chief Software Architect on a consulting basis when an NCS Network client needs a senior software architect and Emerich Winkler of NCS Network may serve as the doctor‘s Chief Network Architect on a consulting basis when one of the doctor‘s client needs a senior network architect. However, if you hire them, and don’t hire me, I get zip, zero, and zilch and there’s really no financial incentive for the doctor to recommend NCS Network to you.

The Pickens Plan for Energy Sustainability

Courtesy of AJ Sweatt on the MFGX blog, I was alerted to this site which, in AJ’s words, has a great energy plan that is clearly enunciated, easy to understand, the right thing to do, and – what really caught my eye – a potential boon to manufacturing.

America is addicted to foreign oil. This wouldn’t be a bad thing, as every country these days relies on another for something, if it wasn’t for the fact that the addiction is becoming all encompassing. As noted in the plan, America’s dependence on foreign oil has increased from 24% to 70%+ in the last 38 years, with no end in site. It’s unsustainable — and there’s no excuse for it! As I’ve pointed out in many previous posts, there are affordable clean-energy alternatives — and with the exception of transportation (and air and sea travel in particular), there’s no excuse not to be consuming clean energy.

Not only is the current North American dependence on oil unsustainable, it’s scary. As the Pickens Plan notes, at current oil prices, we will send $700 billion dollars out of the country this year alone – that’s four times the annual cost of the Iraq war. Furthermore, projected over the next 10 years the cost will be $10 trillion – it will be the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind. Wealth that America needs if it is to maintain its standing in the global marketplace. And, moreover, it’s sufficient wealth to build wind facilities that would produce 20% of the annual electricity requirement of the US, with $9 trillion to spare! In other words, for what the US is spending on oil in one year, it could build facilities that would produce 20% of its power needs over the next half-century!

As the article notes, the United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power. Studies from around the world show that the Great Plains States are home to the greatest wind energy potential in the world — by far. The Department of Energy reports that 20% of America’s electricity can come from wind. North Dakota alone has the potential to provide power for more than a quarter of the country. Imagine if the US capitalized on this power … and then capitalized on all the water power available off of both coasts (through tidal turbiness) … and then capitalized on all of the solar power available in the southwest semi-deserts. The US could easily meet two thirds, if not three quarters, of its non-transportation energy needs without breaking a sweat. And that’s with today’s technology. Solar and tidal power technologies are still improving, as well as getting more economical to deploy, and it stands to reason that future improvements will make the technology even more energy efficient and economical.

In addition, instead of touting bio-fuel as the alternative to oil for transportation needs, it’s proposing natural gas, with greenhouse gas emissions that are 23% lower than diesel and 30% lower than gasoline. Given that natural gas is a domestic energy source, and that bio-fuel, which decreases global food production (which is already at a record low), is not the answer, this is a very well thought out suggestion. It’s probably not a permanent solution, but it’s a long term solution, and by the time we reached a point where natural gas supply was a problem, fuel cell technology, or even more modern energy sources, should be ready to take its place.

So, as AJ recommends, take a minute and read The Pickens Plan. If only the politicians were so clear thinking.

Start with Sourcing

Sourcing … lies at the nexus of a number of functions and business units, and is therefore in a position to influence action across an organization; it can be a strong leverage point for starting a green initiative. By working with senior leaders in other functions, sourcing executives enable a successful, holistic, multifunctional strategy for reducing environmental impact while cutting costs and building better relationships with suppliers and communities.
  Martha Turner & Pat Houston, Strategy & Business

This is a great quote … and why this blog is about Sourcing Innovation. Successful sourcing is the only way to simultaneously make a significant impact on the balance sheet and on the environment while improving operations and supplier relationships. As the article points out, green sourcing is not a departure from the way sourcing is currently practiced, it’s an augmentation. The goal of sourcing is to find the best possible deal for the company from a Total Value Management perspective – which takes into account all costs from the initial extraction and acquisition of raw materials and services to the final disposal of the product. And green sourcing, contrary to popular opinion, usually saves money, if not lots of money, from a total life-cycle analysis. (3M has saved over $1 Billion by going green. To date, Kaiser Permanente has achieved a recurring annual savings of 9 Million across 30 initiatives, and not one required a cost increase.)

Consider energy-saving virtualization technology. It might cost a little more up front, but it will save bundles in energy costs. Or consider investing in renewable power plants based on solar, wind, or hydro power. They might cost more to build than another coal furnace – but you don’t have to buy fuel year after year after year. And, most of all, consider using easily reclaimable and recyclable materials in your products. Then you get to reuse the materials again and again and again – and if you set up an end-of-life program where customers can return the products to you free of charge, you could save a bundle down the road. And consider the example of soy-based lubricants given in the article. At first glance, petroleum seems the cheaper choice, at $1,500 for an annual purchase of 300 gallons, compared to $3,195 for soy. But petroleum has costs that are not immediately obvious: $300 per year in waste costs, $2,400 in costs for spill administration, $1,000 in fees to minimize the waste from spills. When these factors are taken into account, the monetary cost of using petroleum-based lubricant for a year is $5,200–and that’s not considering the less-quantifiable environmental cost of using a nonrenewable resource. With no such add-ons, soy is clearly the more cost-effective choice in addition to being more environmentally friendly.

A well thought-out sourcing plan that takes into account the environment and green initiatives does more than just allow a company to reduce and control costs. It allows companies to capitalize on the growing awareness of green issues, helping them attract customers, motivate current employees, and recruit new employees. It enables companies to respond more effectively to regulation, or even to anticipate it. Finally, green sourcing allows companies to deliver on the promises made in corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports.

In addition, green sourcing encourages the same kind of in-depth, widespread awareness of practices and processes that companies have gained from adopting Lean Six Sigma, process optimization, collaborative decision-making, and other quality-oriented methods. If you think back twenty-five years to when these initiatives were just starting out, you might recall that the common “wisdom” was that better products cost more, when, in fact, we later found out that they didn’t — they costed less as they lasted longer, had lower defect rates, reduced warranty and return costs, and made for a better brand image, which allowed a company to attract and retain more customers.

Kick-Starting Your Environmental Compliance Program

As a recent Industry Week article points out, with new environmental regulations popping up around the globe, ‘non-compliance’ is a ‘non-option’. Furthermore, if you’re a manufacturer, it’s not just your finished products that you have to be concerned with. You have to be sure that any new energy products are environmentally friendly, that chemicals used in the production process are non-hazardous and non-toxic, and that any waste products are properly disposed of.

In order to ensure you are in compliance, you need an environmental compliance program. But where do you start? Industry Week recently ran a great article that outlined what you need to do to “Create an Effective Environmental Compliance Program”.

  1. Document
    Make sure you have the data you need to demonstrate REACH and RoHS compliance.
  2. Analyze
    Be sure to analyze the effectiveness of any processes you already have in place. Things to consider:

    • resource requirements and associated overheads
    • current response times to customer requests
    • time losts and costs incurred responding to audits
    • costs of errors and unintentional non-compliant shipments that slip through
  3. Self-Assessment
    Consider the implications if you are found to be non-compliant.
  4. Appoint a Champion
    Someone has to spearhead the effort.
  5. Evaluate (, Evaluate, Evaluate)
    Compare the different solutions, their advantages and disadvantages, and select the best one.
  6. Implement
    Once you have identified the solution that has the best balance between functionality, flexibility, reporting, ease-of-use, implementation, commitment, and cost, you need to implement it.

Energy Efficiency is the First Step in Energy Conservation (and Budget Savings)

If you’re a buyer of computers, electronics, machinery, automobiles, buildings, or anything else that requires power, the first thing that should be on your mind these days, with petroleum and oil prices going through the roof, is energy. It now costs more to power an average desktop workstation for its expected life-span than it does to buy it, just as it does to power and cool your average server. Getting 40% off MSRP on a pick-up truck that only gets 15 mpg isn’t a great deal anymore if it’s going to be driven 30,000 miles per year, because, at current fuel costs, you’ll be spending 45,000+ in fuel costs over 5 years … over two times what you’ll be paying for the truck!

That’s why it was great to see a recent article in Industry Week on “Growing the Energy Efficiency Market” that re-iterated the fact that energy-efficiency technologies can reduce energy consumption by 25% or more, echoing the results of a recent McKinsey study that also found that improved energy efficiency can cut energy requirements by 25% in many developed countries, as I noted in my post on Cutting Carbon Footprints on the Country Level.

The Industry Week article focussed on a recently released ACEEE (American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy) report on “The Size of the U.S. Energy Efficiency Market: Generating a More Complete Picture”. The report, which was supported by the Civil Society Institute, the Kendall Foundation, and the North American Insulation Manufacturer’s Association, found that:

  • The U.S. has the potential to reduce energy consumption by an additional 25% to 30% through strategic use of energy efficient technologies
  • Energy-Efficiency has met about three-fourths of the demand of new energy related services since 1970, proving that it works
  • Investments in more energy-efficient technologies could result in an efficiency market worth more than 700 Billion by 2030

Furthermore, as Industry Week alone has pointed out over the last month or so, opportunities for energy efficiency improvements, as well as new sources of energy, are everywhere.

  • In “Let Motor Efficiency Drive Competitiveness, Too”, we find out that not only does energy account for 97%+ of the total life-cycle cost of an AC induction motor, but that adjustable speed drives can often reduce power consumption by as much as 50% in some implementations! Furthermore, high efficiency motors alone have the potential to reduce industrial power consumption by as much as 18% across the board!
  • In another article, Industry Week informs us that “a new material benefits fuel cells” and that MIT has developed direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) based on this material that improve power output by more than 50%. (Furthermore, this should also lead to the creation of even higher performance batteries for handheld electronics in the near future.)
  • And in “power from seaweed?”, they noted that the production of bioethanol from seaweed might soon be a possibility. If it was possible to produce this fuel in an energy efficient manner, it might make biofuel a viable alternative. Right now, as I’ve pointed out many times, the focus is on corn-based ethanol, which is extremely energy-inefficient to produce (over six barrels of oil are required to produce eight barrels of lower-efficiency ethanol) and reduces the global food supply. In contrast, seaweed is not a key food crop and certain species of seaweed have higher oil concentrations than most land-based crops. It would be fantastic if everything works out.

If you want to be more energy efficient, you might consider checking out the ninth edition of the Plant Engineers and Managers Guide to Energy Conservation. A review can also be found in Industry Week.