Processor Newspaper Volume 31 Number 11

2009·14.6 MB·English

by  Sandhills Publishing

P.O. Box 85518
Lincoln, NE 68501-5518
CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED
March 27, 2009
Volume 31 Number 11
www.processor.com
Products, News & Information Data Centers Can Trust. Since 1979
In This Issue... Cut HVAC
Key Points
COVER FOCUS
Saving Power In Your Data Center (cid:127) Get an idea of where you stand by taking
advantage of vendors’ offers for free
Where can your data center save money by reducing the Power Usage
assessments and audits.
amount of power it uses related to cooling, outdated
(cid:127) Badly placed power strips, UPSes, and
equipment, storage, and the desktop? We talked with
cables can cause hot spots and drive up
experts to find out.
cooling needs, so carefully shift your equip-
Cut HVAC Power Usage................................................1 ment to improve airflow.
Save Data Center Power By Updating Equipment........7
(cid:127) Use fewer devices closer to their rated
Scale Back Storage Power............................................8 Streamline Your Cooling & Airflow Setups
capacity to boost efficiency and reduce
Desktop Power Savings ................................................9
& Save Money At The Same Time wasted energy.
Data Center Sourcing Options by Carmi Levy
Get An Energy Audit
Lease. Outsource. Cloud computing. (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127)
Which option is the best for your AS BELTS TIGHTEN and budgets An audit identifies where
enterprise? Special coverage shrink, CIOs and IT directors your HVAC infrastructure
begins on page 24. are scouring every last line item works and where it doesn’t.
for inexpensive fixes and major Beyond helping find hot spots
savings. The data center’s elec- and potential trouble areas, it
tricity bill has emerged as a also lays the groundwork for
major target of opportunity. data center managers to educate
You don’t need to rip out and themselves about power man-
TECH & TRENDS replace your equipment to drive agement best practices. Most
efficiencies in power and cool- vendors these days provide
■Market inertia and convention are no reason to over- ing. Often, the savings are right basic audits at no cost.
look the potential benefits that flywheel UPS systems under your nose.
could offer your organization now........................page 1 “The impact of the economic Manage Your Airflow
& Eliminate Obstructions
■Aside from costing an organization millions, the loss- downturn is really twofold,”
says Tim Hirschenhofer, dir- “The immediate knee-jerk
es a company can incur through data breachesrisk
ector of sales for Degree Con- reaction to a thermal problem is
damaging its brand, squandering customer confidence,
trols’ AdaptivCool division to add more cooling equip-
incurring regulatory fines, and racking up legal fees,
(www.adaptivcool.com). “Cus- ment,” says Hirschenhofer. “But
among other concerns........................................page 32
tomers want to save money, and the reality is that most data
■A recent survey conducted by BeyondTrust, a devel- certainly controlling airflow and centers today have more than
oper and marketer of least privilege management soft- HVAC costs are the easiest ways enough cooling to handle the
ware, reveals that 92% of critical vulnerabilities report- to gain efficiencies in the data heat load that they’ve got.”
ed by Microsoft last year could have been prevented center. This approach also ex- Airflow distribution is critical
simply by removing administrator rightsfrom tends the life of existing data centers by Here are a few suggestions to get you to getting the cold air where it’s needed and
Windows users................................................page 33 allowing more equipment to be put into the started on scaling back your HVAC power in the right amount, he says. By actively
same size facility.” consumption. Go to Page 6
NEWS
■IBM is reportedly in talks with Sun Microsystems
Are Flywheels For You? Of Special Interest To:
✘
regarding a potential acquisition, according to The Health ■
Wall Street Journal................................................page 2 Education ■
Government ■
■Large enterprises will be able to lease Microsoft
softwareat a discount of up to 26%....................page 2
■The economic downturn is propelling a surge in the Data Centers Could Benefit Key Points
acquisition of Linuxamong manufacturers, financial From Kinetic Energy Devices
services, government agencies, and retail industries,
(cid:127) Flywheels store kinetic energy that can
according to IDC ..................................................page 2
by William Van Winkle motor cuts out, a flywheel-based, online convert instantly into electrical energy
■Microsoft now has until April 21 to respond to allega- (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) UPS uses the flywheel’s stored kinetic ener- when employed in an online UPS product
tions that it unfairly stifles competition by bundling its INERTIAISTHECENTRALPRINCIPLEbehind gy as the basis for generating electricity. The with much greater reliability than battery-
Internet Explorersearch engine with the company’s flywheel technology. It may also be the UPS itself is a generator. This generation based UPS systems.
Windows software................................................page 3 central reason why chemical battery-based sucks energy out of the system, but there’s (cid:127) The environmental benefits of flywheel
■A two-year study by the Kauffman Foundation found UPSes have been the predominant backup enough energy there to result in a few min- technology vs. battery are legion, from
approach for SME data centers over the last utes of runtime in a properly sized system. superior power efficiency to the elimination
that many high-tech worker immigrants contributed
three decades. But market inertia and con- A traditional generator, like the ones of toxic chemical containment and disposal.
greatly to the U.S. economy by cofounding a quarter of
vention are no reason to overlook the waiting around to kick in and power your (cid:127) Despite the higher up-front costs of fly-
tech and engineering startups..........................page 9
potential benefits that flywheel UPS sys- data center after a sustained loss of power, wheel systems, there are many ways in
■Internet Explorer 8 can be disabled in the Windows 7 tems could offer your organization now. converts fuel into mechanical energy, which the technology can more than pay
Release Candidate, Microsoft has confirmed......page 32 which is then converted into electrical ener- for itself in a fairly short time.
Flywheels At A Glance
■Revenue from blade serverswas up about 31% and gy. A battery-based UPS takes electrical
A flywheel is a mechanical device that energy from the wall and stores it in chemi-
shipments were up 30% during the fourth quarter of last
The Battery Fallacy
stores rotational energy. In modern data cen- cals, from which it can be extracted and
year....................................................................page 36
ters, flywheels that are spun at a constant used again as electricity. The flywheel- The trouble for flywheels has always
rate by a small motor can store enough ener- based UPS also takes electricity from the been that battery-based UPSes generally
The Processor.com home page is frequently updated with
gy to power large computer systems for wall, stores it as kinetic energy, then con- deliver 10 to 15 minutes of runtime.
new articles and hardware news to help you keep current.
short spans of time, just as chemical battery verts that kinetic energy into mechanical According to Gary Rackow, vice president
Visit www.processor.com today.
backups do. If the power to the flywheel’s energy and from that into electrical energy. Go to Page 6
Page 2 Processor.com March 27, 2009
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1. What is the size of your company 3. What is your annual computer hardware/ Editorial Staff
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News
UpcomingITEvents
Are you looking to learn more about data center
❙ ❙
or IT topics? Network with some of your peers? New Dow Candidates Study Shows Increase other Microsoft software. The move is seen
Consider joining a group of data center Include Tech Companies In Computer Science Students as a bid by the software giant to retain its
professionals. If you have an event you’d like to
customers in the midst of a recession.
list, please send an email to Google, Cisco, and Apple are among the names Student enrollment in computer science pro-
[email protected]. being considered for possible inclusion in the grams is up 6.2% compared to last year when ❙ PCI Security Standards Council
Dow Jones Industrial Average, according to looking at both premajors and majors, accord- Releases PCI DSS Checklist
- MARCH - Reuters. The Dow, which serves as an indicator ing to the latest data from the Computing
In an effort to help companies still not in com-
AITP Akron of the stock market by tracking the stock prices Research Association. When looking at only
pliance with the 12 security controls included
March 31, 6 p.m. of 30 of the largest, most widely held compa- students who have declared a computer sci-
in the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data
Lindsay’s Amber Restaurant nies, has lost 25% of its value so far this year, ence major, the number is up 8.1% from a
1500 Canton Road Security Standard), the PCI Security Stan-
prompting calls for changes in the companies it year ago. Computer science bachelor degree
Akron, Ohio dards Council has released “The Prioritized
tracks, Reuters reports. Citigroup and General production is expected to be down 10% this
www.akron-aitp.org Approach To Pursue PCI DSS Compliance,”
Motors are two of the companies that will likely year, compared to a decline of about 20% last
a document that outlines six milestones com-
- APRIL - be removed from the Dow, as their stock prices year. The number of new computer science
panies can use as a road map to gaining com-
AFCOM Omaha have dropped below $2. Ph.D. students is also on the rise, up 10%
April 1 pliance. The PCI DSS, which aims to secure
❙ compared to last year’s figures. The Comput-
Mutual Of Omaha IBM Could Buy Sun Microsystems credit and debit card data, has left many com-
ing Research Association study notes that
3300 Dodge St. panies overwhelmed and uncertain as to
Omaha, Neb. IBM is reportedly in talks with Sun Microsys- diversity in the undergraduate programs
where to start to reach compliance. As further
www.afcomomaha.org tems regarding a potential acquisition, accord- remains poor, with only 11.8% of computer
assistance, the council released a spread-
(cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) ing to The Wall Street Journal.The deal could science degrees awarded going to women
AFCOM Central Ohio sheet-based utility that will help companies
be worth at least $6.5 billion, according to the and 64.1% going to recipients who reported
April 8, 11:30 a.m. plot their progress in achieving the milestones
report, which represents a 100% premium their ethnicity as white.
Liebert and help auditors view the compliance status-
1050 Dearborn Drive over Sun’s stock price when reports of the ❙
Microsoft Offers es of companies.
Columbus, Ohio acquisition were made public. According to the
www.afcomcentralohio.org Journal, the two companies share many simi- Discounted Software Leasing ❙ Recession Spurs Linux Adoption
(cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) larities: Both make computer systems for the Thanks to new price cuts
AITP Central Idaho The economic downturn is propelling a “surge
non-Windows market, support Linux and Java offered by Microsoft,
April 8, 11:45 a.m. in the acquisition of Linux” among manufac-
Owyhee Plaza Hotel open-source software, and aren’t as dependent large enterprises
turers, financial services, government agen-
1109 Main St. on Intel microprocessors as other manufactur- and other organi-
cies, and retail industries, according to an
Boise, Idaho ers. Sun has reportedly been looking for a zations will be
www.boisestate.edu/dpma IDC survey conducted last month. Among the
potential acquirer, such as IBM, HP, Dell, or able to lease the
/dpmaci/centida.html 330 IT execs surveyed, 53% plan to acceler-
Cisco, for several months. company’s software
(cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) ate Linux adoption on the server this year
AITP Washington D.C. at a discount of up to
directly due to the economy. Additionally,
April 9, 6:30 p.m. 26%. According to MicrosoftIncentives.com,
73% are “either actively evaluating or have
Alfio’s Restaurant enterprises will be able to sign up to sub-
4515 Willard Ave. already decided to increase their adoption of
scribe to Microsoft Office 2007, Windows
Chevy Chase, Md. Linux” on the server in 2009, while 68% plan
Vista, or two bundles of CALs (client access
aitpwashdc.ning.com adoption on the desktop. The survey reports
licenses) for server software at a significant
(cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) that the Americas have felt the economy’s
ISSA Northeast Ohio price reduction—more than a quarter off the
influence the most, with 62% already making
April 9, 8 a.m. list price. The Web site says enterprises can
Corporate College East budget cuts or investigating where cuts are
take advantage of discounted prices when
4400 Richmond Road possible, 66% evaluating or increasing Linux
they sign up for SQL Server, SharePoint, and
Warrensville Heights, Ohio adoption on the desktop, and 67% doing the
neoissa.org
same on the server. The retail industry
(cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127)
WATCH THE showed the most potential for accelerating
AITP Northeastern Wisconsin Chapter
This information provides a quick glimpse of current and historical stock
April 15, 4:15 p.m. STOCKS Linux adoption, with 63% planning to in-
prices and trends for 14 major companies in the technology market.
Holiday Inn Select crease Linux desktop adoption and 69%
150 S. Nicolet Road Linux server adoption. About 50% of respon-
Appleton, Wis.
dents reported that migrating to virtualization
new.aitp.org % change from
Company Symbol Year Ago March 5 $ March 19 $ previous issue software is speeding up Linux adoption, and
(cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127)
ISSA Oklahoma City AMD AMD $6.15 $2.16 $2.96 ▲37.04% 88% plan to evaluate, deploy, or increase vir-
April 15 Computer Associates CA $22.08 $15.40 $16.60 ▲7.79% tualization software use within Linux OSes in
Spaghetti Warehouse Cisco Systems CSCO $24.47 $14.55 $16.23 ▲11.55% the next two years.
101 E. Sheridan Ave.
Dell DELL $19.51 $8.39 $10.04 ▲19.67% ❙
Oklahoma City, Okla. Dell Lays Off Hundreds More
www.issa-okc.org Google GOOG $432 $305.64 $329.94 ▲7.95%
(cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) HP HPQ $46.59 $27.08 $29.10 ▲7.46% Dell further cut its forces this month, with
AITP Omaha IBM IBM $116.94 $87.48 $92.66 ▲5.92% layoffs in its Texas, Tennessee, and North
April 16, 5:30 p.m. Intel INTC $21.09 $12.31 $15.15 ▲23.07% Carolina factories estimated in the hundreds.
Seraph Corp.
The computer maker declined to officially
Omaha, Neb. McAfee MFE $33.28 $28.99 $31.52 ▲8.73%
confirm how many employees were affected.
www.aitpomaha.org Microsoft MSFT $28.62 $15.27 $17.14 ▲12.25%
The news follows Dell’s December announce-
(cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) Oracle ORCL $19.56 $14.53 $17.37 ▲19.55%
AITP Tarheel ment of plans for global reorganization and
Red Hat Software RHT $16.82 $13.69 $15.65 ▲14.32%
April 16, 6 p.m. the January layoff of 1,900 employees in
Sun Microsystems JAVA $15.67 $4.19 $8.63 ▲105.97%
Foothill Brewery
Limerick, Ireland. The reductions are part of
638 W. 4th St. Symantec SYMC $16.49 $13.12 $14.18 ▲8.08%
Dell’s effort to save $4 billion in annual costs
Winston-Salem, N.C.
www.aitp.org NOTE: This information is meant for reference only and should not be used as a basis for buy/sell decisions. by February 2011. The enterprise says it
March 27, 2009 Processor.com Page 3
News Also In This Issue...
TECH & TRENDS
saved $1.4 billion in the last fiscal year, for comprehensive U.S. privacy legislation,
helped by an 11% workforce cut, or the loss instead shifting its focus to developing the ■Deploying wireless networkscan free employees
of about 9,300 jobs. Dell expects to see sav- framework that would make new governance from the creativity-crushing sameness of a hard-wired
ings from restructuring its supply chain and possible. The Microsoft-led group was de- desktop computer in a hard-wired cubicle. But cutting the
manufacturing network in the near future, signed to bring together a mixture of consumer cord opens up a range of security issues that network
although further layoffs are expected. companies, tech companies, and advocacy administrators can’t afford to ignore....................page 34
❙ groups to push for privacy legislation. Rather
EMC Looking For Acquisitions ■Being penny-wise and pound-foolish, especially when
than focusing its attention on privacy legisla-
it comes to data integrity and security, can have disas-
Network-storage and data-recovery company tion, the group now touts itself as “an organiza-
trous consequences............................................page 35
EMC announced that it is looking for potential tion focused on fostering innovation in con-
acquisitions that will help strengthen its exist- sumer privacy governance” in its new mission ■Today, many data centers use raised floorsto carry
ing business. Joe Tucci, chairman, CEO, and statement. cables, electrical wiring, and cooling equipment. However,
president of EMC, says the company is most ❙ ❙ more data centers are being built without them. Why is the
Survey: Budget Cuts Major Threat Layoffs For Nokia
interested in acquisitions that are very similar industry turning away from this concept?..............page 36
To IT Reliability
to EMC, rather than venturing into new mar- Nokia is joining the ranks of other handset
■IP-enabled devicesare versatile and functional, and
kets. Specifically, Tucci says acquisition tar- Budget cutbacks may cause a serious dis- manufacturers affected by the global economic
they extend the advantages of an IP network to busi-
gets include companies specializing in virtual ruption to data centers, according to mem- downturn with its announcement that it plans to
ness functions traditionally served by analog devices.
infrastructure or information infrastructure. bership surveys from AFCOM (Association lay off 1,700 employees worldwide, or about
But, in doing so, they introduce risk into the network
Other factors EMC is interested in are good For Computer Operations Management), an 1% of its global workforce. Nokia’s fourth-
infrastructure......................................................page 37
people, obtaining new technology, and association of data center managers. Re- quarter net income dropped to $745 million
accessing the new company’s customers. spondents indicate that one out of every four from $2.4 billion in the same period a year ago.
TIPS & HOW TO
Potential acquisitions are made possible by data centers should expect to experience a The cuts will mostly affect the Devices and
EMC’s $9 billion in cash and thus its ability to disruption with their equipment in the next Markets units, the Corporate Development ■In the case of storage, hard drives have been a domi-
buy companies without drawing on outside five years. In particular, respondents noted Office, and global support operations. Nokia neering inhabitant for so long that the concept of adding
financing. that cuts to security would cause problems announced earlier this year that it was aiming solid-state drive technology can create unique chal-
❙ with services; for example, 6.1% are cutting to slash $910 million from its budget, even lenges when it comes to evaluation....................page 28
California Senator Wants
physical security, 4.5% are scaling back data encouraging its employees to resign and ac-
To Update Data Breach Law ■In an economy that favors lean operations, and with
security, and 12% said that generally budget cept a severance package.
data centers employing more virtualization than ever, IT
California Sen. Joe Simitian is looking to cuts would cause disruptions. Of
managers are increasingly facing the question of what to
expand a data breach notification law that was the 133 respondents, half said that
do with machines ready for retirement................page 28
introduced six years ago with a new bill called cutbacks were planned in the near
SB 20. The bill would require companies to future. ■No matter how grim a current environment might look,
report data breaches not only to customers, but ❙ smart enterprises never stopanticipating growth. In fact,
Intel, AMD Tangle Over
also to the state’s attorney general. Simitian’s at a time when many enterprises are hunkering down and
Global Foundries Spinoff
hope is that by reporting data breaches to a waiting for the economic storm to pass, the opportunity to
central authority, California residents and offi- Intel claims that AMD violated pause and plan should be welcome......................page 30
cials would get “a better understanding of the a confidential part of a 2001
■Properly evaluating Microsoft Windows 7 and plan-
nature and scope of the problem.” According to cross-patent licensing agreement
ning for its deployment is key to building a solid business
Fred Cate, a law professor at Indiana Univer- between the two companies when it ❙
HP Revamps Pricing & Services case and reaping the benefits of a modern, well-man-
sity, only one in 10 data breaches are made announced plans to spin off its manufacturing
aged desktop......................................................page 30
public, and overall, there is very little data assets into Global Foundries, a joint venture Computer maker HP is now offering unbundled
about data breaches. with the Abu Dhabi government. Intel threat- services, as well as tiered pricing in a new
COMPANIES
❙ ened to revoke AMD’s x86 licenses and approach offered via EDS. Customers will be
Microsoft Receives Bundling Reprieve
rights, saying the latter wrongly tried to able to personalize their orders for high- and ■Storage Media Brokers provides recycled tape
Microsoft has until April 21 to respond transfer Intel’s intellectual property to a third low-priority applications. Although EDS and HP cartridges and
to allegations that it unfairly stifles competi- party, but AMD has countered that the legal have traditionally negotiated with major enter- other tape media
tion by bundling its Internet Explorer search threat means that Intel itself has violated the prises for outsourcing, smaller clients can now to companies of
engine with the company’s Windows soft- agreement. take advantage of scaled-down management all sizes................
ware, according to the European Commis- ❙ offerings for as little as 85 servers and 1,000 ................page 39
Survey: Surfers Aware
sion, the European Union’s antitrust agency. service-desk seats. New managed services
Of Behavioral Tracking ■Information Support Concepts provides hardware
This is an extension from the original date of include server and storage operations, flexible
and furnituresolutions designed for use in a variety of
March 12, eight weeks after charges were About two-thirds of Internet users 18 and older computing, and managed messaging for secu-
environments....................................................................
first leveled against Microsoft. The charges are aware that advertisers employ behavioral rity and compliance. HP will also provide multi-
............................................................................page 39
stem from a complaint from Opera Software tracking, says a TRUSTe survey, but users ple reliability levels, reducing overall building
ASA in 2007. Since then, Mozilla and Google also seem to be growing more tolerant of the costs by 25%. ■Rather than tape-based backups, Accordance
have joined in the case as “interested third practice. Only 51% of users surveyed object to ❙ Systems approaches hard drive failure preventionin a
FTC Questions Cloud Computing,
parties.” If it loses, Microsoft would have to third-party marketing surveillance, compared to different way: with RAID.....................................page 42
Google Services
offer other browsers with Windows. 59% last year. Still, 48% of users delete brows-
❙ er cookies at least once a week in an effort The Federal Trade Commission met this PRODUCTS
Digital Signage To Grow In 2009
toward better privacy, compared to 42% in month to discuss jurisdiction over potentially
■Snake Tray features
A report from ABI Research estimates that 2008; however, 39% admit that they don’t ade- deceptive practices for cloud computing ser-
a full line of affordable,
the U.S. digital signage market will grow by quately protect their personal information on vices. On the same day the FTC convened,
efficient hand-bendable
about 33% this year. According to ABI Ana- the Web, even though three out of four claim to EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center)
cable management
lyst Zippy Aima, “Traditional advertising know how. filed a complaint with the commission, re-
systemsand unique
media are losing their appeal for many con- ❙ questing a security investigation of multiple
Microsoft To Release Win7 Toolkit power distribution and
sumers. Consequently, digital signage has Google cloud computing applications, such
air management products...................................page 20
emerged as a way to deliver highly cus- Microsoft plans to release a toolkit next month as Google Desktop, Google Docs, and
tomized and targeted messaging in a variety that will help business users test their existing Google Calendar. Although Google claims ■IT WatchDogs’ WeatherGoose line of environmen-
of locations.” ABI Research’s report indicates applications for compatibility with Windows 7. that its storage is secure, EPIC disclosed tal monitorskeeps an eye on a data center’s environ-
that government, law enforcement, education, This is the first time Microsoft has released the numerous privacy-related incidents in its ment, watching for abnormalities in temperature,
and hospitality venues were some of the most toolkit before the general release of its new complaint. EPIC has also asked the FTC to humidity, and more...........................................page 21
likely new places to adopt digital signage. OS—Vista’s toolkit was released at the same bar Google’s cloud computing services until
Technological improvements in digital sign- time—and by doing so, it will give its customers security measures are in place and Google
age, such as display appearance quality and more time to test for compatibility. Those who agrees to contribute $5 million to privacy
affordable data storage, also contribute to its have already tested software with Vista will research.
rise in popularity. have a smooth transition, as applications that ❙
Hitachi Splits In Two
run on Vista will be compatible with Windows 7.
■When an organization hits the ceiling of its network
The company will release another Tokyo-based Hitachi has divided its company
bandwidth, what are the alternatives? One health indus-
version of the toolkit with the com- into two separate entities and named a new
try real estate company turned to the Expand Networks
mercial release of Windows 7, president. Beginning July 1, the company will
WAN Accelerator to free up bandwidth ..............page 22
which is slated for late this year or be split into two groups; the Automotive Sys-
early next year. tems Group will spin off and relocate to its own ■The Napa County Office of Education needed an
❙ headquarters with a work force of about 7,600 effective solution for archiving email safely, despite not
Industry Group
employees, and the Consumer Business Group having specific rules and regulations to follow. It found
Changes Focus
will have about 750 employees and will focus the perfect solution in Sonasoft’s SonaSafe for Email
The Business Forum for Consumer on manufacturing and selling flat-panel moni- Archiving.............................................................page 22
Privacy, formerly known as the tors for consumer and commercial LCD projec-
Consumer Privacy Legislative tors. Takashi Kawamura will now serve as
The Processor.com home page is frequently updated with
forum, has pulled back from rallying chairman, president, and CEO. new articles and hardware news to help you keep current.
Visit www.processor.com today.
Page 4 Processor.com March 27, 2009
P r o d u c t S h o w c a s e c o n t a c t
Baytech
[phone]
Low-Cost Solutions
www.baytech.net
To Remote Site Management
& Data Center Power
Baytech Devices Provide Green Solutions
To Save Businesses Some Green
EVERY DATA CENTER has the same core issues to managers identify and address IT issues at remote
consider, including power, cooling, and the cost of locations to the ATS switch that provides power-
operation. All are fundamental to successful data circuit-level redundancy to maintain uptime to a
center operation. There are many ways to optimize series of outlet metering and control products.
power and cooling, and cost savings can come And because Baytech’s products are designed to
from a variety of areas. But in order to maximize save operational costs in part by optimizing
performance and savings, data center managers power, they’re a green way to save money.
need information about (or from) their devices. With remote management capabilities, safe
Baytech’s line of power and remote manage- power switching for single-corded devices, and
ment products addresses these needs. Baytech’s varying levels of outlet and circuit breaker con-
solutions are designed to scale easily, optimize trol and monitoring, Baytech offers lines of prod-
data center equipment performance, save money, ucts that are smartly designed, inexpensive, and
and cover a range of needs, from the DS-RPC can save companies a great deal of money while
Remote Site Management series that lets optimizing data centers for maximum efficiency.
DS-RPC Remote Site Automatic Transfer
Management Series Switch (ATS)
MAINTAINING UPTIME is crucial to every data center and
remote branch. Having redundancy on the power circuit
level is a critical part of it. Baytech’s ATS device is designed
to provide a simple yet reliable solution for automatically
sensing power loss and seamlessly switching to a backup cir-
cuit. The ATS device is designed specifically for single-
corded devices, which are likely found in even the most up-
to-date data center.
AC signals should technically be the same voltage, but
they’re often out of phase because the actual voltage differs
depending upon where on the panel the feeds are pulling their
power. Depending on the degree of difference, there is a great
deal of energy potential between the two sides, which could
seriously damage equipment.
Some switches will detect the lost power and immediately
switch to the other side; however, a lot of energy remains in the
power supply, which could still produce a damaging spark.
The ATS line of transfer switches solves this problem by actually breaking
the connection to let the energy dissipate. The sine waves are reduced to zero,
effectively killing any power potential, and only then will the ATS device
MANY COMPANIES have remote locations that fix many of them remotely, saving the cost of a switch over. No matter how out of phase the sources may be, the ATS device
need onsite data applications, such as banks and repair visit and reducing downtime. can safely make the switch.
retail stores. When a problem arises at those Of course, in some cases, the repair cannot be The switching time, even with the break, is between 8 and 15ms—about the
sites, usually a repair person must be deployed to done remotely, as in the case of a failed device. length of one 60Hz AC cycle—so performance is not affected.
discover and subsequently fix the problem. One However, because the DS-RPC devices can rule The ATS devices also provide monitoring, so data center managers can
complication that sometimes arises is that the out a number of issues ahead of time, the repair glean information about amperage load, true RMS power (watts), volt-amps,
repair person discovers that fixing the problem person will know what’s in store for him. For voltage, and internal temperature. When combined with a DS series device’s
will require additional equipment that they don’t example, if the problem is identified as a device console server, alerts on power and transfers can be sent via secure SNMP v3.
have with them. Thus, they have to leave, acquire failure, he could arrive onsite with the necessary Other standard features of the ATS devices include programmable dropout
the proper equipment, and come back a second part in hand. voltage, programmable switchback voltage, SNMP and HTTP (with a DS
time to replace the faulty equipment. Features of the DS-RPC series include console series device), and PCB-based reliability.
In addition to the cost of two site visits by a port management, device port naming, individual
repair person, the organization will lose money port password assignment, direct TCP port
because of the downtime created by the initial access, and Telnet/SSH menu device selection.
problem and the time it takes for someone to Users also have remote and HTTP power control
make two visits and fix whatever is amiss. and true RMS voltage and current information.
The BayTech DS-RPC remote site manage- Security features include SSH v2, RADIUS
ment series of products provides secure and reli- authentication, and SNMP and user account lists
able management for the network, servers, and per port to allow system administrators to
console ports. The DS-RPC remote site manage- remotely manage the DS series with greater con-
ment devices let you both identify a problem and fidence and control.
March 27, 2009 Processor.com Page 5
P r o d u c t S h o w c a s e
MRP (Modular Rack Power) MRP Metered
Metered Power Strip & Controlled
Outlets
MUCH MORE THAN a simple strip of outlets for data center Having the metrics on not only the circuit breaker on the
hardware, Baytech’s line of metered outlets is designed to panel, but also the circuit breaker on the power strip enables
give data center managers critical information about the you to make intelligent decisions when deciding to purchase
efficiency of the devices attached to the power strip. servers. When considering a purchase, users need to exam- BAYTECH OFFERS a line of metered outlet products that
Many products give you information only on the circuit ine issues of performance, function, and capability, but they gives you the features of metered outlets with the power-
breakers on the panel. Baytech’s metered power strips also also need data on how efficient a particular server is. In ful addition of outlet control. Having actual control over
provide metrics on the circuit breaker on the power strip other words, they want to know how much power a device the outlets is a powerful way to integrate remote man-
itself. The metered outlet modules offer reports on amps, uses in comparison to how much processing power it has. agement into data center monitoring. For example, if a
voltage, voltage-amps, watts, power factor, and efficiency Other features of the metered outlet modules include sup- piece of equipment is locked up, it may simply need to
per receptacle. As a result, the information from the metered port for 20, 30, 50, or 60 amps; on, off, and reboot options; be rebooted. Because you have control, you can reboot
strips will help data center managers avoid tripping breakers HTTP, SSH, and SSL access; RADIUS and TACACS the device remotely.
and damaging entire racks of equipment. authentication; and tool-less mounting. Reports include Another issue commonly faced is the problem of not
All of this data helps data center managers discover other information on power factor per outlet, kW hour per outlet, having enough power available for every receptacle in
issues. For example, the module may report that a given current, voltage, volt-amps, and watts. All metered outlets a strip. With outlet control, data center managers can
device is pulling 12kW, while the cooling solution for that feature a modular design for optimum scalability, as well as turn off those unused outlets. This ability translates
area is configured for only 8kW. Thus, you can discover a PCB power distribution and fail functional design. into potentially large savings in energy costs. A device
hot spot in the data center. All of Baytech’s MRP devices are designed to securely that is connected to a power source, even if it’s turned
Another problem that the metered outlets help solve is hold devices in the receptacles and for extraordinary dura- off, is still drawing quite a bit of power, which means
predicting when a given device is about to fail. Before hard- bility. With high retention and locking receptacles, MRP simply turning off a server doesn’t result in as much
ware fails, it usually becomes less efficient. The metered devices are designed to hold any and every connected power savings as if the outlet were also off. Baytech’s
outlets will provide data showing a reduction in a device’s device, even if the weight of the cable is pulling on them. In metered outlet module with outlet control lets users
efficiency long before it fails, giving data center managers addition, Baytech uses PCB-mounted receptacles, so there turn off both the device and the outlet, resulting in sig-
weeks or months of notice before a device fails. are no cold-soldered connections in the MRP devices. nificant energy savings.
All Circuit Breakers Monitored Outlet Metering With Efficiency Locking C13 Receptacle Optional Reliable PCB Power Distribution Integrated Sensor Inputs
Most metered power solutions only Monitor individual outlets and receive Reliable integrated locking clips ISD (Insulation Displacement) con- Eliminate the need for extra environmen-
monitor input power. BayTech moni- current, watts, and volt-amps. assure power cord retention. Unique nectors are faulty and unreliable! All tal monitoring devices. All BayTech
tors all circuit breakers and reports Continuously monitoring equipment to the industry and does away with BayTech power solutions use reli- power solutions offer two ports for exter-
via SNMP when thresholds are met. for efficiency with power factor. nuisance wire clips. able PCB power distribution. nal temperature and humidity probes.
Controller Module Receptacle Module
MRP Metered MRP Metered Power
Power Strip With Strip & Circuit Metering
Outlet Control & Without Outlet Control
Circuit Metering
NOT EVERY DATA CENTER needs outlet low-density models and support 120
control, but you might still want the valu- /208/AC single-phase and 208/400VAC
able information provided by the metering three-phase and include the standard fea-
IN ADDITION TO providing products that offer metering at the circuit-breaker level and con- of outlets and circuit breakers. For those tures of the other MRP device types.
trol at the outlet level, Baytech also has a line of devices that meters at the outlet level. With customers, Baytech offers devices without Unique features include monitoring of
these devices, users can glean a power factor for each device plugged into a cabinet in addi- outlet monitoring. all circuit breakers; a kW hour meter;
tion to the cabinet itself. Like the metered strips with both cir- meters for current, voltage, and watts;
These devices give you a tool to drill down to find the most inefficient server, which you cuit metering and outlet control, these and an optional integrated interlocking
can use to determine what hardware needs to be replaced to maximize data center efficiency. devices are available in both high- and C13 receptacle.
Page 6 Processor.com March 27, 2009
Cut HVAC Power Usage with little change to the heat load, which
Top Tip: Fix Your Floor
positively impacts your power usage.”
Make The Utility Bill Visible
Continued from Page 1 Digital Fortress (www.digitalfortress.ca). According to Tim Hirschenhofer, director of
managing airflow—possibly through airflow “You’ll be the first one to fry.” It may be difficult to appreciate exces- sales for Degree Controls’ AdaptivCool divi-
management units under a raised floor or in Spencer adds that drive arrays should be sive energy consumption as long as some- sion (www.adaptivcool.com), leaky raised
a dropped ceiling—you eliminate hot spots. moved toward the floor, as they’re heavier one else is paying the bill. floors allow cold and warm air to mix, which
“You’re not adding more cooling. Rather, and tend to run hotter. Adjusting vertical “A lot of folks are being shown that elec- forces CRACs to work harder and suck up
you’re using what you’ve got more effec- placement reduces hot spots and improves tric bill now, and they’re being held account- more power. Seal off open cable cutouts and
tively,” Hirschenhofer says. “This allows cooling efficiency. able,” says Kubik. “So whether there’s a use blanking panels to actively manage air-
you to run your cooling equipment much UPSes can also be major sources of wast- problem or not, they’ll have to run through flow down low. Train data center employees
more efficiently so you don’t have to cool to ed energy. Kubik says a UPS with a low the paces to see what they can do to reduce to manage floor tiles appropriately and avoid
the warmest spot in the room anymore.” power load is significantly less efficient power consumption.” leaving unnecessary openings following
Additionally, anything that blocks the than one running closer to its load capacity. This level of visibility makes it easier to equipment moves, additions, and changes.
free flow of air above or below a raised He recommends consolidating them to raise track energy performance in the data center.
floor raises the potential for hot spots. efficiency. As an added bonus, consolida- “Many shops don’t measure their consump- “The room doesn’t have to feel like a
“Servers should ideally be pulling cold tion simplifies management. tion as diligently as they could be,” says meat locker to adequately cool the equip-
air from the front and exhausting warm air Kubik. “So it’s been a free-for-all—they add ment,” says Hirschenhofer. “It’s okay for
Accelerate Virtualization
out the back,” says Rob Kubik, power and a UPS here, a cooling unit there, all to server intake temperatures to go as high as
cooling specialist at CDW. “A badly placed Today’s multicore processor-based serv- address tactical cooling needs. But they don’t 77 degrees and still be in the safe zone.
power strip, UPS, or cable can get in the ers run more processes and applications really know what they’re consuming.” That’s a little bit hard for some data man-
way. Sometimes, even a simple adjustment more efficiently, delivering greater capacity agers to accept. They’d much rather walk
Change Your Thinking
can allow the air to go in and out as quickly without commensurate increases in heat into the room and be cold immediately.”
as possible.” loads or energy consumption. Saving energy in the data center is as Additionally, Kubik says there’s often a
“Virtualization makes more processor much based on attitude adjustment as it is disconnect between IT and facilities. “Even
Maintain Your Equipment & Its Placement
cycles available for less heat load,” says on changes to physical infrastructure. though their offices may be across the hall
Equipment placement within a rack is Spencer. “It also scales extremely well, Changes to long-held assumptions about from each other, they’re not necessarily
crucial to effective cooling, airflow, and allowing you to, for example, go from 1,000 environmental management can go a long talking,” he says. “We encourage everybody
energy conservation. In a partially empty to 2,000 concurrent users on the same box way toward driving efficiencies. to get onto the same page.”
rack, move the installed devices as close to As an example, airflow management ini-
the floor as possible to take advantage of tiatives that move hot air into a drop ceiling
the cooler air below. Bottom-to-top place- “The room doesn’t have to feel like a meat may cause ripple effects beyond the data
ment also gives you more redundancy in center. If the building uses the plenum space
locker to adequately cool the equipment.”
the event of an outage. for other systems, hot air from the data cen-
“Being at the top of the rack is not the ter may cause problems there. Stronger part-
place to be if there’s a cooling failure,” -Degree Controls’ Tim Hirschenhofer nerships can ensure win-win solutions for
says Steve Spencer, president and CTO of both IT and the facilities teams. P
Are Flywheels For You? counterparts, but Active Power’s Rackow Going green can pay dividends in other
states that flywheel solutions can recoup ways. Active Power’s Rackow notes one
their higher costs in 18 to 24 months. This user who installed about 2 megawatts of
Continued from Page 1 Viewed from a thermal angle, the bat- ROI hinges on several less-discussed liabil- flywheel UPS product. The customer then
of sales for the Americas at Active Power tery proposition is even more erroneous. ities with battery technology. Battery life- went to the local power company,
(www.activepower.com), this battery run- As Pentadyne (www.pentadyne.com) lit- times are generally rated with a 100% fig- explained that they opted for the more
time is his company’s chief competition. erature illustrates, today’s servers and ure dependent on the battery never being power-efficient flywheel solution over
Rackow notes that years ago, it was com- rack densities have rigid environmental used. Every instance of battery usage conventional battery, and the utility cut
mon for mainframes to run single applica- cooling demands. If the power fails, “you lessens its potential maximum utility, and the company a rebate check for $125,000.
tions. He used to watch IBM practice have less than 60 seconds to have the load sags and cuts occur regularly to busi- Rackow says that many power companies
drills in which an application went genset online and powering the cooling nesses. Some record hundreds of such offer such programs, as it defers the
through an orderly shutdown in less than systems; otherwise thermal server crash is drops per year. Moreover, batteries must be expenses they would incur in building out
10 minutes, and so a 10-minute UPS was inevitable.” maintained at under 75 degrees Fahrenheit more infrastructure, but few data center
perfect. Today, though, with data centers managers know of or claim these
Flywheel Rationale
running multiple applications across mul- rebates.
tiple systems, such numbers are impracti- There are three reasons to consid- “There’s a lot of concern now
cal. The race is not to shut down the appli- er a flywheel-based UPS solution: about energy efficiency and the
cations; it’s to power up the generators. If space, long-term cost, and environ- greenness of your company,” says
the generator doesn’t start, Rackow mental concerns. Space is the sim- Forrester’s Staten. “Having lead
asserts, people who think one can be plest. Active Power’s Rackow acid or even lithium ion batteries
repaired in less than 10 or 15 minutes are draws the picture of a flywheel- exposes you to hazardous waste
deluding themselves. based UPS occupying a 4-foot disposal expenses. If you’re in
“Properly designed engine systems are square closet while an equivalent Europe, where carbon credits are a
typically running and under load in eight battery-based UPS occupies the concern and hazardous waste can
seconds,” he says. “The national electric same depth but is 20 feet long. be a rather expensive thing to deal
code for all health care facilities requires Magnified across the expanse of a with, this is far more appealing.
that their standby engines must be started in data center and its many systems, But now that there’s a lot of U.S.
under 10 seconds. Everybody’s had an that’s a lot of dead real estate devot- companies that care about energy
engine that can do that for years. If they’re ed to batteries that might otherwise efficiency, even without the car-
properly maintained, it’s not an issue. You be earning revenue. bon credits, this is a more appeal-
don’t need 15 minutes. You really don’t Long-term costs and environmen- ing technology than it’s been in
even need 15 seconds. But for some people, tal concerns can be closely tied, as the past.”
it’s a giant leap of faith to go there.” in the relationship between local Staten points out that “a fly-
“Most modern generators will ignite in resources and the cost of electricity, wheel solution is also magnitudes
five minutes or less,” adds Forrester ana- or polar opposites. As Forrester’s better toward getting LEED certi-
Flywheel UPSes are mechanical devices that store rotational energy.
lyst James Staten, who says that most Staten notes, “In a down economy, fication than battery backup.” The
implementations of new flywheels give ‘green’ goes from being environ- LEED (Leadership in Energy and
you more than five minutes. “There’s mental to being about money. We’re just for optimal performance, a much costlier Environmental Design) Green Building
much more of a connection between the not seeing people doing anything for purely proposition when battery-based UPSes are Rating System (www.usgbc.org/leed) out-
two at this point,” he continues. “You see environmental benefits. It’s all about eco- 6 to 8% less power efficient than flywheel- lines a lengthy set of standards for eco-
those kind of generators a lot in tier 4 data nomic benefits.” based UPSes, according to Active Power. friendly construction. LEED-compliant
centers, which have mission criticality Flywheel-based systems carry higher ini- Pentadyne pegs UPS battery MTBF at buildings may be more expensive to build,
and never go down.” tial price tags than their battery-based around 10,000 hours. Its flywheel devices but many states offer significant tax incen-
are rated at 875,000 hours. Containment tives for adherence; plus, there are less tan-
requirements for battery systems exist gible public perception benefits tied to
Flywheel-based systems carry higher because batteries can swell and split, being LEED-certified.
releasing toxic chemicals and gases. True enough, larger data centers will
initial price tags than their battery-based Battery states in general are difficult to recoup the added expense of buying a fly-
gauge and time-intensive to maintain, and wheel-based UPS solution more quickly
counterparts, but Active Power’s
many data centers don’t maintain batter- than an SME. But the more a data center
ies as well as they should. Poor battery planner cares about environmental con-
Gary Rackow says flywheel solutions can
maintenance can lead to literally explo- cerns and is willing to take a longer-term
sive results. In comparison, flywheel tech- view on ROI, the more flywheel technolo-
recoup their higher costs in 18 to 24 months.
nology entails nearly no maintenance time gy will become a persuasive proposition,
or expense. especially for new data center builds. P
March 27, 2009 Processor.com Page 7
Save Data Center Power
News
❙
New Google Project Is Delayed
By Updating Equipment Google has delayed plans for its Project 10-
to-the-100th. The company was expected to
launch ideas for the project this month but
claims it underestimated the time it would
take to sort through all the submissions.
According to the project’s Web site, Project
Power Costs Can Be Lessened For Tomorrow 10-to-the-100th is designed to gather ideas
Key Points
for projects that can change the world for the
By Employing Fresh Buying Strategies Today
better by helping people; the company plans
(cid:127) Think of all aspects of the data center as
to support each of the top five ideas with $10
by Elizabeth Millard a few dollars on this equipment, but it’s ripe for power-related upgrades, including million in funding. The public will vote to nar-
(cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) usually better to go for the best available UPS systems, blade server components, row the list to 20 possible ideas, from which a
OLDER EQUIPMENT CAN BE A DRAIN on power supplies, even if it bites into the bud- temperature monitors, and air conditioners. committee will select the top five.
power sources because it can lack the effi- get, says Jack Pouchet, director of energy (cid:127) Upgrade cabinets, as well as servers. ❙
Cybersquatting On The Rise
ciency of newer machines. Not only do initiatives at Emerson Network Power
(cid:127) Consider refurbished equipment for a
older systems take more electricity, but (www.emerson.com). WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organi-
green touch to the data center.
they might also need more cooling, which Look for power supply systems that zation) reported a sharp rise in the number
creates another source of power loss. It deliver about 90% efficiency, he advises, (cid:127) Virtualize before upgrading to reduce the of cybersquatting cases—reports of individ-
makes sense, then, that updating equipment rather than paying less for the systems that number of servers needed. uals or organizations registering a well-
can mean saving power in the long run. promise about 75% efficiency. That small known brand or company name as an
boost in efficiency will be important for they’re concerned about response time, he Internet domain name in order to illegally
Update Every Type Of Equipment
long-range power savings. adds, but those built-in controls are often profit—filed by trademark holders. The
Although servers tend to be a strong Also important are management systems intelligent enough at switching to keep any record 2,329 complaints mark an increase
focus for buying, power bills can often that can create more automation, Pouchet response-time issues to a minimum. of 8% year-over-year. MarkMonitor, another
be driven up by inadequate copyright protection service, also reported
Think Green
cooling measures. For exam- 440,584 instances of cybersquatting in the
When Upgrading
ple, Franklin & Marshall Col- fourth quarter of 2008, 18% more than in
lege in Lancaster, Pa., had The greening of the data 2007. Increases in cybersquatting have
in place two air conditioners center remains a hot topic; made trademark holders leery of ICANN’s
that were both 25 years old. subsequently, there are plenty (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
The amount of cooling they of manufacturers offering and Numbers’) proposed plan to open cus-
pushed out turned the data equipment that promises to tom top-level domains, allowing for domains
center so cold that it was like run at a higher level of effi- such as .coke or .google. ICANN has re-
walking into a refrigerator, ciency than in the past. cently decided to delay its plans until it
notes Josh Baron, the col- To create a greener tinge to investigates the problem further.
lege’s system administrator. a data center, talk to manufac- ❙
More Satyam Customers
The college replaced the turers about what kind of
Consider Exits
units with a single air condi- power savings could be real-
tioner that also had humidity ized by switching to their Clients of outsourcer Satyam Computer
controls, and there was an products, but also consider Services continue to leave the fraud-strick-
instant boost in efficiency. refurbished equipment for en company despite its attempts to restore
Also, because the unit could upgrade needs. Particularly
channel the air more intelli- at remote offices or with
gently, the general tempera- lower storage tiers, this type
ture of the room didn’t have to of equipment can be helpful
be so icy. (For more informa- with virtualization strategies
tion on saving power through (see the “Top Tip: Virtualize”
cooling, see “Cut HVAC Pow- sidebar for more information)
er Usage” on page XX.) and can fall in line with larger
Also ideal for updating are company goals toward greener
monitors and other controls. operations.
Data centers often rely on temperature notes. He points out that data centers are
Find Efficiency At The Cabinet Level
monitors to keep power and cooling on often sized for peak conditions but that
track, but these smaller pieces of equip- those conditions rarely exist, creating a Because so many cabinets and racks
ment can experience wear and tear just power consumption level that remains high now have cooling and power-monitoring
like servers or cooling systems. Talk to even when the server load is low. capabilities, they can be as important in
manufacturers about expected life span of “Some IT managers disable the built-in an upgrade plan as servers and other
these types of controls and make sure power management features that are part of equipment.
there’s a plan in place to revamp them
before that end date so that monitoring internal stability and bring in a strategic
“Some IT managers disable the built-in
tactics stay fresh. partner to see it through its financial crisis.
Even the individual parts of blade servers Former Satyam Chairman Ramalinga Raju
power management features that are part
can be considered for upgrades. According admitted in January to falsifying more than
to a recent whitepaper from Emerson Net- of server processors, but they may want $1 billion in assets while overstating quar-
work Power, it can boost energy efficiency terly earnings and revenue by up to 28%,
to upgrade specific components within a to reconsider that strategy.” causing a 75% drop in the company’s stock.
blade system, such as power supplies, mem- So far, more than 40 clients have left or are
ory modules, processors, and fans. planning to leave Satyam, including IBM,
- Emerson Network Power’s Jack Pouchet
State Farm Insurance, Citigroup, Merrill
Spiff Up Your UPS Systems
Lynch, GlaxoSmithKline, and Coca-Cola.
& Management Systems
server processors, but they may want to It may be worth the investment to get Nissan and Pfizer are also believed to be
With low-cost UPS options available in reconsider that strategy,” he says. The man- customized cabinets that are suited to a spe- considering other options.
the marketplace, it can be tempting to save agers often employ this tactic because cific space, says Steve Prather, senior vice ❙
Report: Printer Market Struggling
president of sales engineering and opera-
tions for ViaWest (www.viawest.net), a According to a new Gartner report, the print-
Top Tip: Virtualize
colocation and managed services provider. er, copier, and multifunction device market
He notes that some data centers are in older reported a 5.9% drop in the number of ship-
Many data centers have been finding that for more efficiency is crucial, says Larry buildings that could have limitations in ments for 2008, compared with 2.9% growth
instead of replacing servers, it makes more Owens, the college’s system manager. The terms of air exhaust and heat return areas. in 2007. Analysts also don’t expect the mar-
sense to use virtualization applications to college has been using virtualization to re- There may also be considerations in ket to recover until well into 2010. Gartner
reduce the number of servers needed. The duce server numbers and began by targeting bringing fresh air into the system or work- blames companies opting to hold off on major
strategy cuts down on purchasing, and be- larger servers. ing with existing power consumption purchases and extending the typical three-
cause there are fewer machines, there are issues. Not all the cabinetry has to be cus- year replacement cycle as key reasons for
also significant savings in power consumption. “It’s a transitional thing, to get rid of those physi- tom-built, but it could be advantageous to the continued decline. It’s not all doom and
cal servers and not use as much equipment,” work with a data center designer or archi- gloom for printers, though; Gartner reports
For instance, at Franklin & Marshall College Owens says. “The result is that we save on tect that specializes in data center projects. that shipments of color page copiers/MFPs
in Lancaster, Pa., there are two people on hardware [and] centralize storage, and there’s These experts can lend insight into what increased 13.2% in Q4, which marks the third
staff to handle about 100 servers, so the need no power waste.” needs to be upgraded, particularly with the consecutive quarter of growth.
goal of power consumption savings. P
Page 8 Processor.com March 27, 2009
Scale Back
News
Key Points
(cid:127) Reorganizing your stored data can free up
IT Spending
space or even allow you to shut off entire
A Mixed Bag For 2009 Storage Power drives or servers.
(cid:127) Hosted service providers can offset the
costs associated with increasing data
As the economy struggles to reignite the
stores by handling the power and cooling
engine of growth in 2009, those responsible
for you.
for IT budgets are planning to make some
spending adjustments in the months ahead. Shuffling Your Data Or Moving To The Cloud (cid:127) Compressing stored data can reduce the
amount of storage needed and increase
Can Help Decrease Power Consumed By Storage
London-based Datamonitor surveyed IT storage performance.
managers, CIOs, and IT decision makers
in the United States, UK, Spain, Australia,
by George Crump not there because it has to be retained or [is
France, Germany, Italy, Benelux (Belgium, Consider The Cloud
(cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) needed] to meet a legal compliance; most
THERE ARE TWO KEY POWER CONSUMERS of it is there because no one has taken Another power-saving option, albeit one
when it comes to storage: the physical the time to delete it, or it is there ‘just in that requires a small outlay in expense, is to
drives themselves and the shelves that case,’” says Tony Cerqueira, president of move your archived data to a cloud storage
they go in. According to a 2008 IDC report, Cofio Software (www.cofio.com). service. Cloud storage lets an SME lever-
the total cost to power and cool a drive is This data needs to be understood and age the Internet to transport certain types
about 48 watts per drive: 12 watts are con- managed. Data retention policies should be of data—for example, archived data—to
sumed by each hard drive, 12 watts are created and adhered to, and the stored another data center whose sole purpose is
consumed by the storage shelf to manage storage.
(HBA, fans, power supply), “By storing data with a cloud
and an additional 24 watts are storage provider, overall power
required to cool the hard drives consumptionfor data storageis
and the storage shelf. When minimized,” says Moe Ker-
you consider that most storage mani, CEO and president of
shelves hold at least 12 drives, Bycast (www.bycast.com).
it’s easy to see that SMEs must “The provider reduces power
work hard to control storage usageby consolidatingdata and
power use. optimizing its storage across
Focusing on storage power multiple customers while
efficiency is environmentally making the most power-effi-
friendly and helps you save cient choices possible for its
the Netherlands, Luxembourg), and Nor-
money, which is a key theme centralized storage system. The
dics (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway,
for every area of the data center end user reduces power con-
Sweden) to determine how IT budgets will
in today’s economic climate. sumption and capital costs by
fare in each country in the coming year.
Here are some specific steps not having to maintain or grow
About 8% of those surveyed say they plan
and inexpensive add-ons you infrastructure for storage, pow-
to significantly decrease their IT budget in
can implement in your storage er,and coolingon premise.”
2009, which is up from just 3% of those
environment to help reduce Moving to the cloud may
surveyed six months prior. The group
your power consumption. concern some customers that
planning to slightly decrease budgets also
have high-risk data governed
grew from 8% to 12% between the first Reorganize Data
by legal compliance guide-
and second half of 2008. The percentage
“The first step is to reorga- lines, but many service pro-
that plans to keep the IT budgets flat was
nize your data,” says Steve viders are able to maintain
up to 54% compared to 51% from six
Harding, director of marketing those standards. At a mini-
months ago. About 20% of the respondents
for Dallas-based Tek-Tools (www.tek- information should be managed either man- mum, cloud storage is an ideal way to store
say they plan some kind of IT spending
tools.com). “Most customers have far more ually or through software that clears off old old data that does not need to be legally
cuts, but 26% plan to spend more on IT
capacity than they actually need, and by data. “Only data that needs to be retained retained but is not ready for deletion.
(19% plan to spend slightly more; 7% sig-
creating smaller array groups that have less for a legal compliance reason or that will
nificantly more). Compress Your Storage
assigned capacity, a customer could reorga- have value in future research should be
Companies Most Impacted nize data so that [fewer] shelves of storage maintained,” says Cerqueira. “Regardless, An option that can complement or be
used in place of data reorganization is to
Daniel Okubo, technology analyst at Data-
compress active storage. “Using real-time
monitor, says, “Our most interesting finding “By creating smaller array groups that have compression appliances, storage adminis-
was that when we compared our results to a
trators can effectively cut the required stor-
recent report conducted by the IMF (Inter- less assigned capacity, a customer could
age space by at least 50%, and they can
national Monetary Fund), which forecasts
enhance their storage performance and uti-
reorganize data so that [fewer] shelves of
GDP growth, the countries they said were
lization,” says Peter Smails, vice president
going to be worst affected in 2009 were
of worldwide marketing at Storwize (www
storage would actually be needed. These
the U.S., Spain, France, the UK, Italy, Ger-
.storwize.com).
many—the major developed economies.
shelves could then be powered off until Once compressed, the data can still be
Countries in which GDP growth was still
reorganized as described above. Real-time
positive were Australia, Benelux, and Nor- such time as they are needed again.” compression is unique in that it works
dics. When we compared that survey to the
not only on passive data but on active pri-
survey we conducted of IT decision makers
mary storage data, as well. “Unlike other
- Tek-Tools’ Steve Harding
in those same countries, we found that our
data reduction technologies, real-time com-
results correlated almost exactly.”
pression addresses the problem [with] pri-
would actually be needed. These shelves all of this data needs to be migrated to a mary storage [by] creating capacity, cost,
But Okubo still sees growth potential. “Even
could then be powered off until such time secondary storage based on sound data power, and cooling benefits throughout the
in the countries [most] affected, such as
as they are needed again.” retention policies.” entire data life cycle.” says Smails. P
France, the UK, and Italy, there are still
Turning off shelves of unused storage
opportunities. . . . Vertical markets, including
can be a challenging task. Most array ven-
the media industry, energy and utilities, gov- Top Tip: Save Power By Doing Fewer Backups
dors suggest writing data across shelves for
ernment, communications, healthcare, and
additional redundancy; even when trying to
education, are all experiencing stable IT
minimize the quantity of physical drives
One of the key things administrators can do if often, and if disk is being used with tape, less
spending. Worst hit were the insurance agen-
consumed, there is still a need to have some
they have tape libraries or are doing backups disk has to be maintained and powered
cies, retail banking, financial markets, and
multishelf redundancy. Therefore, the goal
to disk is run fewer backups. Although this because most of the full backups can reside
pharmaceuticals.”
is to balance power efficiency by limiting
may sound like blasphemy, the fact is that on tape.”
the number of shelves without reducing
many IT professionals don’t take advantage
Over the next six months, Okubo expects IT
availability. Although this can be done
of what they have. “By leveraging disk or Tape can also be leveraged for data reorgani-
spending to continue to trend downward pro-
manually, storage administrators should
automation, customers should be able to do zation and compression, and unlike a disk drive,
portionally to that country’s GDP slump. “And
consider tools that allow them to better
mostly incremental backups and do [fewer] full an idle tape uses no power for maximum effi-
if you follow the consensus that the economy
understand what storage is where.
backups,” says Bob Koecheler, senior vice ciency. Koecheler suggests that the tape library
is going to get worse in 2009, then the logic
Reorganizing data to turn off storage
president of worldwide sales for Spectra Logic be able to utilize technology that will allow the
is that IT budgets are also going to be nega-
shelves is also going to require getting rid
(www.spectralogic.com). “In many environ- user to know that the integrity of the tape media
tively affected.”
of all or much of the data on disk, so know-
ments, full backups run all night, if not all is constantly monitored; that way, when a
ing what this data is and why it is still
weekend. . . . Doing fewer full backups means restore from the archive occurs, there is confi-
by Andrew Leibman
being stored is an important consideration.
that the tape drives run at full power less dence that it will work.
“Most of the data stored on disk today is
March 27, 2009 Processor.com Page 9
Desktop
News
Key Points
(cid:127) Powering off end points and peripherals
Study Shows
at the end of the day can save on
Power Savings energy costs.
Immigrants Returning
(cid:127) Centralized power management software
Home For Work
can take some of the guesswork out of
managing endpoint power consumption.
A recent study from the Ewing Marion Kauff-
(cid:127) Outfit users according to what they need,
man Foundation found that restrictions on for-
Endpoint Power Consumption
not what they want, to avoid overpowered,
eign workers may have a negative effect on
resource-hungry desktops.
Could Be Costing You A Fortune America’s rising unemployment rate.
Vivek Wadhwa, one of the study’s researchers,
by Drew Robb in the associated power and cooling over- If power management features are acti-
says, “In the past, America has been the only
(cid:127) (cid:127) (cid:127) head. Although it may not seem like much, vated on all devices, though, Gartner advis-
land of opportunity, and we’ve taken for grant-
END POINTS ARE EVERYWHERE, from desk- an organization with 1,000 desktops may es companies not to switch off or unplug ed that the most skilled, highly talented people
tops and notebooks to monitors and print- have as many as 2,000 total end points. desktops after hours because doing so may
will come here. The results show that countries
ers, and whether they’re actively used or That’s an annual savings of $48,000. mean that software updates and patches
like India and China are offering greater oppor-
not, they are sucking tons of power and “Conservatively, organizations can save can’t be performed, technicians can’t main-
tunities to immigrants.” Wadhwa goes onto say
costing organizations a fortune. The good 40% of desktop energy use or more,” says tain or repair machines remotely, and back-
that, “when immigrants went back home, they
news is there are several ways to slash the Warren Ross, global director of endpoint ups can’t be done. In organizations where
saw greater job opportunity and the study
power bill. product marketing at Capgemini (www these factors are not a concern and won’t
respondents said they were doing much better
.capgemini.com). “There is a simple step impact productivity, unplugging machines
Powering Off in their careers. They felt they were moving up
brings further power reduc-
in the company hierarchy, had a better quality
Not so long ago, a debate tions and additional cost
of life, [and were] growing faster and achieving
raged as to whether it was savings.
more success than in America.”
better to turn off equipment
Right Sizing
at night or leave it running.
Would the loss of immigrant brain power hurt
One argument was that it It’s well known that every
the United States? The study states that
might be better to leave the user wants the most pow-
immigrant-founded, U.S.-based companies
hard drives spinning than erful processor, the beefi-
employed 450,000 workers and generated
to have them started and est machine, and the most
$52 billion in revenue in 2006. Immigrants
stopped on a daily basis. RAM, but you shouldn’t
founded more than a quarter of all U.S. engi-
Fears about increased fail- give it to them unless their
neering and technology companies started
ure rates from starts and degree of productivity justi-
between 1995 and 2005, including more than
stops, however, are no long- fies it. The desktop electrici-
half in the Silicon Valley. Additionally, the
er a major issue. ty footprint can be cut down
Kauffman Foundation indicates that immi-
These days, the attention by right sizing of desktop
grant inventors contributed to more than a
has shifted to how to elimi- components. Every watt
quarter of the United States’ global patent
nate power waste from reduced at the CPU, for
applications.
those machines. Having example, saves an addition-
someone go around and turn al watt or more on the fans, Study, Then Return Home
off all desktops, printers, power supplies, power dis-
The study surveyed 1,200 Indians and Chi-
and other equipment at the tribution units, uninterrupt-
nese who worked or studied in the United
end of the workday or on ible power supplies, and
States and then returned home. About 80%
weekends can produce sig- HVAC systems.
have master’s degrees or doctorates in man-
nificant savings. If you are in the midst of
agement, technology, or science. More than
“The best way to save rolling out better processors
half of those surveyed have already or plan to
money with end points is to or a RAM upgrade to your
start their own businesses, and only 25% say
shut off the power at night, user population, for in-
they are likely to return to the United States.
during holidays, and on stance, put the project on
weekends when the equipment would oth- which can be taken that does not require temporary hold and re-evaluate the power
“It’s very likely their talents will now benefit
erwise be powered on,” says Kenneth Brill, the purchase of any hardware or soft- consequences. Take the case of memory:
the countries they return to. The U.S. govern-
executive director of the Uptime Institute. ware. SMBs can cut power consumption Adding a little more memory might equate
ment and business community must find bet-
“This can reduce consumption by 30 to 75 and save money, critical for these trying to 10 more watts. Over the life of the desk-
ter ways to offer good jobs and place less
watts per machine.” economic times, by implementing a policy top, that unneeded 10 watts has an energy
restrictive visa policies to recapture many of
Take the case of a city where electricity requiring employees to shut off and pow- cost of $28 per year, according to Brill.
the surveyed immigrants,” Wadhwa says.
costs 8 cents per kilowatt hour. That er down their computers before leaving “Depending on type, memory consumes
equates to annual energy savings per at night.” energy whether used or not,” says Brill.
machine of around $24, as well as a decline “Right sizing of desktop components is a
Centralized Power Shutdown
good way to cut energy costs.”
Depending on users to turn off their own
Top Tip: Use What
Utilization Inventory
machines usually doesn’t work. Assigning
You Already Have someone this duty is a better approach. But Another trick is to be on the alert for
the most effective way is to install comput- unused equipment. Almost every office has
er management or power management soft- desktops, printers, or other devices that are
While it’s true that you can buy power man-
ware to turn off networked devices (not just either not used at all or are used only a few
agement software that can save money in
PCs) when not in use. times a month. The best way to go about
terms of desktop consumption, you may
“Much attention on power consumption finding these unused assets is to conduct a
already have the basics for such a system in
has focused on the data center, but PC utilization inventory on end points. Go
what you already have deployed on the desk-
power consumption in an organization can from desk to desk and find out what is
top or laptop. Windows Vista, for instance,
also be significant, especially given steadi- there. The likelihood is that at least a cou-
includes power management features that
ly rising electricity prices,” says Federica ple of machines are sitting unused, gather-
provide more efficient sleep states after 60
Troni, principal analyst at Gartner. “IT ing dust.
minutes of idle time.
organizations should recognize that the “Old equipment needs to die, so it is
greatest savings come from employing smart to turn off and remove comatose
“Even if someone leaves the PC powered
power management features.” desktops,” says Brill. P
on overnight, the system will by default go Many of the returnees cite career and quality
into a sleep state after an hour to help save of life as the main reasons to return to their
power,” says Warren Ross,global director of “The best way to save money with end points country. About 87% of Chinese and 79% of
endpoint product marketing at Capgemini Indians surveyed say that the growing de-
(www.capgemini.com).“Microsoft testing has is to shut off the power at night, during mand for their particular skill set was a key
shown that the default power management factor. Family considerations are also strong
settings could save businesses up to 46% in holidays, and on weekends when the motivators: 89.4% of Indians and 79.1% of
power bills.” Chinese indicate that being close to family
equipment would otherwise be powered on. and friends made a significant impact in the
Further, the remote power-up capabilities of choice. The limited availability of H-1B visas
This can reduce consumption
some processors mean that even PCs in contributes to the reasons for immigrants
these Vista sleep modes can now be remotely returning home for work.
by 30 to 75 watts per machine.”
and securely powered up as needed for up-
dates and patching. by Nathan Lake
- Uptime Institute’s Kenneth Brill
Page 10 Processor.com March 27, 2009
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