Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

EPA Reaches Goal On Data Center Study

Posted by CmdrTaco on Tue Jul 01, 2008 10:12 PM
from the no-plans-to-talk-about-yet-anyway dept.
Government IT News
1sockchuck writes "After initially struggling in its effort to find data center operators willing to share data about their energy usage, the EPA extended the program by a month and has managed to recruit 215 facilities to participate in its program to help the government develop an Energy Star program for data centers. An EPA official says there are no plans to regulate the data center industry."
+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] Hardware: US Data Centers Wary of Sharing Energy Data With Feds 101 comments
1sockchuck writes "The EPA has been seeking at least 100 data center operators willing to share data about their energy usage to help the government develop an Energy Star program for data centers. Thus far, only 54 data centers have signed up, which suggests that few data center operators are eager to tell the government exactly how much energy they are using. The EPA issued a report to Congress last year on data center power usage, and is already developing an Energy Star program to rate servers. Can a program designed to rank the energy efficiency of appliances and computer monitors be a useful tool in addressing the enormous energy consumption of data centers?"
Submission: Update: EPA Reaches Goal on Data Center Study by 1sockchuck (826398)
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

EPA Reaches Goal On Data Center Study 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • no plans to regulate the data center industry... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2008, @10:17PM (#24025667)

    ...yet.

    • From my (very limited) understanding, the DEA are loath to do anything until congress/whatever forces them to grudgingly do something.

      Anyone motivated enough to get the DEA to do anything will be keen to do some regulating. Getting the DEA to do an investigation is just a formality.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by srjh (1316705)
        DEA?

        From my (also very limited) understanding of the DEA, they don't have a lot to do with energy usage and emissions controls.
      • Then we can have War On Data Centers.

        Yeah, sorry I meant EPA but for all the good they do they might as well send in the DEA to to the investigations.

      • Hopefully the Drug Enforcement Agency would not be proactive about data center energy consumption. While energy usage is out of their jurisdiction, I can see how it is addictive... always having to plug in just one more server, or had more hard drives to reach maximum capacity.

      • Maybe in the future the other DEA will be the Data Enforcement Administration and BURN data centers to the ground which commit, or allow people to commit DATA-CRIME.


        Oh, remember the days when the DEA used to put out fires.

    • ...yet.

      My thoughts exactly.

  • "No plans"? Not quite. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Aussenseiter (1241842) on Tuesday July 01 2008, @10:17PM (#24025671)

    "I am not aware of any one planning any regulation of the data center industry," said Fanara. "There may be climate legislation at some point, but that's a broader issue."

    Which is political shorthand for "you can bet your ass we'll be pushing for restrictions on data center power usage once the numbers come in".

    • If I was from Control, your data centers would already be throttled
      If you were from Control, your data centers would already be throttled
      Neither of our data centers are throttled, so obviously I'm not from Control.

    • Re:"No plans"? Not quite. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jhw539 (982431) on Tuesday July 01 2008, @10:51PM (#24025915)
      The government, with access to regulated utility records, knows exactly how much power a datacenter is using. And the energy star program applied for years to other commercial buildings has resulted in no federal mandates. You're basically pushing a line of FUD for... well no one benefits really. Hopefully you at least get a good Funny mod rating for your efforts to stunt the development of useful data to help the industry.

      • Without regard to the sort of content being dealt whith, it's completely irrational to apply any sort of standards to data-center power consumption. A data-center that simply regurgitates static continent is going to have significantly different power requirements than a site that is actively dealing with processing and transcoding user-generated content. Compare Youtube to a high-volume brochure-ware site for an extreme example.

        The best the EPA could produce, without creating an unnecessary burden on hos

        • The Energy Star program needs to establish a program for computer power supplies hands-down, and regulate it. That is the only way to make things work, and it isn't that hard.

          As for Energy Star buildings (and speaking as an Energy Star Partner on that one), there might not be direct regulation by the EPA from that, but it did help the push for state energy efficiency codes.

          The problem with making emergy efficiency benchmarks for Data Centers is that it is very difficult to provide prescriptive guidelines a

    • Don't get too jumpy. Obviously a slow steam of volunteers means there's a massive self presentation bias. I don't think offering a card and cookie boquet for any participants (or whatever pathetic compensation/reward they offer) is enough to draw in a truly random sample. If a data center is horribly ineffecient, would they ever volunteer to be inspected? UM NO! But if one was relatively efficient compared to others, they'd be more likely to volunteer. So overally it's going to look like data centers

      • Which will skew the numbers and when they do setup the EnergyStar program and make the equipment you do use seem like your datacenter is not only destroying the environment, contribute to AWG and that you club baby seals to death for fun and profit.

    • No more than the aluminum ore refining industry.

    • Which is political shorthand for "you can bet your ass we'll be pushing for restrictions on data center power usage once the numbers come in".

      I'm confused. Which faction within the federal government do you think will be pushing for restrictions on data center power consumption... Big Oil, or the coal industry?

  • It's just 1.21GW (Score:5, Funny)

    by lazyDog86 (1191443) on Tuesday July 01 2008, @10:25PM (#24025735)
    I for one seriously doubt that my flux-capacitor centric data center design will be receiving its Energy Star certification any time soon.

  • if the EPA is not addressing more pressing concerns why are they looking at data centers? I don't mean to be rude or obtuse, but if the EPA is only focused on items that have been industry concerns for over a year, perhaps they are better off just being quiet. This is the first step that would be needed for regulation, and followed shortly after by monitoring... WTF? The government won't as a whole admit to global warming, nor to anything like it... why ... oh WHY would the EPA start getting involved... IN

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      The EPA like any government bureaucracy has several components, many of which don't necessarily fall into the realm of highly monitored policy. The Energy Star program has existed since 1992 and pretty much operates under the radar. The fact that the EPA runs the Energy Star program that certifies various components and processes for energy efficiency doesn't mean that there is a coordinated government policy at the EPA to monitor and regulate these components and processes. It is just a small office tha

  • Re: no plans... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by udin (30514) on Tuesday July 01 2008, @10:30PM (#24025767)
    I share your natural skepticism of public officials' pronouncements, but there is another factor: it is in the data centers' own best interest to analyze their energy use, since it's their biggest cost by far. Since there's a relatively rapid turnover in gear (compared to, say, power plants), the data centers are going to be very interested in energy use best practices and best gear even without a government mandate. And so are the manufacturers of said gear--they also have a fairly short product cycle. They might be a little cranky if the government pushes them, but their customers are already pushing them by looking at instructions/watt as well as instructions/second.

    • Re: no plans... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by zappepcs (820751) on Tuesday July 01 2008, @10:32PM (#24025795) Journal

      This is one of those areas that the government does NOT need to meddle. Price and market will fix it. period. go. ahead. argue. now.

      • Re: no plans... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by jhw539 (982431) on Tuesday July 01 2008, @10:56PM (#24025957)
        The government acting as a neutral party to collect useful data is hardly meddling. Next you'll decide to rant about them meddling in pharmaceuticals by funding cancer research. The facts of the matter are that datacenter energy use is very poorly understood by owners and considered a negligible cost of the business. When benchmarked, datacenter efficiency has been found [lbl.gov] to vary by over a factor of two between facilities. Owners don't really know what is efficient - high bills are just part of the business, and competitors aren't willing to share good data on the subject. Hence the need for the government to provide some benchmarks, similar to the flawed, but better than nothing, mpg ratings for cars.

        • The government acting as a neutral party to collect useful data is hardly meddling.

          Why is the government wasting our money collecting data? If somebody finds it useful, let them collect the data themselves. Having a Rolls Royce would be useful, but that doesn't mean the government should buy me one.

          The facts of the matter are that datacenter energy use is very poorly understood by owners and considered a negligible cost of the business.

          The only thing the "owners" need to know is that using less energ

          • All investments in energy efficiency have to have a measurable payback. A more efficient chiller system will cost about 50% more than the most basic system, and pay back over 5-6 years.

            But, that basic system can be re-started in under 3 minutes while the advanced system requires 15 minutes. The basic system can be repaired by anybody, but the advanced system requires a specialized technician.

            Suddenly, in order to meet reliability objectives, the data center operator must buy both systems, at a 150% premiu

            • And the taxes data centers pay MORE than covers the cost (and those taxes will NOT be coming in if they all move to India, a real risk as bandwidth becomes far cheaper than labor).

              Well then, maybe the government should raise their taxes even higher. Just think of all the studies they could fund! I'm sure that won't drive any data centers to India.

              Well, they are, but only after marketing, maintenance contracting, staffing, connectivity contracts, capacity contracts, generator testing, airflow balance fo

                • I'm sorry, but you still haven't shown any proof that this study needed to be done by the government. You can try to change the subject all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that any competitive data center would be aiming for higher efficiency because it directly lowers their costs and allows them to offer lower prices than their competitors.

                  Besides that, if the government isn't going to pass legislation based on the study results, why even bother? It's blatantly obvious that higher efficienc

                    • Data center operators do not know what an efficient system is, just as you probably do not know how your house's energy use compares to similar houses in your climate (unless you utilized the government's "useless" Energy Star database that has led to no regulation).

                      But to money on energy I don't need to know how similar houses compare to mine. Neither do data center operators. It's useless trivia, at best.

                      You express scorn for publicly funded research (what this entire thread is about) and call it wor

        • > Next you'll decide to rant about them meddling in pharmaceuticals by
          > funding cancer research.

          What does subsidizing a positive externality have to do with legislating a negative externality. They are not only completely different things, but the exact opposite approach (market vs. legislative) to government.

          Where is meta-moderating when you need it...

          > The facts of the matter are that datacenter energy use is very poorly
          > understood by owners and considered a negligible cost of the business

          Wha

      • Energy Star isn't the government meddling, it's a strictly voluntary program to get a certified power usage metric on a standardized test. In fact I'm surprised someone like UL didn't come out with something like it before the government did, I guess it just goes to show how cheap energy was!
      • You do realize that the government has had regulations for the energy use in refrigerators for some 25 years now. They've been lowering the ceiling on electricity usage and efficiency of refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines, and air conditioners, and forcing manufacturers to state, on a big yellow tag, how much electricity their appliance uses. Creating the Energy Star program provided a means for companies to differentiate their products in a positive way, by being able to brag their products use
    • You're a little optimistic about data center's approach to their own best interest. There has been quite a bit of work done in the area of data center best practices [lbl.gov] and not a heck of a lot of interest. For example, hot aisle / cold aisle is still honestly debated and considered a 'new' idea in many legacy data centers. Power is still quite cheap and very low on the site totem pole below connectivity and reliability.

  • Of course, no one was willing... (Score:5, Funny)

    by hawkeye_82 (845771) on Tuesday July 01 2008, @10:35PM (#24025811) Journal

    After initially struggling in its effort to find data center operators willing to share data about their energy usage

    Well duh!! None of the data center operators opened their email.

    • If data-center power consumption is that much of a problem then they could install mandatory sysadmin-powered treadmills, killing two birds with one stone: the fat bastards could run all the lard off their asses while lowering operating costs and saving the environment. Don't laugh, many gyms already do it [cherryflava.com].
  • Excuse me. We're from the government. May we come in and measure your energy usage? We have no intention of actually using any information we learn.

    Who was dumb enough to let them in?????

    • Re:no plans to regulate the industry (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jhw539 (982431) on Tuesday July 01 2008, @11:02PM (#24026009)
      Question: How has the government used the enormous database of commercial building power usage, which is still larger in aggregate than data centers? Other than providing a useful tool [energystar.gov] for setting design goals, what nefarious federal regulations have been spawned by this evil data collection, analysis, and presentation?
          • Reagan was a damn actor.

            I thought he was a thespian. And not all that great of one. What made him a damn actor? Are you showing some bias issues here? And the rest of them are politicians. And many politicians are lawyers. Pretty easy choice of which to believe there.

          • So you want to jump on my EZ-bake over quip (intended for what I though was obvious exateration, didn't Ralph Nader and his lot tell us that our kids couldn't have them long ago anyway?), but choose to ignore the bigger issue of mercury contamination in our homes and landfills, why? And the added costs to consumers (if alternatives were really cheaper the free market would take care of itself)? And the issues of the daylight saving time energy debacle?
  • yeah right. they are just collecting all this data for shits and giggles.
  • An EPA official says there are no plans to regulate the data center industry."

    right.. They need the data first. Then they will start making the regulation plans.

  • TerraPass sells carbon offsets for personal and business use. If you look at TerraPass for Business [terrapass.com], you'll see they estimate something for servers in a data center. I have heard that the number includes an average power draw for the electronics, plus cooling, security, networking, and related materials -- somewhere over 500 watts.

    We're considering TerraPass, though we haven't come to any conclusions yet.

  • Wouldn't it be nice if your rack had 1 big power supply with standardized plugs, that every vendor's kit would plug into, instead of individual power supplies (and tiny screeching fans) for every box in the rack?

    Since the industry has completely failed on this front, maybe it's time for an "EnergyStar Rack Certification" with compliance specs and a cute logo.

    I'm no AC engineer, but maybe it makes sense to have 1 big fan at the top and a standardized duct fitting on every racked unit, helping to pull hot air

      • Even a half-assed spec would be miles ahead of today's mess. If anyone comes out with a rational, well-thought out spec that isn't welded to a particular vendor, the market will be all over it like rabid piranhas.

  • Nowhere in the US Constitution is the federal government authorized to regulate the environment. The EPA should be abolished.

  • It's not in the best interest of the government to limit the ability of data centers to collect private data about American citizens.

    There, I said it. ...

    "Knock. Knock Neo ..."

    • office != data center. They're not talking about a couple server racks in a closet. They're talking about dedicated supermarket sized server facilities.

      Most DOE/DoD labs will have a high-performance computing cluster / supercomputer. That = data center.

      Most data centers have had overall efficiency as a secondary metric. Now people are starting to realize how large a portion of their overall hosting costs are related to inefficient hosting.

      The idea is to make it easy for dumb consumers. An energy

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.