14 DAY TRIAL // The green trend that extended through the entire world did not jump over the computer industry and concerns about power consumption and energy efficiency were felt primary by the processor and mobile computer manufacturers. While the processors are coming with all kinds of technologies to make them run in a more energy efficient manner, laptop and notebook manufacturers are devising new ways of increasing battery life while using RoHS materials.
One major point for the "green" movement is that compliant hardware costs less to operate and for a data center that runs hundreds of machines on a 24/7 basis, this could mean the saving of quite a few dollars on the electricity bill. Even if this may sound a little out of place, Christian Belady, a HP engineer and inventor thinks that energy efficiency embedded in the hardware components is not really the answer. It is in fact part of the problem.
According to him, data centers' energy bills increase for the simple fact that computing power becomes cheaper, so people are cramming more and more servers and systems into spaces that were not designed for a such high number of computers. "People think by heading towards efficiency you are actually going to reduce cost," Christian Belady said and he was cited by the news site Theregister. "But if the cost goes down, demand goes up. If gas went down to 20 cents a gallon, I guarantee you I would take my house off the power grid and run on gas. I am fully supportive of going green, but I caution people to what the end result is".
During the years when server acquisition costs were very high, infrastructure and energy costs were by an order of magnitude lower, but now the situation comes around and the electricity bills are threatening to become the next big item that limits the data centers' growth. While the price of the hardware components remained stable (worst case scenario) or dropped by small increments (the every day trend), the expenses related to energy and cooling solutions rose in leaps.
The solution is once more standardization and consolidation of the data centers' infrastructure. Christian Belady thinks that guidelines should be developed to allow all hardware manufacturers in the server market to build systems based on a common architecture that would reduce cooling and accommodation costs. "When I bought my HD TV, I didn't have to rip out my infrastructure to add it in. That's where the data center needs to be", he said.