Virtualization and Green Scorecards

Virtualization is probably the most common approach to achieving energy efficiency in data centers. Through virtualization software and techniques, each server can host multiple operating systems and applications so that, for example, servers that have been running at 10 percent of their total capacity can take on more load and run at 60 percent or more of capacity. VMWare, Xen and Virtual Iron are the primary providers in the space, but new open source providers are rapidly gaining traction.

Credit Suisse has made energy conservation in its data centers a priority in the past six to nine months, aggressively moving to server virtualization and green scorecards for the IT department. "We view electricity as a resource that needs to be managed, like money," says Steve Hilton, managing director and head of enterprise servers and storage. "There's a limited amount of money; there's a limited amount of compute power; there's also a limited amount of kilowatts, and we need to be extremely conscious of managing that to meet service goals and environmental goals."

Credit Suisse uses VMWare virtualization software and the zones in Sun's Solaris server that are virtual-like. The firm also is testing Sun's newer, more-flexible hypervisor containers. Also in the labs are Xen and open-source virtualization software. Hilton says the firm is seeing an average 15-to-1 compression ratio from virtualization -- in other words, one server can do the work that used to be done by 15. As a result, Credit Suisse has gotten rid of hundreds of servers. Of course, they can't just throw servers in the trash -- the firm gives the old servers back to the manufacturers, which recycle or resell them. "Virtualization is a big enabler of power-efficient data centers," Hilton says.

Like Rubinow at the NYSE, Hilton appreciates that the server manufacturers have gotten better at energy efficiency. "A lot of it's driven by the chip manufacturers -- AMD, Intel and Sun -- which all have in the past six to 12 months released architectures that are a lot cooler," Hilton says. "Instead of the chip manufacturers being obsessed with clock speed and getting transactions from A to B quicker and quicker, which absorbs a lot of power, they took a step back a few years ago and redesigned many of their chip architectures to run slower and cooler, but with higher throughput."

Hilton also credits server vendors such as IBM, HP and Sun with developing better cooling mechanisms within their server chassis. "We throw virtualization on top of those servers and we're creating very green, economic and energy-efficient compute farms that we're then internally selling to our internal application development clients to buy capacity, not boxes, from us," he explains. Credit Suisse also is talking to Sun about its water-cooled BlackBox container full of water-cooled servers -- the firm may use the box for disaster recovery or for extremely high computing needs, such as Monte Carlo calculations, according to Hilton.

The green scorecards Credit Suisse recently introduced provide data center and business metrics on green computing. IT managers are evaluated on their ability to reduce power consumption, and each data center has a specific energy reduction target. "It's proven to be a powerful tool to help people understand the value they add by changing their compute requirements," Hilton says. "People in charge of data centers can understand the positive impact they can have on the environment."

Like any scorecard, the green scorecard creates peer pressure, Hilton notes. "The other way to look at it is data centers are limited resources," he says. "We want people to understand that energy is a constrained resource and needs to be managed accordingly. Where 10 to 15 years ago you wouldn't think or worry about the power draw of the server you're plugging in, now it's really important."

Moving to Greener Pastures

One solution to metropolitan energy issues is to move data centers to areas of the country where energy is cheaper and more plentiful -- namely the Midwest, the West and even the Carolinas. While the cost of power hovers around 12 cents per kilowatt per minute in New York City, it's as low as two cents per kilowatt per minute in Washington State and other less-populated parts of the country. Even in New Jersey, energy is about 25 percent less expensive than in New York City.

Google and Microsoft have been high-profile pioneers of this movement, but Wall Street may not be far behind. "We're seeing Wall Street firms move some of their data center processing capability into New Jersey where energy is much cheaper," says Donna Rubin, senior director of worldwide financial services partner and industry marketing at Sun Microsystems. Nobody is moving their trade processing away from Wall Street because of latency concerns, she notes, but mortgage processing and other functions are shifting out of town.

HSBC, for instance, is building a data center near a hydropower plant in upstate New York that runs off of Niagara Falls. And Credit Suisse has placed some of its eight enterprise scale data centers in areas where electricity is cheaper (though it won't specify where). "As you move out of the large metro areas into other states, you see a significant power arbitrage," Credit Suisse's Hilton says.

"We're seeing a lot more high-density applications get shipped out to places like Oregon and Washington State, where you can have cheaper power because they have either wind or hydropower," says Tesh Durvasula, COO and EVP of NYC-Connect, a collocation facility in New York.

Another way to deal with these issues is collocation -- in other words, move your servers into someone else's facility and make the energy issues their problem (although most likely you'll still pay your share of the energy bill). Not only are Wall Street firms moving servers onto the stock exchange floors, some are taking advantage of collocation facilities such as NYC-Connect's 50,000 square-foot space. To save on its energy bill, NYC-Connect recently brought in consulting firm Milford, N.H.-based Degree Controls, which, through data center configuration and air flow changes, brought about a 12 percent to 14 percent reduction of NYC-Connect's power bill, according to Durvasula.