My initial thoughts were about the virtues of the main pc chip
architectures AMD Opteron vs Intel Core Duo vs PowerPC. PowerPC is no
longer available as a low cost architecture unless you plan to run
your server on a game console, an interesting prospect but unlikely
to be a mainstream one.
It may seem like a minor point: Opterons tend to chew fewer amps when
idle. So architecture makes a difference. Blade servers seem to offer
some space and energy savings by consolidating multiple computers
(logic board/CPU/disk/RAM) to one chassis, power supply etc.
Surprisingly, if you review your server (system) logs most of you
will find CPU usage is low or near idle for most of the time. Just
look at top on a UNIX machine, 2%, 5% etc are common figures for
overall CPU usage on "busy servers".
Arguably, we've all been conned into believing a hot rod is essential
for that trip to Tescos.
So, what's the answer? Solar powered Linux servers run on 200MHz ARM
chips? Not necessarily. I think sharing resources is a good option.
Some museums have started to use external services for their web 2.0
components. This may may just be a way to push their carbon shadow
elsewhere (though that elsewhere may have a more efficient way of
doing things, or not).
Virtualisation is another way to do this within your server room.
Most of you may have heard of Virtual PC, Xen and other ways of
emulating a PC on a PC. If you plan to run five distinct services,
say mail, image, web, e-commerce and rich media, you could put each
on its own server, or virtualise each and put the whole lot on one or
more servers as demand dictates.
I have seen this in a museum context (with six distinct public web
services each on their own IP address) and looking at the CPU usage,
the machine was humming along at between 60 and 80%. Even with a hot-
spare machine running in parallel, quite a lot of juice, not to
mention hosting cost was saved.
Virtualised machines are also quite portable making the transition to
new hardware or full-machine backup relatively easy. Thus far we've
used Virtual PC and Fedora FC6 (with xen virtualisation) quite
successfully.
Remember also that every watt saved on the server saves probably (I'm
guessing here) 2-3 watts in HVAC cooling expenses.
--
- Ray
Ray Shah - think design, inc.
museum education retail web open source
[log in to unmask] tel: 212.922.0952 x 212
http://www.thinkdesign.com mobile: 917.476.0952
On Feb 14, 2007, at 9:42 AM, Kate Fernie wrote:
> We hear that we can help to save the planet by making small
> changes. So
> if there are energy saving options that individually we can adopt then
> let's hear them!
>
> Kate
> ___________________________________________________
> Kate Fernie
> ICT Adviser (EU Projects)
> Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Peter Davies
> Sent: 14 February 2007 13:43
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: A greener internet?
>
> I think the more people look into the 'green' issue of computers
> and the
> internet the more they will unearth, and so the more questions it will
> raise. For example, we all hear (a lot actually) about the green cost
> of leaving a TV on standby - well the same must be true of a home
> computer monitor, how 'green' is it to leave your laptop on charge
> every
> night, what is the 'green' cost of computer parts and spares made in
> lesser developed countries where a factory (not as green as our
> own) has
> replaced a local woodland, how 'green' is the large booklet, extra USB
> cable (never used) and mass amount of packaging supplied with your
> digital camera / software or similar?
>
> These are the simple questions that eventually get asked, let alone
> the
> 'green' cost of the server farms, the cost of staff getting to and
> from
> these farms, and the food and consumables they use.
>
> Is the Internet 'greener' than a physical visit - Yes, in my
> opinion the
> Internet is green. Is the whole ICT process and structure 'greener'
> than a physical visit - in my opinion, No.
>
> At the end of the day I can make a decision to walk to my local
> museum,
> eat an apple from a local market and buy a postcard on recycled paper
> (whether from the museum or not), but I can't control how I browse
> sites
> from server farm to server farm, I can't say I want that software, but
> please don't send me another USB cable or I'll scream!, and I can't
> everyone who visits a certain site turn off their PC monitor, or
> unplug
> their laptop charger all the time!
>
> No doubt there are many more opinions to come on this, but as more
> come
> the discussion will get deeper and wider, until the debate is, in
> itself, unsustainable!
>
> Peter
>
>
> Peter Davies
> Outreach Officer (City Museums)
> tel: 01227 475 203
> email: [log in to unmask]
> website: www.favourite-things.org.uk
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Paul Baker
> Sent: 14 February 2007 13:10
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: A greener internet?
>
> One thought on this :
>
> I'm guessing here, but I suspect that the total energy used by a
> hundred
> people paying one visit to a museum is orders of magnitude higher than
> the total energy required to support the infrastructure for the same
> hundred to access the collections online for a year.
>
> Example : I'm an instrument maker. If I can get detailed plans and
> photographs of the Queen Mary Harp online, I don't need to visit
> Edinburgh.
> That saves the carbon emissions and energy from a five-hour car trip,
> which I reckon would power my share of the museum's server for quite
> some time.
>
> I'm sure energy savings could be made within the infrastructure,
> but the
> real savings would come about by proving a comprehensive virtual
> experience and discouraging people from physically visiting. Whether
> that's a good idea, or whether it would work, is another question.
>
> Paul Baker
> Renaissance Musician, Instrument Maker,
> Computer Maestro and lots of other things.
> Diabolus in Musica and Midlands Early Music Forum [log in to unmask]
> www.diabolus.org
>
> P.S. Query - if I can get my harp information cheaply by post, how
> does
> that affect the energy equation?
>
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