Recently in Green IT Category

Ran across an article extolling the Greenly virtues of Dell, Inc. (via Greenbiz.com), talking about their reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, cutting its packaging, and increasing the number of Energy Star certified computer systems.  Go Dell!

Of keen interest to me, though, is that Dell has managed to recover approximately 67,500 tons of e-waste worldwide.  That seems like a lot, but how do they do that?

Turns out they've got a bunch of different programs to reclaim e-waste, including donations, recycling, and trade-in programs. Strictly in the consumer products space, so all those aging Enterprise-y iSCSI arrays that we've got are, yet again, up to us to responsibly recycle.

Good job, Dell.  I'm impressed with your efforts, and that's saying a lot coming from me!

Well, really it's not recycling, but it's re-using, which is another one of the "Big-Three" pillars of the sustainability model.

Over the weekend, Ted and I were doing a late-summer cleanup of our cluttered garage, and I came across a few boxes of DVDs, copies of which we both had so one copy (most likely the least pristine one) ended up in this box in the garage.

I have been trading in my old video-games with Amazon.com trade-in for several months, and remembered recently that they started accepting used movies (DVD, HDDVD, and BluRay) for Gift Card bucks.  Uber-convenience factor: Amazon will give you a pre-paid shipping label to ship it to them.  My last shipment was dropped off on Monday, and I got the credit today (Wednesday).  Awesome.

And then, come to find out, there's an online service that will do just about the same thing for your gently used, previously enjoyed, still-working gadgets!  I ran across this article on Greenbiz.com about a company in Boston, started by an entrepreneur and Ebay Exec pair, give you cash for your electronic clunkers (thanks to the author for that fabulous line).

"Our vision is nothing short of redefining consumption, changing the way people buy, sell and recycle electronics," Ganot, who is president and CEO of Gazelle, told me recently by phone. "We own too many products that we don't use. We always buy the latest and greatest. They end up tucked away in your attic. Some get thrown in the garbage. Or recycled improperly."

Brilliant, folks.  Do you have a few gadget that are gathering dust that could use a second or third life in the developing world or in the hands of an erstwhile young person just getting started in their college lives?  For those of you who are somewhat gadget obsessed, take heed!

A year ago, roughly, we had a major SAN outage; half of all the LUNs on our primary Fiber Channel SAN went belly-up, and  services were down for approximately 36 hours.  That event started us down a long path to a different storage vendor and technology.   

Today, me and some die-hard SAN geeks, met and said goodbye to  the disk subsystem we've affectionately known as TUPPERWARE (in all-caps, 'cause that's how we identify systems, ya dig?).  And yes, at one point we had a ZIPLOC, a HEFTY, and a RUBBERMAID. And PYREX is still humming along in the new DataCenter.

Yes, we had a TUPPERWARE Party. Check below for the festivities!  First up, the storage scene before and after. Our power and cooling requirements just got a heckuva lot lighter in that DataCenter!  Woohoo!

UPDATE: I accidentally deleted my blog directory on GUTENBERG and had to re-create this post.  Sorry for the redundancy!  I'm furiously adding the Backup Client to the server now!

More photos after the break.

Most modern computers with a wired network adapter in them can accept a Wake-on-LAN signal which will  power up the computer if it is off, asleep, or hibernated.  It's a combination of the NIC's MAC address (which is a low-level hardware address, which is unique across all network adapters out there), and some other voodoo, combined into an Ethernet frame commonly known as a "Magic Packet".

I thought, hey, this would be a great thing to help you shave off even more of the electricity footprint of your always-on computers.  I know a lot of us might like to keep our desktops powered on, just in case we need access to them remotely.

So how about this?

• You put your computer to sleep when you leave for the day. Sleep modes routinely use <10W of power relative to the 100+W when it's fully powered on. 
• Go to a site like www.remotewakeup.com, enter your IP address and MAC Address, send the Magic Packet to your computer to take it out of sleep mode (or power it on).
• Do the work you needed to do remotely
• Put the computer back to sleep

Say your computer used 100W when fully on and 10W when asleep.  If your computer is on 24x7, that's 16.8kWh per week.  If your computer is only on during business hours and asleep the rest of the time, that's 5.7kWh per week, a savings of 66%!  If you shut your computer off at night, you can bump that savings up to 75%.

Congratulations; you just saved the planet.

Will you try to configure Wake-On-LAN and invoke the Magic Packet?  Hit the comments with your experience!

I cannot even relate the amount of excitement I've been feeling over the last 4 months, ever since I first heard about the new Dell M1000e chassis at a Dell Executive Briefing back in January.  We were finally able to procure one, and in less than two weeks (really, the same lead time as ordering a PowerEdge server), a big box of sublime Dell goodness arrived at the Huntsman Hall loading dock this afternoon.

First, and we knew this was coming, the Dell chassis shipped in one box.  Think about that.  We ordered sixteen blades, which makes for a fully populated chassis.  Sixteen servers with 16 cores and 32GB of RAM apiece.  Shipped.  In one box.  That just blows IBM out of the water (and really all of Dell's other server equipment, too, if you think about it).  Good job, Dell, on keeping the delivery "debris" to an absolute minimum.

We received the box 2pm, and by 4pm, it was racked and cabled for power.  All we have to do is figure out the networking configuration, and we're off to the races!

Well, obviously there was more to it.  A fully-populated chassis apparently weighs 400 pounds (look at the yellow warning sticker pic after the break).  We had to gingerly remove all of the blades, power supplies, and fans, which probably brought it closer to 70 or 80 pounds, which is perfect for your average IT team to lift and rack into place.  Thoughtfully, Dell included a few sheets of bubble wrap to lay the sensitive blade equipment upon while moving the chassis into place.

I was pretty familiar with the product, but there was one thing that caught me by surprise.  There's a pull-out-drop-down LCD panel with a little thumb-pad that allows you to browse the various components of the chassis and do some basic configuration and monitoring.  Total hotness.

We've got some reading to do, but by my estimation, we are 12 network connections away from being fully up and operational.  Well, that and actually installing OSes on the blades, but that's cake.

Many many more pictures of our Unboxing Ritual after the break.

Here are some simple steps and things to keep in mind when configuring new hardware.  Hopefully this will help people make some more sustainable choices! 

Consolidate or Virtualize First. Nearly every server that I've managed over the past 10 years has suffered from being over spec'ed, using perhaps 5-10% of the available CPU, and 20-30% of the available RAM.  With such low utilization percentages across the board, it makes sense to consolidate many of these low-user services to our VMware environment.  Run physical servers and host 6 or 10 virtual servers!

Go Small. Or Go Blade. Only if virtualization isn't a good fit (and I can only think of one or two exceptions to this).  If it's smaller, it uses less physical material!  Kind of a "duh" statement, but smaller generally also means it took less energy to transport and to manufacture, and will likely consume less electricity upon deployments.  This is where blade-servers find their sweet spot.  Extremely dense/small footprint, no extraneous cables, no power supplies, no fans.  You factor out all the commonalities into an extremely efficient chassis, with an extremely efficient power supply and you've got a great leg up.  On the workstation side, this is the argument for using a laptop instead of a desktop.

Get an efficient CPU. I've talked about this before (finding a green CPU), but because the CPU is typically the most power-hungry component in the PC architecture, be very careful to specify the lowest-power processor you can.  You see this a lot in server hardware space (mostly because the HVAC and electrical power envelopes in DataCenter are being sliced extremely thin), but you can also do this for desktops and laptops.  Look for "low-voltage" or "high-efficiency" in the product names, and stay away from "extreme" or "high-end" processors.  Those are the SUVs of the CPU product lines.  You can find the current power specs on Intel's and AMD's websites.

Don't buy something new.  This is not to say buy a used server or workstation.  If the computer you have is still humming along, and you're experiencing low utilization percentages and the hardware is still reliable, instead of buying something new, just extend the warranty another year.  The most sustainable product is, after all, the product you never have to buy or throw away.

Reuse something you've got.  A corollary to that last one is to reuse equipment.  A perfect example is a "hand-me-down".  Your test environment is getting old and slow.  Rather than replacing it with brand new equipment, hand-me-down the old production environment from another department, or use virtualization to consolidate.

Don't forget the End of Life.  I make sure to ask all vendors about this process.  They manufactured the server you just bought.  Do they have a plan in place for responsibly recycling the equipment when it is beyond its usable life or broken?  Don't throw it into the landfill!

Tell vendors you want sustainable products and solutions. This seems to be a problem for everyone, so ask your vendors what products they have that are geared towards Green.  You may have to "dumb-down" by mentioning power and/or cooling problems in our DataCenter to steer the conversation in the right direction.

Every little bit counts, so use one or more of the methods or concepts above for a more sustainable experience.  Many of them can also be applied to many other products, services, we use and consume day to day, technology-related or otherwise!

Do you have any other tips and tricks for configuring or conceptualizing a more sustainable computer?  If you've got any questions, fire 'way in the comments or drop me a line.

Many of us in Wharton Computing were hauling cartloads of old (and potentially busted) equipment, everything from CRT monitors and keyboards, to UPSs and old 1U pizza-box servers, as part of an equipment "recycling" effort.

It got me thinking about our technology purchases and how things have changed, and wanted to just put some ideas "out there".

Buy small.  Buy only what you need.  Buy a ultra-small form-factor desktop computer, instead of a full-blown mini-tower that you'll never upgrade.  Buy a laptop instead of that SFF desktop!  Buy a Blade server instead of a 2U or 1U server.  Virtualize your new server, instead of buying a new one!

Bug your vendors (Dell?  IBM?  Lenovo?  Microsoft?), and insist they think about the materials footprint of everything they sell.  Ask them about what they are doing about the end-of-life of their products, basically, how are they cleaning up after themselves.

For me, I'll continue to use a laptop as my primary computer.  I'll use the two Dell monitors sitting on my desk until they are completely unusable.  I'll recycle as much as possible, and drive others to do the same.

We filled a 15-foot truck with all kinds of equipment that we are hoping will be reused or recycled.  Let's make it a point that the next time we have an equipment recycling day, they can send a 15-foot truck, and it'll leave half-empty.

What can we do between now and then to make sure that happens?  Hit the comments with your ideas!

*** Special thanks to Sharon S. for working to put this all together, and to all of you out there who hauled, dragged, and yes, literally dropped (off) all this equipment.

Ages ago, I threw down a challenge of sorts, asking people to measure their desktop setup's energy footprint using a handy dandy Kill-A-Watt (external link) monitor.

Bev C. set the bar extremely high...(or low in this case), reporting a 65W total utilization for her setup:

I like to visit Dell's website and "thumb" through their online catalog of desktops, laptops, and servers, because, well, it's FUN!  ****

But also because it helps me stay on-top of what the "state-of-the-art" is for those products, and maintain that operational vocabulary of various vendors' product roadmaps.

Yesterday, I was configuring a new Dell M600 series Blade, their 10G blades that I mentioned  in a previous post, and I came across a dizzying list of processor choices:

• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® E5405, 2x6MB Cache, 2.0GHz, 1333MHz FSB
• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® E5410, 2x6MB Cache, 2.33GHz, 1333MHz FSB
• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® E5420, 2x6MB Cache, 2.5GHz, 1333MHz FSB
• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® E5430, 2x6MB Cache, 2.66GHz, 1333MHz FSB
• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® E5440, 2x6MB Cache, 2.83GHz, 1333MHz FSB
• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® E5450, 2x6MB Cache, 3.0GHz, 1333MHz FSB
• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® X5460, 2x6MB Cache, 3.16GHz, 1333MHz FSB
• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® E5310, 2x4MB Cache, 1.6GHz, 1066MHz FSB
• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® L5335, 2x4MB Cache, 2.0GHz, 1333MHz FSB
• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® E5345, 2x4MB Cache, 2.33GHz, 1333MHz FSB
• Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 5130; 4MB Cache, 2.0GHz, 1333MHZ FSB
• Dual Core Intel® Xeon® 5148LV, 4MB Cache, 2.33GHz, 1333MHz FSB

Arguably, the CPU has the largest power footprint of any other component in a server.  When your power envelope is as emaciated as it has to be in an ultra-dense blade-chassis, then every last watt has to be accounted for.  And, generally speaking, heat-output is directly proportional to power-draw, you have to take into consideration the cooling of those hot components (and not new hotness, either).

Can you make the informed decision on which processor above has the smallest power-draw?  Does X mean "extreme", a qualifier that Intel is fond of for their desktop processor line?  Does L mean "low-voltage"?  But then what about "LV"?

How about from this list of AMD processors available in the M605 blade?

• Dual Core AMD Opteron™ 2214HE, 2.2GHz, 2X1MB Cache,1Ghz HyperTransport
• Dual Core AMD Opteron™ 2216, 2.4GHz, 2X1MB Cache, 1Ghz HyperTransport
• Dual Core AMD Opteron™ 2218, 2.6GHz, 2X1MB Cache, 1Ghz HyperTransport
• Dual Core AMD Opteron™ 2218HE, 2.6GHz, 2X1MB Cache,1Ghz HyperTransport
• Dual Core AMD Opteron™ 2222; 3.0GHz,2X1MB Cache,1Ghz HyperTransport

A shorter list (AMD's latest server-class processors haven't hit the mainstream yet), but certainly no less difficult to decipher.  Is "HE", high-efficiency?

I had to dig into Intel's and AMD's web\sites to find out for myself.  I was right that "X" does mean eXtremely high power-draw; 120W for the X5460.  And HE probably means "high-efficiency", since the 2218HE only consumes 65W. 

The winner in my book?  Intel's L5335, an awesome 2.33GHz with quad-cores, and only 50W!

Dell? If you're listening out there, put a Watt-rating next to each processor choice, gosh darnit!  I shouldn't have to go to the processor manufacturer's website to figure out the power draw per socket.

Intel? AMD?  Sell your Greenliness!  Just call it the Greeneon and get that over with.

**** I'm not ashamed to admit it.  Dell's 10G Blade chassis makes my heart flutter whenever I see it.  It is beautiful and angular!  It is the new hotness!