1.
Clouds Bring Green
Cloud computing increases efficiency &
drives bottom line
Authors:
Randy Bias (VP Technology Strategy)
Steve Gibbard (Architect)
March 2009
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath

2.
Backgrounds
Randy Bias, VP Technology Strategy, GoGrid
– Specializing in IT infrastructure since 1990
– 3 ISPs, 3 Internet Datacenters, 2 MSSPs, 2 Cloud providers
– Pioneered world‟s 1st multi-platform, multi-cloud management
system (CloudScale Networks, Inc)
GoGrid
– Division of ServePath, LLC, an established hosting provider
– Pioneer in infrastructure-based Cloud Computing
– First „cloudcenter‟ type Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud in U.S.
– Public BETA of Grid March ‟08; Cloud Storage launched in Dec
– 1,000+ customers in first 3 months of operation
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath March 2009 - 2 -

3.
Today‟s Agenda
Environmental Costs
Power & Efficiency
Comparing Traditional vs. Cloud
Future Directions
Q&A
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath March 2009 - 3 -

4.
The Case for Green
Global warming
forecasts
– Global CO2 emissions
are 27B tons per year
– 3.5% increase per year
(up from .9% in 1990)
Global impacts:
– Sea levels rise 20 ft
– Coastal areas flood
– 100 million people
displaced
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath March 2009 - 4 -

5.
IT & Datacenter Environmental Impacts
Datacenters create 41M
metric tons of CO2
– 1.5% of energy in 2006
– 5.1 million US households
– 100 billion miles driven
– 60M tons in 5 years?
E-Waste is also relevant
– 70% of heavy metals in
landfills are electronics
– 80% of “recycled” waste in
US is exported
Servers grew 50% in last 5 yrs
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath March 2009 - 5 -

6.
Efficiency Matters
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath February 2009 - 6 -

7.
Green, Green, Green
Efficiency drives bottom
line
Efficiency is Green
Where can we drive
efficiency?
– Power
– Cooling (Power)
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath February 2009 - 7 -

8.
Focus on Power Efficiency
Quick Win
Many Efficiency Improvements Possible
Game changers:
– Virtualization
– Consolidation
– Cloud computing
Datacenter companies have “economies of scale”
Economies of scale include $$ and power greening
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath March 2009 - 8 -

9.
Cooling is Power
Less power == less heat
Cooling power is +40% per server
Cost of cooling is significant over the lifetime of a single server
Sonic.net‟s datacenter cooling
efficiency effects on power costs
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath February 2009 - 9 -

10.
Drilling Down on Datacenter Power
Servers are Power Pigs
– Average server is 225W
– Lifetime cost of power is four times
CapEx
– Server energy consumption
growing 9% annually
– Server growth of 50% between
2005 and 2010
Servers are horribly inefficient
– Average utilization estimated at 6%
– 30% of powered servers not in use
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath March 2009 - 10 -

11.
Traditional vs. Cloud
SP runs 265W per server
GG runs 340W per node (17W per cloud server)
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath March 2009 - 11 -

12.
Power Distribution
RAM central to biz model
Virtualization maximizes
power efficiency
GG node power cost
distributed across virtual
servers
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath March 2009 - 12 -

13.
Cloud Efficiency
Overall GoGrid utilization is
very high
– RAM > 75%
– CPU < 20%
– DISK > 50%
Elastic usage means unused
servers are off by default
– A physical server in motion CPU DISK RAM
generally stays in motion GoGrid Utilization Rates
# of virtual > # of physical in
1/10th space

14.
Future Directions
Evaluating additional efficiency measures
– Power efficient cloud chassis & Energy Star servers
– Alternative power sources
– Air-side economizer (60-70% cooling savings)
– Air-flow management
Looking into additional recycling options
– ServePath programs to increase lifecycle of older equipment
Excess cloud capacity to non-profits:
– www.wastenothing.org
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath February 2009 - 14 -

15.
Q&A
EMAIL randyb@gogrid.com
GOGRID INFO http://www.gogrid.com
BLOG http://neotactics.com/blog
WORK BLOG http://blog.gogrid.com
TWITTER http://twitter.com/randybias
GOGRID PROMO CODE GGRB ($100 credit)
© 2009 GoGrid / ServePath February 2009 - 15 -