indumathi lnu university at albany - nysforum.org it_project.pdf · green it projects • it...

Green IT Project: The Business CaseIndumathi LnuUniversity at Albany

DATE

We will discuss

• Identifying green IT projects

• Funding green IT projects

• Building the business case

• Case study: University at Albany’s storage consolidation project

Green IT Projects

• IT equipment and facilities related projects that reduce energy usage and costs

• Focus on the big ticket items

• Don’t ignore the low hanging stuff

% Energy Usage

Partial List of Green Projects: Servers

• Servers

• Follow the standards- 80Plus, Standard Performance Evaluation Corp. (SPEC)’s performance-per-watt benchmark, LBNL+EPA specifications, Energy Star labeled servers

• Not all these standards are in place yet

• ENERGY STAR servers 30% more energy efficient than standard servers


• Server and Storage:

• Consolidation and Virtualization

• Eliminate physical servers

• Increase utilization of servers and remove idle/dead and underutilized servers

• Savings: About $1200/server/year

• Thin Client:

• Shift all processing to servers for maximum server utilization

• Only user interface, some heavily used applications and networked operating system on the client

• Savings: $10 to 25/device + lower cost of terminal device


• Enable Power Management:

• Not many reliable tools; AMD has good power management capability

• Advanced Configuration and Power Interface developed by HP, Intel and Microsoft may cause problems on Linux servers

• Potential for 20% reduction in energy usage

Partial List of Green Projects: Power Supply

• High Efficiency Power Supply:

• Consider power supply efficiency vs. server load profile when selecting power supply

• Right-size power supplies

• Power supply must deliver 80% efficiency across a range of low load levels

• Consider power supplies that are Gold certified by 80Plus.org

• Certified power supplies are at least 33% more energy efficient than standard power supplies

• Install Power Distribution Units as close to the rack as possible to limit conductor run

Partial List of Green Projects: HVAC

• Efficient HVAC System:

• Life Cycle Cost analysis on new data center or upgrades

• Modular chillers or chillers with VSD compressors with high part load efficiencies

• Chilled and condenser water reset strategies

• Low pressure drop diffusers and filters

• Increase supply air temperature as feasible to provide adequate cooling

• Variable Frequency Drives for AHU, cooling tower and other HVAC fans and chilled and hot water pumps

• Premium efficiency fan and pump motors


• Water or Airside Economizer:

• Integrate economizer with mechanical cooling

• Air economizer vs. filtration issues: Could use indirect but requires space

• Water side economizer required a water-cooled system

• Design economizer for medium temperature air and install controls to avoid unnecessary humidity loads

• Economizers can reduce cooling usage by 20% in NY climate


• Mechanical Airflow Management:

• Eliminate mixing and re-circulating hot equipment exhaust air:

• Hot aisle/cold aisle isolation, rigid enclosures, blanking unused racks, racks with good internal airflow

• Maximize return air temperature by supplying air directly to the loads

• Provide adequately sized return and supply ducts/ plenums

• CFD software for efficient airflow and cooling design

Partial List of Green Projects: Lighting

• Efficient Lighting and Controls:

• High performance T8 or T5 fixtures, maybe even LED

• Occupancy based lighting controls

• Reduce lighting load as well as load on air-conditioning

• Ensure heat load from lighting is effectively removed

• Savings: 30-50% of lighting loads

Partial List of Green Projects: Other

• Energy Management System:

• Consider real-time energy and demand monitoring for various data center systems including IT loads, cooling system, HVAC fans and pumps, and power supplies

• Provide trending capabilities that allow analysis of data for decision-making

• Provide controls for temperature and humidity, fully integrated economizer cycle, and part load operation of cooling and fan systems

• Retro- and Re-Commissioning:

• Develop schedules and process for re-commissioning including schedules for recalibrating control sensors

Identifying Green IT Projects

• Two Approaches

• One: Conduct a preliminary audit and develop master plan

• Flex tech services from NYSERDA or NGRID

• Two: Upgrade to energy efficient measures when purchasing/replacing equipment

• Typical IT refresh cycle: 5 years?

• Only look at incremental costs

• Easier to develop business case

• Drawback: may not be comprehensive but could be if guided by master plan/audit

Funding Green IT Projects

• Internal sources

• Capital funds

• Operating funds (utility budget)

• ITS and/or Facilities Department

• External grants

• NYSERDA

• NGRID

• Private sponsors: manufacturers, vendors, etc.

• Federal grants

Business Case: TCO

• Total cost of ownership:

• Half is capital expenses; other half is operating expenses

• Annual energy savings: utility cost savings

• Operation and maintenance savings

• Reliability

• Service contracts

• Staff proficiency and productivity gain

• System performance improvement and end user satisfaction

• Physical space savings

• Current and future capital cost avoidance

Business Case: Getting Started

• Define problem

• Define technical and performance goals for the project

• Research solutions

• Prepare a comparative matrix using the goals document

• Provide metrics for each solution : PUE, Watts/usable terabytes, annual cost savings, % energy reduction, etc.

• Highlight advantages of proposed solution

Business Case : The Metrics

• Gather data

• Initial cost of proposed project and alternatives: equipment, labor, internal staff time

• Avoided capital cost (current and future) : life expectancy of existing equipment vs. proposed

• Metered energy data

• Current and proposed staff time (hours and $$) : may not result in cost savings but increased efficiency

• Current and proposed service contract $$

• Current and proposed space requirement

• Other quantitative data

• Other qualitative data

• Available grants and incentives

Business Case : The Analysis

• Analysis

• Vendor: beware of exaggerated savings

• ITS staff: may need assistance from other departments such as facilities, energy office

• Consultant: could be partially funded by grants/incentives

• Use simple payback for simpler projects

• Use cash flow analysis or life cycle cost analysis for more complex projects

• Include all recurring annual cost savings

• Clearly state assumptions

• Prepare an executive summary as well as detailed report

• Present to senior management and/or grant sources

Case Study: UA Storage Consolidation

• Problem Identification

• Distributed approach to data storage

• (16) fiber attached storage systems

• 60% of systems >4 years old : nearing end of useful life

• Limited growth capacity

• Underutilized

• Inability to achieve site redundancy

• High overhead costs: different interfaces each with periodic updates and maintenance, staff proficiency

• Storage not adequate to meet needs of server virtualization

UA Storage Consolidation: Opportunity

• Need to add storage capacity to meet campus needs

• Traditional approach

• Add two more storage devices to existing (16)

• Keep existing problems and add to it

• Lowest first cost

• No staff re-training


• Virtualize existing storage systems using appliance-based abstraction layer

• Examples include the IBM SVC and the NetApp V3140

• Allowed for data replication via SAN fabric

• Thirteen of the sixteen existing storage systems were not integrated in the SAN: migration a project in itself

• Old storage systems would still remain

• Still need to purchase (2) new storage systems

• Total (18) storage systems plus redundant storage virtualizationappliances = twenty-two systems

• Management, maintenance costs, power, cooling and rack space issues would only be exacerbated


• Storage Consolidation : Preferred Solution

• NetApp FAS3160 storage solution: met our technical and performance goals

• Unified storage architecture

• Consolidate (12) storage systems in the primary data center intoone new system and (4) storage systems currently in the alternate data center into an identical new system

• De-commission (16) storage systems

• Higher first cost

• Staff need to be re-trained

Storage Consolidation: Benefits

• Consolidation of # of systems

• Replaced many relatively low density disk drives with higher density disk drives

• Same usable disk space with less disk drives

• Allow staff to develop proficiency in one system

• Occupy less space : we have a cubicle for a data center

• Future Growth Accommodation

• Accommodate disk space requirements served by (16) systems : 80% of usable disk space

• Can accommodate 1-2 years of future storage growth needs


• Site Redundancy

• Positions UAlbany to continue with server, application and data redundancy projects

• Continue server virtualization projects to take advantage of storage and site replication

• Failover strategy with little or no data loss with a recovery time within one to two hours for the server virtualization environment


• Lower Total Cost of Ownership

• 17 kW or 68% reduction in average power demand; 75% reduction in watts per usable terabytes

• 152,137 kilowatt-hours savings per year or 8% savings in data center energy usage

• $15,822 in annual utility cost savings

• 234,260 lbs of CO2 emissions reduction

• Better centralization and automation of storage administration and support �better storage per administrator ratios



• 43% savings in rack U’s required for storage (54 rack-U instead of 95)

• Upwards of 80% capacity utilization (compared to 25-30%) and 99.995% availability

• 30% increase in disk capacity by increasing disk space from 55.3 to 72 Terabytes

• Ability to more proactively manage storage needs

• Capacity to address data redundancy and disaster recovery

• A foundation for the concurrent Server Virtualization project



• Eliminate $63,675 per year in maintenance contracts; 3-year maintenance included in the new hardware purchase

• Avoided current capital cost to purchase (2) systems: $300,000 (Not to mention 7kW increase in power and more space requirement)

• Restart the replacement cycle with new hardware

• Avoided future capital cost to replace the (16) systems over the next 4 years: $844,300

Storage Consolidation: Project Economics

• Project economics without NYSERDA grant

• Typical IT refresh cycle: 4-5 years

• Maintenance cost avoidance is only for 3 years

• Not an impressive business case

Energy Cost Savings ($/Yr) $15,822

Maintenance Cost Avoidance ($/Yr) $63,674

Total Annual Cost Savings ($/Yr) $79,496

Total Project Cost ($) $638,679

Current Capital Cost Avoidance ($) $300,000

Future Capital Cost Avoidance ($) $844,300

Current Incremental Project Cost ($) $338,679

Simple Payback (Yr) 4.3

Storage Consolidation: Project Economics

• Project economics with NYSERDA grant

• Had no problems selling this project to senior management

Energy Cost Savings ($/Yr) $15,822

Maintenance Cost Avoidance ($/Yr) $63,674

Total Annual Cost Savings ($/Yr) $79,496

Total Project Cost ($) $638,679

Current Capital Cost Avoidance ($) $300,000

Future Capital Cost Avoidance ($) $844,300

Current Incremental Project Cost ($) $338,679

NYSERDA Incentives $200,000

Final Net Incremental Cost to UAlbany $138,679

Simple Payback (Yr) 1.8

Storage Consolidation: Current Status

• Project is 100% complete

• New high capacity storage system in primary data center

• Redundant storage system with equal capacity in secondary data center

• (16) old storage systems decommissioned

• Visitors welcome

Questions?

University at Albany contacts

Indumathi Lnu

Energy Officer

518-442-3183

Brian Heaton

Associate Director, Systems Management and Operations

518-442-3842

Nancy Beck

Data Center Manager

518-591-8627

THANK YOU

indumathi lnu university at albany - nysforum.org it_project.pdf · green it projects • it...

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