Sustainable Architecture Design

Kevin Francis

Object Consulting

What this is all about ...

Agenda

The case for Sustainable Architecture Design Finding improvements through design Finding improvements through development Finding improvements through architecture The virtualisation maturity model Conclusion

Where does the carbon come from?

Carbon Emissions

EnergyOther

Who’s bad?

% of Carbon Emmissions

Growth0

1

2

3

4

5

6

Airline Industry

IT Industry

Airline IndustryIT Industry

Life cycle emissions of a computer

Facts

Power costs for each server are now greater than the cost of the server – Google.

Running a computer is worth 4x the CO2 emissions of building it, each year.

Building a computer is 10x less effective on CO2 emissions than white goods.

The wake-up call

So where are we now?

Architecture is directly related to power consumption

This stuff matters now and will matter more and more

Applications have never been designed efficiently until now

It isn’t that hard – we just haven’t thought about it before

Design

Finding improvements through design

Inefficient processes Wasted travel:

• Reduce deliveries and flights• Enable telecommuting• An exponential effect...

Wasted paperwork Unnecessary filing Build the total cost of operations into the business

case Design systems to remove inefficiencies

Development

Don’t stop sleep mode. Restore gracefully from sleep mode. Don’t hog the network, disk or processor – allow for

graceful power-down Even support wake-up on interrupt

Principle: Support power saving mode:

Support the OS and hardware

Data matters too

Disks need power Online data needs disks

Principle: Store as little data as possible. Principle: Include data archiving in application

design.

Code efficiency matters

CPU cycles = power Use multi-threading! Applications need to play together nicely The Windows 7 example!

Principle: Design, develop, and test to maximize the efficiency of code

Architecture

The Virtualisation Maturity Model

Let’s be friends

The power realities of CPU usage and hardware

Step 1: Consolidate applications by function Step 2: Consolidate applications by server Step 3: Consolidate shared services

Enterprise Architecture does save money! Component reuse does have a real purpose after

all.

Level 1 - Principles

Principle: Develop a plan to rationalize your applications and platform portfolio first.

Principle: Consolidate applications together onto a minimum number of servers.

The Case for Virtualisation

Virtualisation can save hardware on paper. In real life it is more complicated...

Perform consolidation first! Carefully design the virtual environment. Move consolidated machines to virtual servers. Group applications by:

• Usage• Availability by time• Availability by business need

Level 2: Principles

Principle: Consolidate before virtualisation. Principle: Virtualise for efficiency, not for the sake of

it.

The Brighter Shade of Green: The Cloud

Clouds come in many flavours:• Software as a Service (SaaS)• Software + Services (S+S)• Cloud Platforms

Clouds come in shades of green:• Virtualised platforms (Amazon)• Cloud Platforms (Azure and Google)

Making sure your Cloud has a Green Lining

Things to look for:• Compute platforms are better than virtualised• Match need to platform: architecture• Select vendor by green credentials: data centre

location, power sources The rest of the model still applies to Cloud What isn’t Green:

• “Private Clouds”• Local Hosting

Level 3: Principles

Principle: Use SaaS for commodity services Principle: Re-use S+S Services where possible Principle: Don’t virtualise new applications Principle: Pragmatically move applications to the

Cloud Principle: Choose cloud vendors by green

credentials

The Virtualisation Maturity Model

Q & (hopefully) A

Object Consulting operates a Sustainability Practices with solutions including Sustainable Architecture Design

www.objectconsulting.com.au

Kevin Francis

kevin.francis@objectconsulting.com.au

http://msmvps.org/blogs/architecture