IT Solutions Blog | Trigon Technology

Going Green/Getting Green with Virtualization

Dozens of different aspects of our society are changing in order to support this new "going-green" initiative.  In spirit of these endeavors we, as IT professionals, can find ways to support this cause by utilizing Microsoft's virtualization technologies.  The best part too is "Going Green" can also lead to "Getting Green."

I'm going to throw out a few numbers here just too quickly put some things into perspective.  In a case-study conducted by Microsoft in regards to hardware consolidation, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center was able to save more $325,000 annually.  How did they do it?  Well, they were able to harness the power of server virtualization and reduce their total server count from 400 down to 100.  That's a huge drop when you think about how much power is consumed by running an additional 300 servers, not to mention a large reduction in cooling requirements.  In the same light, HotSchedules, an online restaurant workforce management solution, was able to reduce its power costs for $11,000 a month to $2,500 a month.  Again, the answer was server virtualization.  From a business standpoint, those cost reductions seem very appealing, but beyond the money factor, conscious dollar saving business decisions can also help the environment.

Did you know that Windows Server 2008 uses 10% less energy than Server 2003?  In addition, an average server only utilizes 8-15% of its processing power.  Coupled with virtualization we can maximize the energy efficiency of servers and really help out the going green cause.  Microsoft also provides tools to allow a business owner to see the realistic ROI before the wheels even get turning.  http://www.Hyper-Green.com  can help your organization compute its carbon dioxide and other types of energy savings by assessing your current situation against various, practical configuration changes.

Here is a quick chart showing the average savings in power consumption and costs of 10 standalone IIS servers against one Hyper-V server.

Server Setup	Average Watts	KWh/year	Cost	KG of CO2
Standalone IIS x 10	5001	43839	$4007	34084
One Hyper-V server with 10 IIS 7 VMs	512	4490	$410	3491
Savings	4,489	39,349	$3,597	30,593

 

Obviously, those are huge reductions and the benefits for both you and the environment are pretty clear.  Remember, "Going Green" doesn't just have to be about protecting the environment and being more energy efficient.  With Microsoft's various virtualization technologies, we can also dub it "Getting Green" because some will definitely end up back in our pockets.  And money is always the number one motivator, so why not kill two birds with one stone?

A couple tips on going green

• 1) Enable Windows power management: This will cause at least a 30% energy reduction.
• 2) Deploy Windows server 2008: 10% energy savings on same the workload
• 3) Virtualization: Average CPU < 15% utilization
• 4) Look at energy bills: Less than 20% of IT professionals are accountable for, or even know, their energy consumption
• 5) Do a thermal scan of data centers
• 6) Start today

IT Going “Green” VS. Computer Maintenance

IT Going "Green" VS. Computer Maintenance

"Going Green" has been the buzzword for quite some time now.  We are even seeing an emergence of companies in the marketplace whose sole purpose is to help a business with the "Going Green" process.  Rightfully so, the big corporations have also jumped into the game and offering their own lines of services and products that are more eco-friendly.  Whether its MAC with their all "Green" laptop made from all recycled and bio-degradable parts or IBM with their blade servers and the memorable commercials of the office executives dancing around the cartoon tree with cartoon animals to the song from "The Wizard of Oz"... 

Well, unfortunately it costs more money to go green initially; just as if you want to eat healthier or go organic you are guaranteed to spend more money.  The challenge from an IT perspective is when it comes to computer workstation, laptop and server maintenance and the available window to do so.  So, do you turn your computers off at night or leave them on?  From a "Green" perspective the obvious answer is "Turn them off", but from maintenance perspective "Leave them ON!"  So let's do some quick math for what it costs for a single workstation to be powered on 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  To make it easy we will say that an average office PC consumes 100 watts of power per hour which translates to 2.4 kilowatt hours.  An average cost for PECO is about $.11 per kilowatt hour.  Ok, so its $.26 per day per PC. Doesn't sound like much but when times that by 365 it comes to $96.36.  Keep in mind that for demonstration purposes we are talking about a PC only using 100 watts an hour, which in reality is quite low and more likely double that so now we are at $192.72 per PC per year, $16.06 per month (Assuming that the rate stays the same too) So you can see very quickly where this is going and how the costs can add up.  The trade off here is that by leaving your PCs on they are able to get their updates, security patches and any other maintenance that needs to be performed off hours so it has as little as an impact as possible on critical business hours of operation.  But let's take a look at the costs one more time.  I have created a table below based off of this calculation to demonstrate: 

(1 PC 200 watts per hour x 24 hours x 365 days)

1 PC (200 WPH)	5 PC's	10 PC's	25 PC's	100 PC's
$.52 per day	$2.60 per day	$5.20 per day	$13.00 per day	$52.00 per day
$16.06 per month	$80.30 per month	$160.60 per month	$401.50 per month	$1606.00 per month
$192.72 per year	$963.60 per year	$1927.20 per year	$4818.00 per year	$19272.00 per year

In an article published on NetworkComputing.com in 2004 according to Gartner the cost of an unmanaged XP workstation over 3 years is $5309.00 VS. a managed workstation which is $3335.00.  A managed workstation is a workstation that is maintained and monitored by an enterprise application which is something that most Managed Service Providers use, whereas an unmanaged workstation is one that is not monitored and maintained by a central application.  So for further demonstration purposes let's break down the costs:

1 PC Managed, (Over 3 years) = $3335.00 1 PC Unmanaged (Over 3 years) $5309.00

PCM = PC Managed, PCUM = PC Unmanaged

1 PCM vs.       1 PCUM	5 PCM vs.       5 PCUM	10 PCM vs.   10 PCUM	25 PCM vs.   25 PCUM	100 PCM vs. 100 PCUM
$.26 vs. $.40 per day	$1.30 vs. $2.00 per day	$2.60 vs. $4.00 per day	$6.50 vs. $10.00 per day	$26.00 vs.$40.00 per day
$92.64 vs. $147.47 per month	$463.20 vs. $737.35 per month	$926.40 vs. $1474.70 per month	$2316.00 vs. $3686.75 per month	$9264.00 vs. $14747.00 per month
$1111.67 vs. $1769.74 per year	$5558.35 vs. $8848.20 per year	$11116.70 vs. $17696.40 per year	$27791.75 vs. $44241.00 per year	$111167.00 vs. $176964.00 per year

The table above should make it painfully clear how the costs of unmanaged PCs can stack up.  So, if we cut our energy costs by two days a week (shutting PCs down at the end of day Friday) $11.26 per PC a month (5 day x 24 hrs) you can manage to save $4.80 per month per PC; at 100 PCs that is $480.00 a month!  But, with that said even if you continue to leave your PCs on 24 x 7 the total cost of energy + the average cost for a managed PC is almost $40.00 less a month per PC vs. just the average cost of an unmanaged PC alone!  So, in the end there are ways to cut energy costs, but make sure its not at the expense of being able to manage and maintain your PCs because very quickly the costs of an unmanaged PCs can add up!  I recommend consulting with your IT department or managed services provider to perform an evaluation of your energy costs and managed PC vs. unmanaged PC costs to see where you can economize and save money.