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The greening of VOIP: IP-telephony creates new power management challenges. Conservation efforts could add green to your TCO.

Article Excerpt
Did you know that more than 1.5 percent of the electrical power consumed in the U.S. is for datacenter operation? This figure is expected to rise to 3 percent by 2010, according to an EPA report released last August. The report does not include the power consumed in the telecom and LAN closets. When the closets are added to the bill, the power consumption by IT technology probably exceeds 2 percent of the energy consumed in the U.S.

According to a Nemertes Research report, power and power scalability are the primary challenge for 63 percent of enterprises. How much of the power bill at your organization is for IT?

Business Journal reports that Network Appliance considered locating a 2,200-server cabinet site in Research Triangle Park, NC. One of the considerations was the energy bill for this location. After analysis, it was determined that the annual energy bill would be about $12 million. If the same site were located in Washington or other northwestern states, the energy bill would be $6 to $8 million per year (see www.bizjournals.com/triangle/stories/2007/04/30/story1.htm).

Power costs are a major factor in companies' location decisions. Energy rates in New York City are about 15 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with 21 cents in Tokyo and 23 cents in London. APC-MGE has found that a 1-megawatt datacenter takes 177 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, worth about $17 million over its 10-year life (at 10 cents per kwh). Gartner predicts that "by 2009, energy costs will emerge as the second-highest operating cost of a datacenter, behind labor."

The growth of VOIP and the deployment of IP phones are increasing the power and air conditioning requirements in the datacenter, LAN and telecom closets. The selection of server blades, storage units, core and edge switches, UPS backup, what form of PoE delivery is installed and the power requirements of IP phones will all contribute to the energy bill.

The EPA has also concluded that 10 percent of U.S. datacenter and server energy usage can be attributed to the federal government (see www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=prod_develpopment.server_efficicney_study). The agency also stated that existing technologies and strategies could reduce typical server energy use by 25 percent, and advancing technologies promise even greater reduction.

Given these levels of energy consumption, enterprises need new strategies for saving on power. This article will examine a number of individual energy conservation solutions applicable to the datacenter, closets and the desktop.

Location, Location, Location

Rates vary substantially across the U.S. The closer your datacenter is to inexpensive power sources, the better. For example, Google is moving its datacenters to the Columbia River area to reduce the company's energy costs. Some states are providing utilities with financial incentives to conserve power.

The Department of Energy displays the most recent electrical utility rates by state at http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/state/. Table 1 provides some average rates in cents per kilowatt hour for different states as of July 2007. Although the term rates is used in the table, the numbers are actually average cost of usage; an enterprise could have charges as high as the commercial or as low as the industrial charges. The enterprise should investigate the costs they are actually incurring.

Table 1 illustrates the major cost differences based on location. Rates...