A colleague pointed me to an article that talks about how much power data centers are consuming. The number is staggering.
"The electricity used by servers in the U.S. -- including servers, cooling, and auxiliary equipment -- was approximately 45 billion kWh, resulting in total utility bills amounting to $2.7 billion in 2005"
"The study goes to project that, based on current trends, worldwide server consumption from 2005 to 2010 would require an additional capacity equal to more than 10 additional 1000 MW power plants."
And at the end the author suggested "Don't forget to turn off the lights when you leave the office at the end of the day." Although it is a big challenge to solve the overall power consumption issue, there are relatively simple steps we can take that have potentially big payoff. It's the same simple idea this Citrix PowerSmart Project is based on.
Here is the link to the article.
Good observation. I think the Uptime Institute forecast that data center power consumption is doubling ever 5 years, and by 2009, the 3-year cost of power will equal the capital cost of the server itself. Companies like HP and IBM are instituting power monitoring, power capping and clocking control to reduce power in their blades. And companies like Cassatt are going a step beyond Citrix by implementing policy-based controls to sense idle servers and shut-down the SW/HW until needed. again.
~ Ken