Green Information Technology Strategic Plan - Departmental ...

CO2 in tons
8.5 Data Center Consolidation
The Midwest data center, National Information Technology
Center (NITC), has an average PUE ratio of 1.69. The EPA
has recommended to Congress that all Federal data centers
achieve a PUE ratio of 1.7 by 2011. Judging by the estimates
that many data centers have a PUE above 3.0, we can assume
that the rest of the USDA has a PUE ratio of around 5.0.
Through these PUE ratios, it can be determined that USDA
data centers will have consumed 340,096,830 KWh in 2008
for all IT equipment power and cooling needs.
This energy consumption translates to about 224,464 tons
of carbon emissions for 2008 and could increase to be
approximately 293,357 tons of carbon emissions for 2009.
EPA calculations show that energy consumption of servers
and associated data center infrastructure has doubled in the
past five years and is expected to almost double again in the
next five years. If nothing is done to slow this growth, then
the USDA could be held accountable for 488,928 tons of
carbon emissions from data center operations alone (Fig. 12).
fig. 12
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
0
Projected Growth in Data Center CO 2 Emissions Before Consolidation Plan
Supporting Environmentally Responsible Technology at USDA
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
Year
A problematic area, but also an opportunity in waiting is
that USDA servers are computing at an estimated average
of 15% of their capacity during a 24-hour period. This is
due to the need for excess space for peak processing times,
the variation in processing times across applications, and
overestimates for workload and space. These issues cause
servers to be idle for much of their IT lifespan. When a server
is not processing information, it is still using electricity for
power and cooling. If server utilization rates were improved
and power management technology and techniques were
employed to scale down power when servers are not in use,
USDA would make significant improvements for decreasing
power consumption and CO 2 emissions.
Carbon Reduction Plan
Advances in IT allow an organization to reduce equipment
through consolidation. There are three phases of
consolidation that the USDA must complete in order to
reduce equipment, increase energy efficiency, and reduce
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