Project ‘Big Green’ will be big brother to energy efficiency in IT
IBM has announced plans to redistribute $1 billion per annum across its businesses, mobilising the company's resources in a dramatic attempt to increase the level of energy efficiency in IT.
The plan includes new products and services for IBM and its clients to sharply reduce data centre energy consumption, transforming the world's business and public technology infrastructures into "green" data centres.
The savings are substantial -- for an average 25,000 square foot data centre, clients should be able to achieve 42 percent energy savings. Based on the energy mix in the US, this savings equates to 7,439 tons of carbon emissions saved per year. Called "Project Big Green," IBM's initiative targets corporate data centres where energy constraints and costs can limit their ability to grow. The initiative includes a new global "green team" of more than 850 energy efficiency architects from across IBM. Today, according to analyst firm IDC, roughly 50 cents is spent on energy for every dollar of computer hardware. This is expected to increase by 54 percent to 71 cents over the next four years. [1]
"The data centre energy crisis is inhibiting our clients' business growth as they seek to access computing power," said Mike Daniels, senior vice president, IBM Global Technology Services. "Many data centres have now reached full capacity, limiting a firm's ability to grow and make necessary capital investments. Today we are providing clients the IBM action plan to make their data centres fully utilised and energy efficient."
IBM's commercial technology infrastructure has more than eight million square feet of data centres in six continents. By using the same energy efficiency initiatives IBM expects to double the computing capacity of its data centres within the next three years without increasing power consumption or its carbon footprint [2].
Compared to doubling the size of its data centres by building out new space, IBM expects this will help save more than five billion kilowatt hours of energy per year.
IBM's ‘Project Big Green' will leverage energy-smart technology innovations to outline a five-step approach for clients that is designed to dramatically improve energy efficiency:
DIAGNOSE: Evaluate existing facilities -- energy assessment, virtual 3-D power management and thermal analytics
BUILD: Plan, build or update an energy efficient data centre
VIRTUALIZE: Virtualize IT infrastructures and special purpose processors
MANAGE: Seize control with power management software
COOL: Exploit liquid cooling solutions -- inside and out of the data centre
" IBM will assist clients to navigate this new era of energy efficient computing," said Bill Zeitler, senior vice president, IBM Systems and Technology Group. "Relief from the energy crisis can't be achieved through incremental improvements. Bold ideas and actionable plans are needed to deal with this issue."
1 [1] Source: IDC, Worldwide Server Power and Cooling Expense 2006–2010 Forecast, Doc #203598, September 20062 [2] Based on greenhouse gas production, the size of a carbon footprint is determined by the amount of carbon dioxide that comes from human activities.3 [3] Source: IDC, Worldwide Server Power and Cooling Expense 2006–2010 Forecast, Doc #203598, September 2006
