Tech Refresh - New IT Equipment Pays for Itself

They’re usually directed at home owners—all those commercials for some product that will pay itself in just a few years. Those new windows will pay for themselves with reduced heating costs. That new washing machine will pay for itself by lowering your water bill. So will that new toilet. I’ve taken the bait. Not long ago, I replaced a very old furnace (seriously—it was the original furnace in a Victorian house, right out of a Stephen King novel), even though it ran perfectly well. Now we’re paying more for heating oil than ever—a lot more, actually. I know, I know, oil costs a lot more than it did. Still, I’d hoped to at least break even. Really, I’ve never noticed my energy bills do anything but go up, regardless of new appliances.

All that being said, I couldn’t be more in favor of purchasing new computer equipment to offset energy costs. Tech refresh. It’s no new idea. Most organizations have begun replacing older, energy-draining computers with more efficient models. But if your data center is like most, it probably still houses a few older machines for a variety of reasons. Maybe it’s the cost of new hardware. Maybe it’s the headache of migrating applications. Maybe you feel like you just bought new equipment. The longer you own a system, the better your return on investment, right?

Not really. From an energy perspective, the development of computer equipment has grown exponentially in recent years. Even a three-year-old server is somewhat obsolete—at least in terms of efficiency. If you haven’t bought new hardware in a few years, you might be surprised at how smart and flexible these machines have become in terms of energy management and distribution.

You also might be surprised at how much you are spending to keep an older server powered on. Running a server can cost anywhere from a few hundred bucks a year to four or five thousand dollars a year. Crazy, huh?

So, the money you save in power may well pay for your equipment purchases. There, I said it. Energy is so ridiculously expensive. Meanwhile, computers have gotten cheap. Remember when servers cost $200,000? Now they’re $2,000.

And, keep in mind how much technology has improved. Servers are faster, more reliable, and more functional than ever. They’re workhorses. You can play the energy savings card to get better machines into your data center.

Remember that equipment has a life expectancy. The older the equipment is, the higher its failure rate.  The more likely it is to fail, the less reliable it is. As a result, your data center is at risk at any point.  New equipment means decreasing your failure rate and increasing overall reliability—as well as decreasing your need for Tylenol. 

The rewards of better IT equipment coupled with lower energy costs can be remarkable. Not long ago, Intel released an annual report that published the details of a recently implemented equipment-replacement plan. Apparently, Intel made it a company policy to upgrade older hardware with new equipment. Nothing in its data center can be more than three years old. Now that it’s been in place for a while, the strategy has done more than make Intel the model for efficiency and state-of-the-art technology. It saved the company $250 million. Remarkable indeed.

-- Michael Rowan, Viridity co-founder and CTO

What If IT Had To Pay The Power Bill?

Recently, BAO conducted their quarterly survey of one hundred IT professionals for us.

When they asked who has responsibility for power management in the data center they learned that it was a mix of IT, Facilities, IT & Facilities, and third party or co-location hosted facilities. This is because for most organizations the responsibility for the power bill usually sits with the Facilities department.

When asked "How are you measuring your power consumption?" about half of the IT managers asked just didn't know. 

 

 

These results are in line with information BAO has gathered from past surveys for Viridity Software. It's not unusual to learn that data centers are spending more on their energy bill than they are on capital equipment.  One reason for this is that the department ordering equipment for the data center is not the same group that pays the power bill.

What if IT paid the power bill?

If the IT department received the power bill instead of the Facilities department, they would understand the total impact of adding new equipment to the data center.  Technology investment decisions might be made based on being more energy efficient as it would impact data center ROI along with meeting business objectives.

Viridity EnergyCenter software helps both IT and Facilities managers get the information they need to monitor the power consumption and utilization of all of the networked equipment in the data center.  With this insight and actionable information, they can drive down costs and extend the life of their existing data centers. Our customers often discover 20% to 40% improvements in data center energy efficiency right away.  

So, which ever department ends up with the power bill, using Viridity EnergyCenter and putting best practices into place, they'll see their power bill get smaller instead of larger. And, that's good for the whole organization.

Getting the Right Information
for Data Center Energy Management

The industry has historically based energy planning on fundamentally flawed power calculations – typically flawed vendor faceplate power specifications, the de-rating of these specifications, or no measurement at all.  This leads to grossly inaccurate, often inflated view of the energy needed and results in margins that create unknown idle capacity.

How does this happen?  Most data center managers are in react mode most of the time as they respond to business pressures by squeezing more equipment into their facilities.  With only rudimentary tools available, they have been unable to get the information they need for power planning.

When it comes to getting the most out of the data center, the closer data center managers can get to actual, factual information, the better.  And, when it comes to energy optimization of the data center, the closest thing to nirvana is a de-rating system that bases its power data on actual, real-life system requirements and that continually improves its power requirement models through monitoring and constant learning.

Download our white paper “Intelligent, Dynamic De-rating:  The Only Way to Energy Management” to learn more.

Mike Tresh, Director of Product Management