Powering our online obsession

A server room

From Twittering to Facebook, from music downloads to streaming video, from email to e-books, the Internet is driving almost every part of our lives and as a result, the energy needed to run our data centre servers and communications infrastructure is increasing annually. In response, a number of cross-company consortiums, like the Green Grid, have been formed and with a symposium being held this week to discuss data centre efficiency, it seems only right to look at the increasing problems facing our over-worked servers.

Between 2000 and 2005, the energy consumed by such data centres doubled, both in the US and worldwide. As more and more people demand more from online media, then more power is needed to power the centres that keep the Internet and servers running. For the US in 2006, online data centres accounted for 1.5 percent of the entire country's electricity use - equating to more than the entire state of Massachusetts.

What is worrying, is that this figure could double over the next five years.

Whilst an increase in online usage can be attributed to this, it has been reported that the large power consumption was from over-usage of a number of "lower-end servers" that were not as energy efficient as their more modern counterparts. This increase in the number of servers has been attributed to the 90 percent rise in power consumption.

Jonathan Koomey, a consulting professor at Stanford University and staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs who has written a study on increased power usage said, "Trends in software - such as the move to Linux and distributed platforms and away from operating systems that charge per server - have fuelled the demand for greater numbers of low-end servers."

This mass inefficiency has led to a number of schemes to improve the grid's power consumption. Among them are plans to keep data centres cooler, so that the servers can work at maximum efficiency. In some cases, the overheating of servers has led to them creating energy bills that exceed their initial cost after a few years. The only problem with this plan is that the power to keep rooms cool, of course, requires more power.

However, cooling equipment can consume 25 percent of the power that goes into a data centre, so perhaps you have to expel energy to save energy?

The likes of Microsoft and Yahoo however have found unique ways of cooling their servers - outside climate. Last month, Microsoft opened a data storage centre in Dublin citing that the 'Irish chill' would achieve greater efficiency for their servers. Yahoo likewise opened a hub in Buffalo, New York cooling their centres with the frigid local air.

Despite efforts like this, more needs to be done to cuts costs. The numbers of servers being installed are increasing and the bills are getting larger. In 2005, the total electric bill to operate those servers and related infrastructure equipment was $2.7 billion in the United States and $7.2 billion worldwide.

Somehow I doubt it'll be cheaper to pay off by direct debit.

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