L'informatique durable vue par quelques passionnés de Microsoft France : Centres de données / Datacenter

Au revoir…

patricg — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:04:37 GMT

Voilà un message que l’on pense ne jamais écrire mais tout a une fin !

Il se trouve qu’après avoir activement participé à la prise de conscience éco-durable chez Microsoft France et alimenté ce blog (et d’autres) depuis plus d’un 1 an, je vais quitter Microsoft dans les prochains jours.

Vous ne me retrouverez donc plus sur ce site mais pour ceux qui souhaite ne pas perdre la trace, vous pourrez me retrouver via les multiples réseaux sociaux, notamment les suivants :

Ce n’est donc qu’un au revoir, j’en suis sûr !

Et comme j’aime tout particulièrement les citations, je voudrais finir avec une que j’apprécie :

“Il est trop tard pour être pessimiste” Yann Arthus-Bertrand

Merci pour votre fidélité.

Azure ou la véritable révolution de Microsoft…

patricg — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:42:33 GMT

Les besoins des centres de données (accessibles via le nuage, mais bien réels cependant !) sont tels que l’approche durable n’est plus une option ou une variable d’ajustement : lorsque l’on connecte 10 à 20 000 serveurs par mois, l’optimisation des consommations énergétiques et en eau pour le refroidissement devient clé.

Pour le géant de Redmond, évolution technologique rime avec engagement écologique. Sa prochaine plate-forme permettra d'accéder à une large palette de services informatiques à la demande. Et à grande échelle.

La suite de l’article est ici : Azure ou la véritable révolution de Microsoft

Green: A System for Supporting Energy-Conscious Programming using Principled Approximation

patricg — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:55:59 GMT

Energy-efficient computing is important in several systems ranging from embedded devices to large scale data centers. Several application domains offer the opportunity to tradeoff quality of service/solution (QoS) for improvements in performance and reduction in energy consumption. Programmers sometimes take advantage of such opportunities, albeit in an ad-hoc manner and often without providing any QoS guarantees.

We propose a system called Green that provides a simple and flexible framework that allows programmers to take advantage of such approximation opportunities in a systematic manner while providing statistical QoS guarantees. Green enables programmers to approximate expensive functions and loops and operates in two phases. In the calibration phase, it builds a model of the QoS loss produced by the approximation. This model is used in the operational phase to make approximation decisions based on the QoS constraints specified by the programmer. The operational phase also includes an adaptation function

that occasionally monitors the runtime behavior and changes the approximation decisions and QoS model to provide strong QoS guarantees.

To evaluate the effectiveness of Green, we implemented our system and language extensions using the Phoenix compiler framework. Our experiments using benchmarks from domains such as graphics, machine learning, and signal processing, and a real-world web search application, indicate that Green can produce significant improvements in performance and energy consumption with small and statistically guaranteed QoS degradation.

http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=101217

Windows Server 2008 R2, a new step forward in power management

patricg — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:13:39 GMT

In this day and age, power use is on everyone's mind. Windows Server 2008 R2 helps reduce and optimize power usage in most, if not all, situations; in all cases, savings can be achieved and realized simply by installing the operating system.

Perhaps the easiest savings to point to when upgrading to Windows Server 2008 R2 is in power management. In essence, on the same hardware with the same load factors, Microsoft claims R2 will present anywhere from 10% to 15% -- and sometimes even 18% -- power savings over Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2, without requiring any additional configuration.

…

Core parking is another interesting feature that intelligently detects loads on a system and prioritizes and optimizes the distribution of that processing workload among all of the cores available to the operating system. For instance, on single quad-core processor, core parking will enable modest workloads to be carried out only on one core and allow the remaining three cores to remain in a power-saving inactive state. When workloads become heavy enough to require the use of other cores, the OS "lights up" the other cores as necessary to handle the duties, and then returns them to the inactive state -- creating, in other words, a "bursting" of processor capacity.

the full article is here : http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9135816/Review_Windows_Server_2008_R2_RTM?taxonomyId=154&pageNumber=3

Comparatif de la consommation électrique entre des environnements Exchange natifs et des environnements virtualisés

patricg — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:38:16 GMT

Résumé :

Reducing or controlling the high cost of the power to run and cool computer hardware is a top priority for many organizations throughout the world. Many organizations are considering server virtualization solutions to reduce their server footprint and the associated power and cooling costs. Because the virtualization of Microsoft Exchange servers rarely results in a reduction of physical processors, there is some question whether there is significant hardware, power, cooling, or space savings from virtualizing correctly sized Exchange Server 2007 server roles. This study compared the power utilization of native and virtual Exchange server environments in a scenario in which the number of physical servers was reduced from eight to two, but the total number of logical processors and the amount of memory remained the same.

When you consider virtualization of an Exchange environment, power savings is only one of many factors to consider. Depending on your requirements, virtualization may not be a good fit for your Exchange environment. For more information, see the Exchange Team Blog article Should You Virtualize Your Exchange 2007 SP1 Environment?

L’article complet est ici : Comparing the Power Utilization of Native and Virtual Exchange Environments

Visual representation of processor utilization over a 24-hour period

Comparison of average watts consumed by native and virtual environments

Data Center Overload

patricg — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:45:44 GMT

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/magazine/14search-t.html

Lu sur Green IT.fr

patricg — Thu, 28 May 2009 16:42:34 GMT

De retour de congés, j’ai remarqué sur Green IT .fr ces articles qui ont particulièrement retenu mon attention :

5 règles pour un site web plus respectueux de l’environnement

… comment rendre un site web le plus respectueux de l’environnement possible ?

1. Eviter les animations inutiles : …

2. Eviter les technologies/techniques gourmandes en ressources :

3. Choisir un hébergeur « vert » proche de vos visiteurs : …

4. Alimenter son site aux énergies renouvelables : …

5. Compenser les émissions de CO2 restante par l’achat de crédit CO2 …

SSD : 50% d'économie en centre informatique

Selon iSuppli, les mémoires de masse SSD(Solid State Drive) permettent d’économiser une somme colossale d’énergie au sein des centres informatiques. Jugez plutôt : 7.000 MWh en 2008 et 57.000 MWh en 2013. Au total, les économies cumulées entre 2008 et 2013 atteindront 166.643 Megawattheure (MWh), soit l’équivalent de la consommation d’énergie de la Gambie en 2006.

GreenIT.fr sur LinkedIn

Microsoft’s Top 10 Business Practices for Environmentally Sustainable Data Centers

patricg — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:55:11 GMT

Microsoft recognizes the tough challenges that data center managers, industry operators, and IT businesses face today as they struggle to support their businesses in the face of budget cuts and uncertainty about the future. It’s natural that environmental sustainability is taking a back seat in many companies at this time. But the fact is, being “lean and green” is good for both the business and the environment, and organizations that focus their attentions accordingly will see clear benefits. Reducing energy use and waste improves a company’s bottom line, and increasing the use of recycled materials is a proven way to demonstrate good corporate citizenship to your customers, employees, and the communities you do business in.

1. Provide incentives that support your primary goals

2. Focus on effective resource utilization

3. Use virtualization to improve server utilization and increase operational efficiency

4. Drive quality up through compliance

5. Embrace change management

6. Invest in understanding your application workload and behavior

7. Right-size your server platforms to meet your application requirements

8. Evaluate and test servers for performance, power, and total cost of ownership

9. Converge on as small a number of stock-keeping units (SKUs) as you can

10. Take advantage of competitive bids from multiple manufacturers to foster innovation and reduce costs

The full article is here : http://www.globalfoundationservices.com/documents/MSFTTop10BusinessPracticesforESDataCentersApril09.pdf

Going Green 2009…

patricg — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:03:53 GMT

C’est le titre du dernier numéro de Technet Magazine. Il est accessible ici : http://technet.microsoft.com/fr-fr/magazine/dd767316(en-us).aspx

Au programme :

Green IT: Framework for Building a “Hyper-Green” Virtual Server System

A Hyper-Green virtualization system is designed to fully optimize your reduction in enegy consumption. Here are seven steps you must follow to build a Hyper-Green system. Adam Bogobowicz and Dave Ohara

Green IT: Planning Your Power Management and Virtualization Strategies

Implementing power management and virtualization strategies are ideal first steps in moving towards a greener IT environment. Learn how you can simplify planning these strategies with the free Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit. Baldwin Ng

Green IT: Essential Tools for Planning Your Virtual Infrastructure

Is your infrastructure ready for virtualization? The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit, a network-wide infrastructure assessment tool, can help you better understand your IT infrastructure and determine whether your systems are ready for upgrade or migration to a variety of technologies, including virtualization. Jay Sauls and Baldwin Ng

Green IT: Build a Green Datacenter

Companies around the world are beginning to think of ways to save energy and reduce costs, yet there is little guidance on how you can take action. Get started with our introduction to planning, designing, and implementing a green datacenter in your organization. Dave Ohara

et aussi :

· Enforce Power Management Settings in your Organization with Group Policy

· Sleep or Hibernate?

· Is It Time to Turn Off Your Servers?

· Conserving Energy with Group Policy

· Plan and Optimize Your Infrastructure to be Energy Efficient with System Center

Les enregistrements des TechDays sont en ligne !

patricg — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:30:21 GMT

C’est accessible ici : http://www.microsoft.com/france/vision/mstechdays09/

Et en particulier pour les sessions Eco-TIC :

Code de conduite européen pour les centres de données…

patricg — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:01:01 GMT

Dans la lignée des efforts annoncés par Microsoft (cf. Peering into Future of Cloud Computing), la Commision Européenne vient de publier un code de conduite pour les Centres de données. Ce code est purement incitatif et vise à promouvoir les bonnes pratiques dans le domaine.

En anglais dans le texte :

EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres

Data Centre Code of Conduct Introductory Guide (.pdf)

European Code of Conduct on Data Centres Energy Efficiency, version 1 (.pdf)

The Best Practice Guidelines, version 1 (.pdf)

The Reporting Form, version 1 (.xls)

Endorser Registration form, version 1 (.doc)

En résumé, ce code de (bonne) conduite s’adresse à deux profils :

les participants qui opèrent un ou plusieurs centres de données et s’engagent à faire un rapport régulier de leur consommation d’énergie (grâce au tableur joint) et à mettre en place certaines règles définies dans le guide des meilleures pratiques.
les supporters (traduction libre de “endorsers”) qui eux s’engagent à supporter le code et les participants au travers du développement de produits, de services, d’information, de formation ou de tout autre programme.

Peering into Future of Cloud Computing

patricg — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:19:42 GMT

On Feb. 24, Rick Rashid, senior vice president of Microsoft Research, announced a new research organization called Cloud Computing Futures (CCF), focused on reducing the operational costs of data centers and increasing their adaptability and resilience to failure. The group, led by Dan Reed, director of Scalable and Multicore Systems, will strive to lower hardware costs, power consumption, and the environmental impact of such facilities. Reed recently found time to discuss the new venture.

Q:What are you announcing, and why now?

Reed: Cloud Computing Futures is a new initiative in Microsoft Research to improve the efficiency of the scalable computing hardware and software infrastructure needed to deliver cloud services. Data centers and their services have grown in size and importance as Microsoft has shifted to a software-plus-services model in which an increasing number of new applications run in part, or entirely, in the “cloud” and are delivered to clients via the Internet.

Microsoft and other competitors, such as Yahoo, Amazon, Google, and IBM, have been building cloud-computing infrastructure and new software at a rapid pace to service the large number of potential users. Microsoft’s business now depends on an ever-expanding network of massive data centers: hundreds of thousands of servers, petabytes of data, hundreds of megawatts of power, and billions of dollars in capital and operational expenses. Because these data centers are being built with hardware and software technologies not designed for deployment at such massive scale, many of today’s data centers are expensive to build, costly to operate, and unable to provide all the services needed for emerging applications—resilience, geo-distribution, composability, and graceful recovery.

The goal of the CCF project is to identify, create, and evaluate new, potentially disruptive innovations that can enable new software and application capabilities while also reducing the cost of building and operating cloud services. The CCF project started with a key concept: treat the data center as an integrated system—a holistic entity—and optimize all aspects of hardware and software. As a result of this work, Microsoft will be able to deliver a wider range of new, innovative services more efficiently.

This work builds on deep technical partnerships and collaborations across Microsoft—Microsoft Research, Global Foundation Services, Cloud Infrastructure Services/Azure™, and product teams—and we are working with an array of hardware-technology providers and companies.

The full story is here : http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/ccf-022409.aspx

Optimisation énergétique de l’entreprise, venez en parler au MTC !

patricg — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:11:56 GMT

Le Centre Technologique Microsoft de Paris (MTC – Microsoft Technology Center) propose désormais une offre gratuite d’optimisation de l’énergie.

Pour aider les entreprises dans leur démarche d’optimisation énergétique et la réduction des coûts, Microsoft propose un ensemble de solutions selon plusieurs axes :

Communication unifiée (télétravail efficace)

Tableaux de bords (diagnostic énergétique et suivi de sa consommation)

Consolidation et virtualisation des datacenters (optimisation des serveurs)

Dynamic IT (optimisation des processus)

Le Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) de Paris propose de réaliser une session de conception d’architecture (ADS) d’une à 2 journées pour étudier la démarche informatique durable de votre entreprise et de votre Datacenter Windows. Cette session pourra être suivi d’un atelier de mise en œuvre (POC) afin de démontrer sur vos applications les possibilités offertes par la virtualisation Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

L’agenda détaillé est ici : http://www.microsoft.com/france/apropos/microsoft-technology-center/offres-et-service/informatique-durable.aspx

A la fin de la session, et en fonction des attentes, un compte-rendu ou un relevé de conclusions est remis.
La présence du client tout au long de l’engagement est nécessaire au succès de la session.

Audience

Cette offre s’adresse aux clients grands comptes pour les profils suivants :

Directeur des Systèmes d’Information, Champion « Green IT »
Architecte du système d’information
Responsable de production

Livre blanc Microsoft IT : Improving Sustainability and Utilization of SQL Server at Microsoft

patricg — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:52:37 GMT

Engagé dans une démarche (cf. Réduction des émissions de CO², Microsoft se fixe des objectifs chiffrés !) de rationalisation complète de ses infrastructures, Microsoft s’appuie notamment sur son informatique interne pour implanter de nouvelles solutions de déploiement et d’administration de ses instances SQL Server internes.

Comme cela est décrit dans le numéro 18 de l’ Architecture Journal ( "Green IT in Practice: SQL Server Consolidation in Microsoft IT" - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/architecture/dd393309.aspx ), une opération de consolidation et de virtualisation des instances SQL Server a été engagée.

Le livre blanc suivant décrit les détails de cette opération :

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd557540.aspx

Read on the web : Measuring datacenter efficiency easier said than done

patricg — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 13:42:07 GMT

Metrics like Green Grid's PUE are helpful, but the don't necessarily show the full picture of datacenter power use and efficiency

Containing the cost of powering the data center is one of the chief priorities for many IT and facilities professionals. But determining whether a data center is a paragon of green virtue or an unrepentant gas guzzler is trickier than it might seem at first glance.

That's why the Green Grid, a nonprofit trade group led by IT vendors, devised PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness), which compares the total power used in a facility with the power devoted specifically to IT equipment. But as with almost any new standard, there is confusion within the industry about how to measure PUE and in what context it is useful