Viridity EnergyCenter - accurately modeling data center energy use
I've been mulling over some remarks made by Mike Rowan, Founder and CTO, Viridity Software, at The Future-Net Conference and Expo a while ago. I've been meaning to post something for some time.
Viridity's key points
- There are over 3 million datacenters in the US today. On the order of 1.5% to 2.5% of US power consumption can be attributed to these datacenters. At the current rate of growth the US will need 30 new generating plants by 2015.
- Energy (power and cooling) are among the fastest growing costs of datacenters. (Note: staff and communications are the largest cost factors today.)
- Datacenter operators often don't know how much power is being used on a moment by moment basis.
- IT is becoming more agile and dynamic while facilities are largely static.
Snapshot analysis
As my colleague, Andy Lawrence, Research Director of the 451 Group's Eco-IT service, would point out, Viridity has been on our radar screen for over two years and has continually refined its messages (451 subscribers can read his report on this company).He would also point out that there are quite a few competitors such as Scheider Electric APC, Emerson Electric and the suppliers of systems for datacenters, such as HP and IBM. All of them and a number of smaller startups want to play too. So, the company has its work cut out for it. Viridity appears to have developed a clever way to get a handle on some aspects of power consumption in a relatively low cost way. Getting to the big picture is likely to require the company to develop partnerships with others.
Mikes presentation brought out some interesting points that should be considered by those operating datacenters.