In my last post, I described a common repository for EOL/EOS data for all vendors. Continuing the wishful thinking, I propose that vendors
publish the power consumption and heat generation parameters for their
products in a common format.
With
these parameters, site administrators can more readily measure the
power consumption and cooling load of groups of equipment, such as in a data center or wiring closet. The rising cost of energy is forcing the IT industry to include these
parameters into life-cycle calculations. Imagine knowing when you should retire old gear in favor
of more power efficient products and being able to clearly demonstrate this to the C-Level executives. These executives know about saving money and when presented with unambiguous data, they will often go for the cost savings.
Using this information also facilitates a valuable planning process: does an existing facility have enough power and cooling capacity to handle additional equipment? I can forsee a Green IT management tool that allows the IT administrator to enter information (perhaps via a CMDB) about power and cooling capacity at each facility and then grouping devices, perhaps by IP subnet or device name, to automatically create a Green Report that shows how much capacity remains at each facility. There could even be reports that calculate average device power and heating load per site so the IT manager can quickly focus on which sites could benefit most from equipment upgrades. I've done this type of analysis from time to time when planning new equipment rollouts and it has always been a very manual process.
We have the information and the technology available to facilitate improved monitoring and reporting of facility power and heating loads. All we need is a common data repository where the data can be made available in a format that management tools can utilize.
If you're aware of a clearing house for this data, please let me know. If there isn't one, perhaps several people can work together to determine the parameters that need to be documented and create a draft standard to populate the required database. Using a Wiki may be a good way to get started, albeit a manual process at the start.
-Terry