While the lights are out for Earth Hour Saturday evening, clever computing will have already slashed energy consumption by 20 per cent at Queensland University of Technology’s (QUT) Kelvin Grove server hub.
Don Caruana, QUT’s IT Facilities manager, said the results were achieved following a major overhaul of the Kelvin Grove data centre, the hub which runs QUT’s massive network of computers and communications.
He said like all data centres, they ran continuously.
“All around the world, businesses and organisations are running banks of computers, every hour of every single day of the year,” Mr Caruana said.
“They use huge amounts of electricity, not just to run the computers, but also to cool them.
“Computers generate a lot of heat and need to be cooled, so within QUT, for every 100 watts they use, about another 60 watts is used for cooling.”
Mr Caruana said by using a technique called virtualisation, which is the nesting of several virtual computers on one actual computer, the energy needs of the data centre were slashed by 20 per cent.
“Traditionally, each individual server, which is about the size of a pizza box, runs one operating system (OS) and one application, such as an organisation’s payroll, but this use of equipment is inefficient,” he said.
“When used in this way, servers operate at about only five to ten per cent of their capacity.
“Using virtualisation, we can run several virtual servers on one physical server box, with each virtual server running a single OS and usually one application.
“This way, physical units can run at 80 to 90 per cent of their capacity, vastly reducing the number of physical units required and resulting in a huge reduction in power consumption.”
Mr Caruana said virtualisation was saving businesses lots of money and also greatly reducing the amount of physical space needed.
By the way if you want to be part of the global movement of Earth Hour, turn out your lights at 8:30pm on Saturday, March 31 for one hour.
