Teradata Cuts Data Center Energy Consumption and Emissions

Data centers: data warehouse appliances and servers are the ‘boilers’ of the information revolution. They enable almost every business process including customer interactions and developing the hardware and software to support those interactions. They also require a lot of electricity for operations and cooling: to keep these units functional and limit failures.

 

Carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter are the key harmful compounds and materials released when burning fossil fuels such as for electric power generation. Gartner reports that data centers account for almost a quarter of global CO2 emissions from information and communications technology, placing it on a par with the aviation industry.

 

That harm from airborne emissions is being quantified in human suffering and lost economic activity. A recent study by the Canadian Medical Association, No Breathing Room: National Illness Costs of Air Pollution estimated that by 2031, almost 90,000 Canadians will have died from the acute short-term effects of air pollution. The economic costs of air pollution in Canada alone in 2008 will top $8 billion. By 2031, they will have accumulated to over $250 billion.

 

Canada’s population is roughly 1/10th that of the US. These figures translate to about 1 million Americans who would have died by 2031, with economic losses at $80 billion in 2008 and $2.5 trillion by 2031.

 

The energy to create these emissions is also expensive. Gartner (News - Alert) also reveals that if current price trends continue, in five years the cost of energy to power the data center be higher than the cost of the IT equipment that it powers. While fossil fuel prices have declined recently with the economic downturn they are expected to leap with the economy bounces back.

 

Teradata, which makes data warehousing platforms, has been deploying several methods and technologies that could dramatically shrink their power consumption. Teradata’s (News - Alert) moves will, if backed up by purchases of its hardware by customers and by competitors reacting by offering similar solutions could shrink the amount of harmful air pollution resulting from data centers.

 

Teradata has upgraded its units and technology with these features:

 

*          Intel (News - Alert) multi-core processors, introduced in the Teradata 5500 Server in 2006-2007 and upgraded in the Teradata Active Enterprise Data Warehouse 5550 series launched in 2008 for more computing power at same power

 

*          Offering customers the option of Linux-based processors, first released in 2005-2006 which today uses over 10 percent less energy than standard UNIX-based units for the same data warehouse capability

 

Teradata devised a metric, TPerf/KW (kilowatts), to calculate data energy efficiency. TPerf is Teradata’s traditional measure of data warehouse performance capacity. The higher the TPerf/KW numbers the more efficient the hardware.

 

The current Teradata Active Enterprise Data Warehouse 5550 series reaches an average TPerf/KW of 9.59, up from 5.42 compared with 3.04 for the Teradata 5300 Servers from five years ago

 

*          The newest release of Teradata’s database software features a 10 percent performance improvement on the same platform over previous releases

 

*          A new patented cabinet door design that it had devised that reduces power consumption through decreased heat load, and chilling requirements. The new shells, first deployed on the Teradata 5400 Server series in 2005, have one intake at the bottom, and which draws in cool air to remove the heat from the electronics. Traditional cabinet doors are perforated throughout but they lead to heat islands at the top.

 

Thanks to these new doors, Teradata has enabled a 5 degree Celsius cut in temperature rise and up to 25 percent savings on cooling costs while making the hardware more tolerant of temperature fluctuations

 

“Heat is the enemy of data appliances,” explains Jim Dietz, Teradata Product Marketing Manager for Platforms. “For every 10 degree rise in temperature; data center equipment must operate at a maximum 25 degrees-26 degrees Celsius or 77 degrees-79 degrees Fahrenheit. Otherwise there is a 50 percent increase in the risk of equipment failure, which enterprises especially cannot afford.”

 

*          Redesigning the data centers to cut their physical footprints. This reduces building construction and maintenance and ultimately energy costs. The Teradata Active Enterprise Data Warehouse 5550 series uses as little as 2.61 standard rack cabinets per 100 TPerf compared with 10.73 cabinets per 100 TPerf with its older Teradata 5300 Server series

 

The cost reductions are significant. A Teradata Active Enterprise Data Warehouse 5550 offers nearly $130,000 in power savings over the comparable older Teradata 5380 Server from four years ago, based on $838/sq.ft, $.17 kilowatt-hour (KW/H) and 40 percent of KW/H cost.

 

More energy reductions and greater efficiencies are on the way. Teradata has developed prototype storage system using solid state disks (SSD) that will use as little as 1/8 the power in the same or less space for equivalent capacity compared with standard electro-mechanical magnetic tape disk drives or HDDs. The SSDs may be ready for the market by late 2010 or early 2011.

 

“The impact of the emerging SSD technology on storage systems is comparable to the impact that multi-core processors had on server systems: dramatically more performance for less power and better density,” says Dietz.