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Discussion: Putting Teeth in DataCenter Energy Management (Question for Cisco)Reported This is a featured thread

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IntegrationArchitect
Putting Teeth in DataCenter Energy Management (Question for Cisco)
Aug 21 2008, 5:29 PM EDT | Post edited: Aug 21 2008, 5:29 PM EDT
Can someone please illustrate where Cisco's Solutions start and stop as related to Green IT? I am not talking hardware [i.e. the Nexus/infiniband/10-40g/VMWare/Consolidated Switching/Energy Efficient Ethernet/LB power down redundant firewalls and hand off to EMC/NetApp storage, and that it can be housed in an APC HD rack/cooling.] I am not asking about Cisco DataCenter energy audits/planning/education. I am asking beyond the hardware or consulting, and static efficiency identification tools, what other Green IT products does Cisco offer? Do you have any real-time datacenter energy management software suites? Are they holistic/agnostic that have visibility into facilities cooling and down to rack and x86 server level? I recognize the product hardware readiness and advancements but do tools exist to leverage them? For example the Tools to help change business behavior and processes like automatically shedding heat/power load on the nights and weekends and restart again when work load increases? 1  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    
Keyword tags: Data Center Energy
JimmyRay10acn
JimmyRay10acn
1. RE: Putting Teeth in DataCenter Energy Management (Question for Cisco)
Aug 21 2008, 6:56 PM EDT | Post edited: Aug 21 2008, 6:56 PM EDT
This is really a HUGE question. Can you email me your contact info so we can chat live on this? techwisetv at cisco dot com ? Do you find this valuable?    
77SSC
77SSC
2. RE: Putting Teeth in DataCenter Energy Management (Question for Cisco)
Aug 21 2008, 11:35 PM EDT | Post edited: Aug 21 2008, 11:35 PM EDT
So I got back tonight from a Cisco Partner briefing on FY2009 imperatives and DC is really upfront in the new big view. So I saw this question and wondered, in a similar manner, about "greening" the DC.

Now I agree the original post is HUGE - but offlining the answers leaves anyone else having a more general interest in the topic sort of in the dark. Not a rant - but let me ask it more generally:

What active tools do we have already - or in development roadmap - to give clients more control over energy consumption rates?

TIA - Do you find this valuable?    
JimmyRay10acn
JimmyRay10acn
3. RE: Putting Teeth in DataCenter Energy Management (Question for Cisco)
Aug 22 2008, 11:27 AM EDT | Post edited: Aug 22 2008, 11:27 AM EDT
"So I got back tonight from a Cisco Partner briefing on FY2009 imperatives and DC is really upfront in the new big view. So I saw this question and wondered, in a similar manner, about "greening" the DC.

Now I agree the original post is HUGE - but offlining the answers leaves anyone else having a more general interest in the topic sort of in the dark. Not a rant - but let me ask it more generally:

What active tools do we have already - or in development roadmap - to give clients more control over energy consumption rates?

TIA - "
I agree with your point. Of course anything on the roadmap I can not comment on in a public forum. You know the lawyers wanna throw down if we do not have a NDA in place... First off, understand that is has taken approx 30 years to get to a point where the modeling programs and understanding of the DC to get to a time where we understand the DC enough to consider options other then a traditional rack-n-stack-n-cool DC design. Remember that only 8 years ago a lights out DC meant installing a RIB board in a server, RConsole tools and turning the lights out. Cisco has joined the Green Grid in working out a common benchmark to Greening out a DC:

Operating cost = 1000 kW x (1/0.60 efficiency at load level) x 8760
hours x US$0.10 x Load level 50%.
PUE = Total facility power / IT equipment power
DCE = IT equipment power / Total facility power

So, big deal right? How does this crap help me design and monitor my DC? As far as tools now, let me answer that in two parts:

1. Tools WE have as in Cisco SKUs:
- Data Center Device Power Supplies are 90% efficent
- VFrame Our partnership with APC/MGE pays off big time here. The switched rack PDU units provide critical power monitoring and outlet control data to the Cisco VFrame platform to be used when deploying server or storage configurations. This gives VFrame DC a homogenous power management solution for servers. Of course IBM offers Power Exec and HP offers DSC for power management
- IOS for years has offered power management and recently added EEM to get even more detail and take action as well
- Cisco Blade Switches
- VSS

Jimmy Ray
 4  out of 4 found this valuable. Do you?    
77SSC
77SSC
4. RE: Putting Teeth in DataCenter Energy Management (Question for Cisco)
Aug 22 2008, 3:15 PM EDT | Post edited: Aug 22 2008, 3:15 PM EDT
Thanks buddy - that's what I was talking about. I wanted to understand the context better and where we have and can play in that issue.

On the roadmap: Yah those lawyers, ya know they can kill you but they can't eat you ;-)
Understand completely about things still under wraps. I use roadmap a little more generically - like a view from the labs - but only what we are cleared to tell customers openly. Wasn't expecting NDA stuff on the forum.

Thanks again - keep up the flow. 1  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    

IntegrationArchitect
5. RE: Putting Teeth in DataCenter Energy Management (Question for Cisco)
Aug 22 2008, 4:37 PM EDT | Post edited: Aug 22 2008, 4:37 PM EDT
"YOU SAID: " Cisco has joined the Green Grid in working out a common benchmark to Greening out a DC: "

YOU SAID: " As far as tools now, let me answer that in two parts:

1. Tools WE have as in Cisco SKUs:
- Data Center Device Power Supplies are 90% efficent
- VFrame Our partnership with APC/MGE pays off big time here. The switched rack PDU units provide critical power monitoring and outlet control data to the Cisco VFrame platform to be used when deploying server or storage configurations. This gives VFrame DC a homogenous power management solution for servers. Of course IBM offers Power Exec and HP offers DSC for power management
- IOS for years has offered power management and recently added EEM to get even more detail and take action as well
- Cisco Blade Switches
- VSS

Jimmy Ray


"
jimmy, Thanks!

To really execute DC nights and weekend cost savings today as it was discussed in the TechTV presentation, it appears that a patchwork of scripts, software, tools, and careful QC testing would ensue. It may be possible to shed overly redundant DC loads, in the presentation EMC/VMWare said 40% of power costs can be saved by shedding loads during nights and weekends.

This could involve using VMWARE Virtual Center w/ Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), IBM Director w/ Power Executive, HP SIM w/ DSC/HP Insight Power Manager and Cisco's IOS Embedded Event Manager (EEM), to shut down load balancers, firewalls, routers, switches, servers, storage, vmware sessions, cooling, monitoring, as needed to achieve the desired goals.

Using VFrame power strip per outlet hard power shut-off seems to be a method of last resort and not suited for benign nightly use due to harmfull impacts of dirty shutdown while gear is doing something. A state full and graceful power down method is needed. Some of the overwhelming factors are synchronizing all the above tools for shutdown plus the NOC (Application, Server, and Network) staff will have a dozen SLA monitoring tools (ping, html gets, heartbeat) that need to stop monitoring the same powered off systems every few seconds. All those NOC alarms and SLA tracking/reporting tools will also have to be turned off and on once they come back into production.

A follow up question does Ciscoworks/View/RME tools let you schedule and manipulate power in mass to a group of devices all at once for nights and weekends?
 3  out of 3 found this valuable. Do you?    
JimmyRay10acn
JimmyRay10acn
6. RE: Putting Teeth in DataCenter Energy Management (Question for Cisco)
Aug 22 2008, 5:20 PM EDT | Post edited: Aug 22 2008, 5:20 PM EDT
"jimmy, Thanks!

To really execute DC nights and weekend cost savings today as it was discussed in the TechTV presentation, it appears that a patchwork of scripts, software, tools, and careful QC testing would ensue. It may be possible to shed overly redundant DC loads, in the presentation EMC/VMWare said 40% of power costs can be saved by shedding loads during nights and weekends.

This could involve using VMWARE Virtual Center w/ Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), IBM Director w/ Power Executive, HP SIM w/ DSC/HP Insight Power Manager and Cisco's IOS Embedded Event Manager (EEM), to shut down load balancers, firewalls, routers, switches, servers, storage, vmware sessions, cooling, monitoring, as needed to achieve the desired goals.

Using VFrame power strip per outlet hard power shut-off seems to be a method of last resort and not suited for benign nightly use due to harmfull impacts of dirty shutdown while gear is doing something. A state full and graceful power down method is needed. Some of the overwhelming factors are synchronizing all the above tools for shutdown plus the NOC (Application, Server, and Network) staff will have a dozen SLA monitoring tools (ping, html gets, heartbeat) that need to stop monitoring the same powered off systems every few seconds. All those NOC alarms and SLA tracking/reporting tools will also have to be turned off and on once they come back into production.

A follow up question does Ciscoworks/View/RME tools let you schedule and manipulate power in mass to a group of devices all at once for nights and weekends?
"
Very good call. Network Management has a ways to go to catch up with hardware. But isn't that always the case? Ciscoworks does not do that now. They have focused the most recent development stuff on Unified Communications. But I believe it will catch up and get there as time moves forward.

So until then, I believe we have to blend elements to come up with a solution that fits. Personally, as I do like the power I get with EEM and VFrame. I have some perl scripts that I also have wrote for real time stats snaggin.

Jimmy Ray

 3  out of 3 found this valuable. Do you?