April 22, 2009 was the Earth Day and over Twitter we have been sharing various ideas flowing around ways to celebrate the day.
Apart from the non IT stuff I have done (like using natural light, carpooling, telling people to do the same), I could come up with some good tech stuff:
- Not tweeting for an hour ~ between 1:53pm and 2:57pm
- Using Twitter – the storage is on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and it is green.
- Decided to promote solutions for data centers to use less electricity thus providing a smaller carbon footprint like Platform Virtualization
Carbon Output and Global Warming
The Greenhouse effect is basically about having specific gasses more in the atmosphere where they basically block the heat (energy) under it. Just like a normal greenhouse, but we do not put every plant in a greenhouse. Moreover we do not live under greenhouses. It is not natural for our body. It’s hot, too humid and dense.
Note that the greenhouse effect is already there and it is needed.
One of the major gasses that has such an effect (basically after water vapor ~ H2O) is carbon dioxide where it is (to some level) needed in the atmosphere. But everything has a limit. As soon as we start to have more and more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the average temperature increases all over the world, because of the heat (energy) blocked under.
Global Warming – Why is that a threat for economy and living?
Unfortunately various resources state that the current Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) industry is emitting more CO2 than the aviation industry alone. That is really significant…
If the ICT industry does not take the control, it would limit the growth (via carbon taxes, restrictions etc.) despite the “carbon rewards” programmes, leading to a recession, which nobody wants ..
So we need to get it right…
Virtualization
From Wikipedia:
In computing, platform virtualization is a virtualization of computers or operating systems. It hides the physical characteristics of computing platform from the users, instead showing another abstract, emulated computing platform.
This concept enables us to:
- Run more than one “machine” on a single hardware box providing “server consolidation”.
- Control and inspect machines from outside way easier
- Provision a new machine without purchasing / physically installing an hardware
- Move the machine over separate physical hardware
Virtualization and Smaller Carbon Footprint
With respect to above, the chance to be able to consolidate hardware boxes in our datacenters / system rooms:
- Use the resources on the hardware in a shared environment utilizing the unused 30-50% computing power
- So we can have 30-50% less amount of HW
- Spend less electricity (30-50%) to run the systems
- Therefore release smaller amount of heat out..
- No need for very big system rooms
- No need to spend on A/C cooling systems that much (and thus avoid the negative effects of A/C appliances to the environment)
- Echological
The extravagant use of electricity just demands more carbon dioxide emission, because electricity production is massively done by coal processing which releases great deal of that. The above opportunities would decrease our carbon dioxide emissions directly and indirectly delivered by our IT infrastructure.
Open Source Virtualization
So why open source and free software in this context?
- We are doing virtualization for our planet too. That is a collaborative process and everyone should be able to do it without paying thousands of dollars or so
- The optimum solutions can be achieved by computing grids created by low-cost small-sized hardware. The open source options provide a better support for those hardware (e.g. for some proprietary virtualization solution, you need to have SCSI disks on your box)
- Since it is open, it has the best collaboration also for the environmental factors. As soon as there might be a chance / need to enhance the software to be more efficient and thus enabling a smaller hardware footprint, this can be detected and fixed by the community. A single corporation might also be responsible for it, but being an environmentalist is a voluntary community process. Open source models support the best community model.
Therefore, my choice would be to go with Xen or other Xen based and other open source virtualization solutions. Some are:
- Xen Hypervisor
- Oracle VM
- Sun xVM Server
- Sun VirtualBox
- VirtualIron
- RedHat Virtualization
- SLES Virtualization
So, choose one of the appropriate and…
References
- Wikipedia: Platform Virtualization
- Green IT/Broadband and Cyber-infrastructure Overview
- Go Green, Save Green with Oracle VM
- A convenient truth: Virtualization’s eco-advantages
I’m not sure what you use to say that Xen is “the Best” or that “Since it is open, it has the best collaboration also for the environmental factors”. I’d like some more information as to what data you’re using to support that.
However, I agree that Virtualization is going to do it’s part to cut down on waste in the datacenter. It’s been happening for years and will continue to expand. Whether it’s a VMware or Xen based solution, every server removed, and not replaced, in a datacenter helps.
For instance, if you’re in California, Using VMware Virtualization in your datacenter virtualization project could get you a break from PG & E. It’s a nice financial incentive to use VMware, as well as realizing real savings from a cooling, electrical, and actual footprint perspective.
http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/pge.html
Theron,
You are just right on that. I edited the original post to state our reasons for “open source” being the most appropriate 🙂
Thanks a lot for your comment
If the intent is to reduce your carbon footprint, I wouldn’t see how money would be the driving factor. If money is a contributing factor however, individuals and companies need to take into account more than just the cost of the software when starting or auditing a virtualization program.
I agree completely. VMware has low cost and free options as well. It’s important to note that all of the companies listed above that support Xen solutions charge additional $$ for support and for additional features. No matter where you go, you’re going to be paying for virtualization, unless you’re supporting it yourself.
If that’s the case, why use a packaged version from a vendor anyway? Why not build your own virtualization solution using KVM on Ubuntu for instance? Then if down the road you did need support, you could buy it from canonical? That’s a totally Free solution.
.
I agree. But who is building these? Cloud hosting Companies. EC2 isn’t a not for profit.
This comment does not include VMware. Using local storage isn’t ideal for any virtualization project I’ve come across. The benefits that virtualization provides beyond consolidation require shared storage, both vmware and xen.
Still would like to see your references to this comment.
or fixed by a company who wants to keep profits coming in. This applies to all the Xen vendors listed above, as well as VMware.
Being an environmentalist is an individual decision. I agree that companies and communities make decisions for different reasons though. That doesn’t mean that there is solely “Community” driving Xen. Just as much corporate sponsorship of Xen as Vmware. The licensing may be different, but at the end of the day, making money is the driving factor for both sponsors of Xen and VMware.
I don’t agree that one license is more environmentally friendly than another. From a who’s-done-more-to-lower-the-carbon-footprint-perspective, VMware did over 1.2 B in sales last year vs. Citrix’s 25M. That’s a big difference. I know that doesn’t translate directly to server virtualized per hypervisor, but you can “go green” with multiple solutions independent of your software licensing feelings.
In any enterprise deployment, you’re going to have to pay for that hefty support package anyway, narrowing the cost gap between a Xen deployment and an VMware solution. http://is.gd/kON0
If the basis of your arguement is use Open Source software, it’s a nobel one, however you’re sending people to commercial vendors that tack on another license for support and non GPL’ed licenses for their tools (citrix for example). If you’re ok with Non-Free software, why not just send people to VMware?
BTW: Redhat is dropping support for Xen, and migrating to KVM for their virtualization platform.