ECO-BRIEF
The Environmental Product Life Cycle: Eco-Conscious Use
Through Efficient Power and Cooling
Sponsored by: HP
Jed Scaramella
May 2007
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
www.idc.com
As global awareness of environmental issues continues to grow, enterprises and
vendors alike are responding by building and using more ecologically friendly
products. HP takes this imperative seriously and, for over 15 years, has been
investing in research and development efforts to build more efficient power and
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cooling solutions. The resulting increase in HP products' energy efficiency provides its
customers with the dual advantages of greater eco-friendly product use as well as
reduced operating costs in the datacenter. Building products that are environmentally
friendly to use provide just one step in HP's holistic approach to an eco-aware product
life cycle (see Figure 1).
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FIGURE 1
HP Approach to Reducing Environmental Impacts and Engaging Stakeholders Across the Product Life Cycle
Global Headquarters: 5 Speen Street Framingham, MA 01701 USA
Source: IDC, 2007, adapted from HP
BACKGROUND
We made a strategic
In recent years, enterprises have made significant financial investments in IT
decision to be an eco-
consolidation. This has led to deployment of small form factor solutions such as friendly datacenter,
blades and 1U rack servers, which has resulted in a substantial increase in and that has not only
differentiated our
datacenter density. As businesses continue to squeeze more compute capacity into offerings, but in areas
limited datacenter footprints, they are finding that energy and thermal requirements like power and
cooling, it has helped
are having a major operational impact, and IT organizations are seeking ways to
reduce our expenses.
reduce this impact, both for environmental and budgetary reasons. This experience is
borne out by opus:interactive, a full service datacenter and HP customer interviewed
for this study. "We made a strategic decision to be an eco-friendly datacenter," says
Jeremy Sherwood, business solutions executive at opus:interactive, "and that has not
only differentiated our offerings, but in areas like power and cooling, it has helped
reduce our expenses." opus:interactive provides managed services, co-location for
servers, shared Web and application hosting, DSL service, dial-up Internet access,
ISDN Internet access, and dedicated high-speed Internet access.
This eco-brief examines HP's strategy to address these challenges by building
greater energy efficiency into its power and cooling solutions.
HP Approach
Comprehensive View
HP has been focused on increasing energy efficiency in its products for more than a
decade. In 1996 HP brought together experts from across the company to form the
"Cool Team," with the objective of delivering comprehensive energy and thermal
solutions for the datacenter. Looking to do more than just use low-power chips from
AMD and Intel, or SFF drives, the HP team takes a comprehensive approach,
focusing on the component level, the system level, the rack level, and the overall
datacenter level.
Part of this comprehensive approach is recognizing the value of partnerships, and as
a result, HP created the HP Datacenter Solution Builder Program to accelerate and
drive the adoption of energy efficient solutions for datacenters. Participating partners
run the gamut of the datacenter ecosystem, including architecture and engineering
vendors, equipment manufacturers, utility companies, software and service vendors,
and real-estate specialists.
"With the c-Class, we
This commitment has already begun to pay dividends in more energy-efficient HP
only use half the
products, such as the BladeSystem c-Class released in the summer of 2006. States power we would with
opus:interactive's Sherwood, "With the c-Class, we only use half the power we would a typical rack and
stack solution,
with a typical rack and stack solution, and our space requirements are 30% less." and our space
requirements are
30% less."
Power Management Solutions
鈥? Jeremy Sherwood,
opus:interactive
One of the key innovations incorporated into the BladeSystem c-Class is HP Thermal
Logic. Thermal Logic pools power and cooling resources then utilizes management
and thermal design to efficiently deliver those resources based on the performance
level required. Power supplies in the enclosure enter "standby" mode during periods
of low demand and are then incrementally activated, balancing load requirements to
ensure optimum efficiency. BladeSystem customers can achieve greater energy
efficiency (as well as operational efficiency) by controlling power at the individual
server blade level, eliminating the need for over-provisioning power and cooling
resources.
Cooling Innovations
Thermal Logic also incorporates cooling innovations through its Parallel Redundant
Scalable Enclosure Cooling (PARSEC) architecture and HP Active Cool Fans. The
PARSEC architecture divides each blade enclosure into multiple zones. Sensors in
each zone direct fans to control temperature in their specific zone, as well as to
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provide backup cooling for the entire enclosure. Leveraging radio aircraft electric-
ducted fan technology, HP Active Cool Fans generate high-pressure differential
airflow and provide dynamic levels of airflow to match heat loads.
One of the earliest cooling innovations HP brought to market is the Modular Cooling
System (MCS), a self-contained cooling rack for high-density datacenter
deployments. The MCS utilizes the datacenter's chilled water supply to uniformly
distribute cool air across the entire front of the rack. The system is capable of
handling 30kW 鈥? three times the amount of heat generated by a standard server
rack 鈥? and enables the datacenter to realize greater energy efficiency.
HP Dynamic Smart Cooling (DSC), the company's latest innovation, is expected to be
deployed by the second half of 2007. HP estimates that most datacenters
overprovision their cooling capacity, with 50鈥?60% of a typical datacenter's operational
spend on cooling. To address this, DSC utilizes a network of sensors deployed on
racks to feed real-time thermal data to management software. The datacenter's
cooling resources are dynamically controlled with the intent of providing significant
improvements in cooling efficiency.
IDC ANALYSIS
"We see HP as being
Enterprises are becoming more aware of the impact their operations have on the at the leading edge of
environment, with eco-responsibility and energy efficiency becoming increasingly bringing eco-aware
products to market,
significant considerations. Since the mid 1990s, HP has been researching energy
and as a result we are
efficiency in IT infrastructure, and today HP continues to build on this heritage by very loyal to HP."
developing innovative solutions to energy problems and providing eco-friendly 鈥? Jeremy Sherwood,
opus:interactive
products. Customers like opus:interactive appreciate this commitment. "We see HP
as being at the leading edge of bringing eco-aware products to market," notes
Sherwood, "and as a result we are very loyal to HP."
HP understands the issue of power and cooling in the datacenter is complex and
cannot be solved by a single "magic bullet." As IT managers confront challenges from
a multitude of angles, HP offers solutions at multiple levels: component, system, rack,
and room. Some innovations have originated from HP Labs and the Cool Team;
where issues could not be addressed internally, HP has sought best-of-breed
partners to build an ecosystem for the eco-friendly datacenter.
In IDC surveys, power and cooling consistently ranks as one of the top issues for IT
executives. While price may always be a significant factor when considering new IT
solutions, companies are now giving greater consideration to the total operation cost
of running their IT infrastructure. Designing IT products that run more energy
efficiently and offering solutions that dynamically match power and cooling resources
to actual datacenter demands enable enterprises to reduce their energy usage. The
resulting benefit is both economical and ecological, as companies are able to
minimize their impact on the environment while lowering operating expenses.
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CONCLUSION
Historically, enterprises' primary purchasing criteria for IT equipment were price and
performance with power consumption usually an afterthought, but recent changes in
the economic and social environment have altered this picture. Eco-friendliness and
energy efficiency are becoming significant factors enterprises consider when they
purchase and deploy IT equipment. A growing number of companies are adopting a
"green IT" methodology and are seeking out and selecting IT partners with similar
visions. This provides the further benefit that products offering greater energy
efficiency in their use also result in reduced operating costs. As energy
consciousness continues to gain traction, companies will turn to IT vendors for eco-
friendly products and energy solutions. HP is dedicated to providing energy efficient
products, and has mobilized a variety of resources to realize this vision, from internal
research and development efforts to developing an ecosystem of partners focused on
providing energy efficiency.
HP Products and the Environmental Document
Series
This eco-brief is part of a series of IDC documents commissioned by HP to discuss its
environmentally aware policies and practices. This series includes a core white paper,
HP Products Built to Protect the Environment, as well as standalone eco-briefs
focusing on specific product areas: product design, manufacturing, power and
cooling, and product end of life.
Copyright Notice
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approval from the appropriate IDC Vice President or Country Manager. A draft of the
proposed document should accompany any such request. IDC reserves the right to
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Copyright 2007 IDC. Reproduction without written permission is completely forbidden.
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