can we hack open source #cloud platforms to help reduce emissions?
DESCRIPTION
Cloud computing is changing our lives but this change comes with a cost - pollution. Can we hack open source cloud platforms to make them report their energy and (more importantly) their emissions, so we can choose the cleanest cloud? Video of this talk is now online at http://redmonk.com/tv/2012/10/24/can-we-hack-open-source-cloud-platforms-to-help-reduce-emissions/TRANSCRIPT
Can we hack open source #cloud platforms
to help reduce emissions?
Tom Raftery
#Monktoberfest 2012, Portland Maine
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• Lead analyst, energy and sustainability practice, RedMonk
• CIX, Chip & Zenith
• GreenMonk.net
• twitter.com/tomraftery
• +34 677 695 468
• SlideShare.net/TomRaftery
Tom Raftery
CIX, Chip & Zenith - involvement with Cloud, going back to late 90’s
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Garret FitzGerald 1926-2011
Unlikely politician - highly intelligent academic, unimpeachable integrity, head in the clouds(!)
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Garret FitzGerald
Photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/caribb/5391899550/
Before he became a politician - In 1949 analyzed the earliest published Aeroflot timetables, and produced one of the first accurate estimations of the size of Russia's airliner fleet - previously a closely guarded secret
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Garret FitzGerald
Photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/steve_brace/2568478072/
KGB thought he was a spy!
And look an image with KGB logo - and a sleeping cat!
Proving there’s no such thing as security by obscurity & the internet rocks!
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No transparency
Cloud problem
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Problem
http://greenmonk.net/2011/07/21/carbon-disclosure-projects-emissions-reduction-claims-for-cloud-computing-are-flawed/
Something I have been blogging about for quite a while
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Problem
http://greenmonk.net/2012/01/09/is-cloud-computing-green/
And giving conference talks about it as well
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Problem
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/technology/data-centers-waste-vast-amounts-of-energy-belying-industry-image.html
Data centers use vast amounts of electricity
Typically only 6-12% of the electricity powering their servers goes to perform computations - McKinsey & Co.
Rest used to keep servers idling and ready in case of a surge in activity - dynamic provisioning - i.e. the elastic in ec2!
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Energy ≠ Emissions
NYT article was good but concentrated on energyBear in mind that energy use and emissions are not necessarily relatedEnergy is not a proxy for emissions
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Photo http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=193287527693&aid=183026
A practical example of this is...Prineville siteOpen Compute - open sourced the design of DC & hardware!
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Energy
http://opencompute.org/about/energy-efficiency/
“As of the end of Q3 2011, the Prineville data center had a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.08... much lower than the industry standard of 1.5.
Facebook’s energy consumption per unit of computing power has declined by 38%”
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Emissions
http://www.pacificorp.com/es/mining.html
58% of its energy from coal 12% from gas => over 70% from fossil fuel directly.
22.5% is purchased from other suppliers so could also be fossil fuel.
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Dublin
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/08/07/lightning-in-dublin-knocks-amazon-microsoft-data-centers-offline/
MicrosoftAmazonGoogleIBMSunGardDigital Realty Trust
All have significant DC’s in Dublin
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Emissions
http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/electricitystatistics/
Ireland sources 84% of electricity from fossil fuels
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Emissions
https://restats.decc.gov.uk/cms/national-renewables-statistics/
UK sources >90% of its electricity from fossil fuels
“Renewables contribution to UK electricity generation was 9.4% in 2011”
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Emissions
http://www.pacificorp.com/es/mining.html
The carbon intensity of a data center’s electricity is more important than it’s efficiency!
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Cloud providers
Partial list of cloud companies
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Clean cloud providers
Rackspace’s UK data center runs on 100% renewable powerGoogle have large renewable investments and their operations are carbon neutral
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Clean cloud providers
Greenqloud are based in Iceland where elec is 100% renewable
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Clean cloud providers
http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/sustainable-energy/
Amazon claim 0 carbon for two of their regions
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Clean cloud providers
https://twitter.com/jeffbarr/status/251306461836222464
but demur when asked to back up the claim
How can we verify it is true?*Sound of crickets chirping*
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Data?
Problem
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Cloud emissions data
Partial list of cloud companies
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Cloud emissions data providers
http://www.sapsustainabilityreport.com/greenhouse-gas-footprint
This is as granular as the data gets!
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Cloud emissions data providers
http://www.salesforce.com/company/sustainability/impact.jsp
Reports 2 weeks lateGives data for carbon saved, not carbon emitted
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Cloud emissions data providers
http://www.salesforce.com/company/sustainability/savings.jsp
Completely inaccurate depending on where in EU on premise is being hostedIf hosted in France or Spain with low carbon intensity - move to Salesforce could increase emissionsWothout Salesforce emissions data, how do we know?
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Why don’t they?
Photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/pahudson/7742561802/
Competitive intelligence
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Why don’t they?
Photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/nathanmarciniak/2207977707/
Hide their emissions
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Why don’t they?
Photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomasfisherlibrary/6887173879/
Lack of reporting standardsThis being Monktoberfest, I had to get in a gratuitous beer shot
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Outcome
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”
Lack of focus on emissions => increased emissions
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Reminder
A quick recap of 2012 so far...
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Recap
In the third quarter alone, crop produc2on dropped $12 billion “due to this summer’s severe heat and drought.”
Drop in US farm inventories was so sharp in the last quarter that it wiped 0.2% off of U.S. GDP in the latest revision.
In Texas, the drought has killed more than 300 million trees.
Nearly 98% of Nebraska is in extreme to excep2onal drought — 3 months ago, none of it was!
hSp://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/30/929381/epic-‐dust-‐bowl-‐of-‐2012-‐con2nues/
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/27/us-usa-wildfires-idUSBRE85L1DD20120627 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19433715
Recap
One of the worst wildfire seasons on recordWildfires in US and EU
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19767627http://edition.cnn.com/2012/09/29/world/asia/pakistan-floods/index.html
Recap
Serious floods
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/02/us-usa-weather-records-idUSBRE8611EL20120702
Recap
From June 25th - July 1st 2012 in US 2,171 US records broken or matchedIn June 2012 that number is 3,215
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http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2012/09/arctic-sea-ice-extent-settles-at-record-seasonal-minimum/
Recap
Huge issues of ice loss in the arctic
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http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2012/09/arctic-sea-ice-extent-settles-at-record-seasonal-minimum/
Recap
Lack of focus on emissions => increased emissions
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http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2012/09/arctic-sea-ice-extent-settles-at-record-seasonal-minimum/
Recap
Minimum was 760,000 square kilometers (293,000 square miles) below previous record minimum extent in the satellite record, which occurred on September 18, 2007. This is an area about the size of the state of Texas.3.29 million square kilometers (1.27 million square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average minimum, representing an area nearly twice the size of the state of Alaska18% below 2007 and 49% below the 1979 to 2000 average
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YegdEOSQotE
Recap
That’s not to mention the issue of arctic methane - what its effects will be are, as yet, unknown (but they won’t be good!)
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Cloud computing’s emissions don’t directly cause all these issues.
But they do play a significant part.
Cloud?
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Open Source
Solution?
Here’s where we can help
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Solution?
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Solution?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/viamoi/3465644425/
Why not fork open source cloud platforms?
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Solution?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/traftery/5369447689/
Add in emissions metrics & reporting tools
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Solution?
http://www.amee.com/products/
Companies like AMEE already provide API’s for this kind of info
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Solution?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dixieroadrash/3769522479/
Get the update accepted back into the core
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Solution?
http://www.eucalyptus.com/about/customers
And thus distributed with next update
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Solution?
http://www.cloudstack.org/users.html
And thus distributed with next update
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Solution?
http://www.openstack.org/foundation/companies/
And thus distributed with next update
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btw
https://www.mastodonc.com/dashboard
The Mastodon C dashboard gives stats on emissions from various cloud providers - in case you’re interested in keeping your cloud emissions down.Lot of it is guestimated data - need real data.
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Adding emissions metrics & reporting to cloud computing will help reduce emissions.
Question is - is anyone up for it?
Conclusion
Thanks!Contact information:
Tom RafteryPrincipal Analyst, Energy & Sustainability, RedMonk
[email protected], GreenMonk.net,
Twitter.com/tomraftery+34 677 695 468
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