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Sustainability at Silicon Mechanics
Sustainability is not just about a hardware choice: it is a methodology. Like so many situations where ecological concerns and business interests intersect, there is no simple solution, no single choice that will result in "green computing". It is with that reality in mind that we have compiled information on a wide variety of options, approaches, and strategies that will foster an energy-efficient IT environment. The articles gathered and published here target multiple levels of the information infrastructure, from individual server component selection, to software and server deployment and management strategies, up to and including data center best practices. Because of the comprehensive and ambitious nature of the information, we choose to talk about sustainability rather than "green computing".
Although the subject of Sustainable Computing as a whole can be extremely complicated, there are some fairlly straightforward choices that you can make to get started on the road to achieving energy efficiency. Our "Top 5" Recommended practices for Sustainable Computing are:
- Low power processors
- High efficiency power supplies
- Virtualization
- Power management software
- Energy-efficient form factors, like twin servers, and blades.
Commitment in Action
Silicon Mechanics goes well beyond providing a summary of sustainable computing methodologies and links to information and education. Our commitment to sustainability takes form in two very practical ways that are readily available to our customers: energy-saving server configuration options and an industry-first interactive power calculator.
In some, though not all situations, the best sustainability practice includes choosing servers that consume as little power as possible.* The energy-saving configurations options available for our Rackform rackmount servers and Storform storage appliances offer Silicon Mechanics customers a starting point for making environmentally-sound server configuration choices.
In conjunction with these energy-saving configurations, we have created an industry-first power calculator, which calculates the power usage for Silicon Mechanics servers while users interact with the system configurator choices. The power calculator is a control panel display embedded into our online system configurator application. It displays the expected maximum power use of the currently configured server. The power calculator tool provides values for Watts, Volt-Amps, Amps (@110V), Amps (@208V), and BTU/h.
What the Power Calculator Displays A Volt-Amp (VA) is a unit of energy dimensionally equivalent to a Watt. For complex loads with reactive circuit elements, such as computers, the value for VA will be larger than the true energy (Watts) used by the computer. The ratio of Watts to VA is called the power factor number. Modern, high-efficiency power supplies have power factor correcting circuitry, and as such their power factor ratios are nearly 1.
The Watts value displayed by the power calculator is the actual energy
used by the server. This number represents the energy used in the power
supply conversion process, as well as the energy used by the computer
in servicing its workload. This measured number is also used as the
basis for the cooling capacity value (given in BTU/h).
The measured maximum current (Amps) is displayed in the power
calculator for both low-line voltage (110V) and high-line voltage
(208V). These numbers can be used for circuit capacity planning in
your data center.
* For information about when the best
sustainability practice does not include selecting
the most energy-saving components, see "When 'Green' Isn't Really Green" in Server
Configuration.
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