Growing up while powering down networking equipment

Increasing numbers of corporate customers are requesting that their network-equipment suppliers offer more power-efficient products. Of course they are — it saves them money in both electricity costs to power the systems and cooling costs to mitigate heat. Plus, consuming less electricity helps corporate customers to report to investor groups (such as the Carbon Disclosure Project) lower Scope 2 Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

And the networking industry has responded by using more efficient power supplies. But this is an incremental improvement. Significant market growth is available to companies disrupting the way that networking equipment consumes power through alternative designs and innovative power management.

So, this is a call-to-action for network-equipment designers everywhere, as well as to innovative software and parts suppliers serving the networking industry. Let’s discuss ways you’ve considered power reductions and together create a roadmap of likely alternatives for growing up while powering down the networking industry.

Here are some ideas to get us going, so we can discuss these approaches’ benefits from a Design-for-Environment (DfE) perspective and discuss any downsides of using these for standard product operation:

- Solid state drives
- Low Power Dual Quad Core processor and chip set
- A rack that can better manage power efficiency and have the power redundancy at the rack level rather than the system level
- Smart cooling: Fan-less, fewer variable speed fans, liquid cooling, or Pulsed Air Jet Cooling (liquid-cooled racks can reduce the amount of cooling required to keep the environment around the systems at around 25 degrees Celsius)
- Developing an idle mode for systems that currently run 24/7 — while still supporting customers applications and traffic
- Scalable or dynamic power supplies that monitor actual usage and only turns on the power needed
- Active power management with monitoring system vitals
- Use of ultra-capacitors instead of a Lithium button cell batteries
- Modular design for power supplies that grows with additional hardware

And to make our roadmap as Lean and Green as possible, we’ll discuss business questions such as…

- Under which circumstances or application does a power supply with a 90%-and-higher-efficiency rating provide enough savings over a standard 80+ power supply to justify the significantly higher investment cost?
- How do you convince your own company’s management to invest in more efficient designs / components (80+ GOLD power supplies, active power management, solid state drives, de-materialization, fan-less design, etc.) given that it’s the customer and not the OEM that saves money and carbon footprint?
- What are the affects of delivering systems with 1-2 dozen-drive capacity (and power ratings accordingly) initially populated with just a handful of drives from Design for Environment (DfE) perspective, and what alternate techniques can be used to minimize this impact?
- How can we influence regulators around the world to develop highly technical-and-cost savvy (e.g., through EuP study groups)?

Reply below or write to me (PGordon@TFIenvironment.com) to let me know you are interested in creating, exploring, and sharing ideas that will help address one of the most pressing issues today and tomorrow for networking equipment — vital to corporate customers, to cost reductions, and of course to reducing global Greenhouse Gas emissions. I look forward to the challenge!

Posted by Pamela J. Gordon, October 30th, 2009