Greenethiquette : a mandate for a clear cloud

A commitment to an eco-responsible utilisagr of Information and

Communication Technologies

Business & Decision Eolas

http : //www.greenthiquette.com

Greenethiquette by Business & Decision Eolas is provided under a Creative Commons Licence attribution no derivative work

Observations

(1) Gartner (2) N Carr

Current Green IT initiatives exist, but mostly amongst those

that sell or buy the infrastructure (hardware vendors,

outsourcers, hardware purchasers), not targeted to services

editors and consumers. Yet, a second life avatar, for instance,

has the same average CO2 emission impact as a Brazilian citizen. (2)

ICT has an very significant impact on the environment; one that has

been increasing in a sustainable manner due to the exploding number

of demands.

Multiplication of data centers' power usage by 1,600 from 2005 to 2025 (1)

The exploding number of demands for On-Demand (SaaS) and cloud

computing applications has created the need for a special kind of

vigilance: indeed, users tend to ignore the energetic impact of

infrastructures when the latter are outsourced.

Green code of conduct and standards : GreenEthiquette fills a gap

?

European Code of conduct

For Data Centers

Sell side

Buy side

Insourced

infrastructure

Outsourced

infrastructure

Greenethiquette : mission sttatement

• Encourage users to adopt an environmental friendly attitude towards

NICT utilization, even if it is through outsourced services:

– Raise awareness by understanding the stakes and what constitutes the

ecological impact of digital services

– Commit to fair consumption and avoid the “always on” mindset

(when it leads to over-emphasis on performance and availability)

– Influence eco-responsibility from hosted services suppliers

by requesting them to commit and report on their eco-efficiency

• A few basic rules

– A charter drafted by the provider of digital services that drives his own

commitment together with his hosted service provider

– An open, accessible-to-all, label, that mostly formalizes a code of conduct : no

minimum service level other than market standards (European code of Conduct,

ClimateSavers..) shall be requested to the parties engaged

– A unique charter on the market since it is meant for a new type of population,

but one that is based on standards: standards determine the measuring

elements and practices to be used. The charter defines transparency rules so

that they can be shared

The five Greenethiquette commitments

Optimize Energy efficiency

Minimize IT resources utilization

Setup recycling policies

Consider fair performance principle for SLAs

Source Energy efficient material

The five Greenethiquette commitments

What it's about: Support for the installation of adequate processes in view of optimizing Data Centers'

energy efficiency

Issues: Currently, for each watt that is used by a server, 1 or 2 other watts are consumed by the

infrastructure (electrical power, cooling); this figure can be reduced to 0.5, maybe even 0.3, if

appropriate measures are taken.

Commitment number 1: Energy efficiency

The greenethiquette commitment:The hoster shares hosted services PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) information with his customer and participates to « official » eco-efficiency improvement efforts (eg : Code of Conduct for data centeres in Europe, EnergyStar rating for data center infrastructure)

The PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) is the benchmark indicator to report on data centers' energy efficiency. To calculatePUE, the total power used up by the data center must be divided by the IT equipment total (server, storage, network). Strong performers are achieving a 1.6 PUE figure by 2009 (source Green IT newsletter)The European Code of Conduct serves as a guide for the measurement of Data centers' energy efficiency and for the setup of an action plan for continuous improvement. Anyone can contribute to this code of conduct and Data Center managers do so of their own free will.

The five Greenethiquette commitments

What it's about:

Ensure optimum use of computing power

Issues:

A server's power consumption is more or less the same regardless of whether it is 15%

operational or 80% operational. Today, the average consumption for servers is 15%.

Commitment number 2: Server resources' fair consumption

The greenethiquette commitment:The Hoster shares information about the percentage of physical or virtual

servers used to host the application with the customer

Today, servers can be virtualized and assigned in just-in-time mode to available physical resources.

Hence, the number of required servers can often be divided by 6 or 7 if virtualization is wisely adapted.

This commitment helps provide information on the percentage of servers used up and thus, highlight

improvement areas.

The five Greenethiquette commitments

The commitment:

The hoster shares with his customer his recycling policy with regards to Data Center's IT

equipment and consumables (paper and ink cartridges etc..).

Sustainability for Data centers , means maximizing the asset lifecycle as long as there are efficient , and then manage

their recycling once then are beiong retired. This should concern not only infrastructures and computers, but also

consumables (Printer cartridges, print paper…)

What is it about:

Setting up appropriate recycling plans

Issues:

8% of all the European electronic industry's product waste is attributable to the IT sector.

We need 240Kgs of fuel, 1.5 tons of water and 22Kgs of chemical and heavy metal

products to build a computer. 450,000 computers reach the end of their life cycle everyday

in the world, and only 1/5th of electronics waste is recycled into a certified processing

circuit.

Commitment number 3: Recycling

The five Greenethiquette commitments

The commitment: Eco-friendly sourcing strategy. Contribution to programs such as

climate savers computing initiative for server selection. Adoption of Energy Star and

EPEAT as soon as they are applicable to volume servers.

Becoming an affiliate member of the climate savers computing initiative is free and open to any type of

organization. Members commit to buying high-efficiency systems for a majority of their volume server

computer purchases. The program’s gradually introduce .minimum threshold to drive eco-responsible

purchase of server with minimal financial impact

What it's about: Eco-friendly sourcing systematically accounts for environmental impacts

during suppliers and contracted products and services selection processes.

Issues:

The Climate Servers association believes and act so that computer consumption can be

reduced by half if eco-efficiency criteria are taken into consideration whenever equipment is

bought.

Commitment number 4: equipment selection

The five Greenethiquette commitments

The commitment: consideration for the energy aspect and energy performance

reporting, right from the Service Level Agreement specification stage

What it's about: The IT sector is governed by the always on principle as well as the race

towards performance. By taking into account the green dimension in service level

agreements, a better definition of reasonable high availability thresholds can be obtained.

Issues: Availability stakes encourage the creation of redundant architectures at all levels, as

well as their maintenance on standby, to minimize out times in case of breakdowns.

Ecological costs and impacts can be, in the end, disproportionate compared to those stakes.

This must be taken into consideration right at the SLA definition stage.

Commitment number 5: Fair performance principle

The provider of a hosted server applies to greenethiquette by filling in a form

on the website greenethiquette.com. He gets a contract to sign with his hoster

Eco-efficiency is improved on an sustainable basis

Hoster reports on a quaterly basis on his eco-efficient policies

and performance

Hoster Signs the greenthiquette contract with his customer for the

services that he hosts on his behalf

The provider of a digital service learns from greenethiquette

web site what are the key driver for ICT eco-efficiency .

The digital service is tagged with greenethiquette, which can be exposed

Within a web site or at Greenethiquette site

How to engage with Greenethiquette

Discover

Engage

Influence

Report

Get the benefits & improve

Communicate

How the thought leaders react to the Greenethiquette initiative

27/10/2009

13

• "With the advent of Cloud Computing software as a service, and the outsourcing of information services being considered by all CIOs, IT services are being hosted less and less frequently within organisations. The concept of Green IT, therefore, has become more related to purchases and service provider relationships, which is why the Greenethiquette initiative is of such significance."

Lorie Wigle : General Manager, Eco-Technology Office, Intel

Corporation and President, Climate Savers Computing

Initiative,

• "Going forward, eco-responsibility will become a fundamental factor in outsourced service performance and as such, CIOs will be able to accelerate progress in energy performance. But implementing such factors requires tools and quantifiable codes of conducts, which are still uncommon for outsourced systems and applications. Greenethiquette is therefore highly significant at this time."

Christian Grellier :

DOSI of Bouygues Real Estate

• "One of the principal commitments of the „Grenelle de l'Environnement" is that of sustainability. We will be hoping to select our online service providers by considering their eco-responsibility measures and figures, and will be ensuring that energy efficiency continues to improve. We are delighted to work with Business & Decision Eolas on the Achatville project, which has provided an adapted framework for hosting the e-commerce platform, conforming to the Greenethiquette principles."

Gilles Dumolard, President of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in

Grenoble,

Greenethiquette by Business & Decision Eolas is provided under a Creative Commons Licence attribution no derivative work

Greenethiquette : a mandate for a clear cloud

A commitment to an eco-responsible utilisagr of Information and

Communication Technologies

Business & Decision Eolas

http : //www.greenthiquette.com