Strategies for Green IT at Penn - Spring 2008

Meeting Minutes
May 16, 2008

In attendance:

• Alex Chekholko
• Joe Cruz
• Bob DeSilets
• Barbra McAleese
• Don Valentino
• Clay Wells

The primary purpose of today's meeting was to review the current state of the Data Center and Server wiki page, and to begin to flesh out final recommendations.

Reference: http://prowiki.isc-csg.upenn.edu:16080/index.php/2008_Strategies_for_Green_IT_at_Penn:Data_centers_and_servers

Discussions

Bob began the meeting by reviewing the wiki page, and guided the discussion point by point over the main Areas of Focus

System Requiremnts

We agreed to remove the Determining Software requirements section as that is outside of the scope of the team. The team discussed some of the finer points of administering the servers, but in the end, we agreed to remove most of the discussion of items that are outside of the team's scope.

Alex recommended that we spell out the acronyms used on the page so that there is no confusion.

Vendor Offerings

The team discussed the merits of 2.5" vs 3.5" drives and whether or to they would be applicable recommendations in Penn's computing environment. Alex pointed the team to the wiki page he wrote up on Disk size and power savings (http://prowiki.isc-csg.upenn.edu:16080/index.php/Disk_size). We agreed to state that green offerings should not override server requirements, but that they may help sway decisions over similar hardware.

Bob was charged with moving the chart of Dell Energy Star products to the desktop/end-user wiki page, and replacing it with an equivalent server table.

Joe asked whether or not we should be considering Sun as a hardware vendor in addition to Dell and IBM, and agreed to write up a synopsys of their product offerings from a sustainability perspective. Barb pointed out some web resources regarding Sun's eco innovations, and the fact that they are a top 12 Green IT vendor according to Computerworld:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=312485

Physical Location

Bob proposed removing language regarding choosing the "greenest" data centers on campus when looking for a physical location. The team agreed that we should recommend placing servers in hosted data centers over hosting them locally in small server rooms. We agreed to collapse the two pro/con sections into a single table for convienence sake.

Racking/Cabling

We reviewd the articles that Clay had written and agreed that they were comprehensive enough as is. The only improvement would be to add pictures of good and bad cabling examples. Joe indicated that he may have some pictures available to post.

Software Optimization

The team agreed that this section should be deleted as there was no information here.

Monitoring/Metering

The team concurred that users should work with their data center engineers to monitor overall efficiency.

End of Life

As the Center for Community Partnerships is no longer in the business of refurbishing computers, we argreed that they should be removed from this section. Barb mentioned that she is getting a tour of the Wistar Institute with a focus on their recycling efforts and will report back to the team what she finds.

Resources for Non-IT Staff

Bob proposed moving this section to its own subpage. The team agreed that the target market for this material is different enough to justify it as its own subsection.

Final Discussion

The team discussed the final display of our recommendations. Bob showed a mock-up of a possible webpage (example here). Barb mentioned that the School of Medicine would like us to present our findings to them. Bob mentioned that June 6 will be the presentation to SUG along with the other Evaluation Teams.

Deliverables:

• Joe
  • Summary of Sun products and Sustainability
  • Post pictures of good and bad data centers
• Bob
  • Move Dell hardware table to desktop team
  • Develop Dell server table
  • Ensure that the wiki page reflects the changes proposed during the meeting
  • Move Resources for Non-IT staff to its own subsection
• Barb
  • Tour Wistar and report findings to the team