Netapp going Green

[iant424242]

I tend to work in data centers and I cannot understand why all these vendors need all these billions of LED's lights showing, when most people are not there. Can Netapp not be the first to have the option to switch off all leds until required. Maybe all hosters should have a blue tooth connection to the rack to illuminate when checking for faults..

I wonder how many wasted MegaWatts we expell to heat in a second?

Any Thoughts?

[elementx]

> I wonder how many wasted MegaWatts we expell to heat in a second?

> Any Thoughts?

My wild guess (without referencing product documentation) would be somewhere around 0.00 mWh.

It seems a single "generic" LED expands less than 1 Watt per day.

0.1 mAh * 12 V = 0.012 Wh.

Assuming 10 LEDs per system, 0.12 Wh * 10,000 appliances = 1.2kWh or 0.001 mWh.

> I tend to work in data centers and I cannot understand why all these vendors need all these billions of LED's lights showing, when most people are not there. 

Oftentimes when appliances are deployed or serviced, service staff does not have access to management tools, so the only way you can see (or verify) that a NIC is down, cable loose, or SSD dead is by checking that LED. This includes not just your own hardware, but also systems connected to your hardware. For example if I see that the port LED on 3rd party switch is amber, I can diagnose my cabling or settings problem without even knowing anyone who has access to that switch.  Excellent ROI, considering the low cost and low power consumption.

[NetApp_SR]

We need to question how we are using the resources of our planet. While the LEDs do have low utilization other processes in the datacenter are using significant power. Some devices are using amps of power not milli-amps. There are several programs to provide suggestions to improve data center efficiency.

Energy Efficiency in Data Centers

https://www.energy.gov/eere/femp/energy-efficiency-data-centers

16 More Ways to Cut Energy Waste in the Data Center

https://www.energystar.gov/products/16_more_ways_cut_energy_waste_data_center

[NetApp_SR]

REDUCING DATA CENTER POWER CONSUMPTION THROUGH EFFICIENT STORAGE

http://www-download.netapp.com/edm/TOT/images/power.pdf

Going Green: NetApp’s State of the Art Data Center Delivers Higher Power Density, Greater Efficiency, and Lower Costs

https://govdatadownload.netapp.com/2015/03/going-green-netapps-state-of-the-art-data-center-delivers-higher-power-density-greater-efficiency-and-lower...

NetApp Bangalore Optimizes Data CenterCost Savings Through “Free” Outside Air Cooling

https://datacenters.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/NetApp%20Bangalore_Case%20Study%20-%20Free%20Outside%20Air%20Cooling_IGBC%20%26%20LBNL%202021.pdf

[iant424242 · Accepted solution]

Ok, all good reading and a good template to work towards.

What I’m trying to say, is that an led has no purpose in a data centre. All the factors mentioned, as I said are important, but have consequences... Either fiscal or shifting of critical data onto a greener concept. Now an led blinking in an unseen environment is a pointless waste of watts and if they were all extinguished when there was no fault, would that affect the end user… No

I agree they are critical when you have a fault etc….. But not when they show a disk is alive or a PSU is working, especially when nobody is around in a data centre.

Ok, maybe this may not be adopted or even ignored. But I know that the small changes do make a difference.

[elementx]

Your concerns are valid, I'm sure someone from Engineering has noticed your post 🙂

I can't speak for Engineering (and there are various groups/teams for different product lines)  but I think from an Engineering perspective one of challenges is dealing with all the different parts and suppliers. Maybe one disk vendor has a custom API to turn the light off, another one maybe doesn't, or has a different low level command, etc. There's a a handful of HDD suppliers, another batch for SSDs, another for NICs...  It's tough, unless there's a standard API (I haven't checked) for component LED state management.

A colleague pointed out that in the case you're on ONTAP, this is what can be done today.

https://docs.netapp.com/ontap-9/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.netapp.doc.dot-cm-cmpr-930%2Fstorage__disk__set-led.html

[Drew_C]

I've seen this done in data center switching hardware (Extreme Networks) with a small, built-in motion sensor on the front of the device. On some models, the option exists for the switch to operate lights-out until someone approaches. Added costs aside, I feel like it's a pretty good way to mitigate concerns like this one.