Halifax Regional C@P Energy Audit Results
Halifax -
Months of research has gone into how to reduce the environmental impact of Halifax`s public internet access network. Today, the Halifax Regional C@P Association releases the results of this study
Green IT Analysis
Introduction
What is C@P?
The Nova Scotia Community Access Program (CAP) is a joint initiative of the Federal Government, through Industry Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia, managed by the Office of Economic Development. The Community Access Program is designed to assist communities to establish public Internet access sites and to train local citizens to make use of information technologies for social and economic benefit to the individual and to the community
.
Issues for C@P
tintedGreen’s Role
We want to develop a system that utilizes virtualization to allow an easier to maintain and less expensive network. This will allows the site the run the latest in operating systems and software. The idea would be to allow each site to use a virtualized desktop setup where all individual computers are running virtually from one server. All of the current computers (and new thin clients) will connect to the virtual machines on the server.
This means that all the real work for these computers would be on the servers and the desktops themselves would just be windows to these virtual machines. This allows the sites to continue to use old hardware as well as buy very inexpensive thin client style computers that use much less energy. Due to the consolidation of these virtualized computers, they would also be easier to maintain and update. It would also allow for remote maintenance and repairs.
Environmental Impact
The sites will reduce its waste by being able to reuse all of their current hardware. Current and future hardware will also last a great deal longer. The sites will also be able to utilize low energy thin client computers for each desktop that use a lot less energy than a typical computer.
Pilot site
Lake Echo has been selected as a pilot for this project. If this site was to work well, we hope to propagate this type of virtualized desktop network throughout Nova Scotia C@P sites.
Technologies and software
Summary
One of the major goals of the C@P Desktop Virtualization project is to reduce the environment impact of the C@P program. We hope to reduce the amount of energy used by the computers and the amount of e-waste created. This document takes a look at the setup of the Lake Echo site before and after the pilot project. Also, it takes an extended look on how this site and others can take advantage of the new system to become much more sustainable in the future.
Lake Echo C@P Site Energy Use (Before Pilot)
Prior to the pilot project, the Lake Echo C@P site consisted of five computers running outdated hardware (between four to eight years old) running software and operating systems that had not been properly updated. Software applications like Deepfreeze keep users from updating some of these computers. The user experience on these computers is poor due to this outdated software, pop-ups, and general slow operation of the computers.
Here is a short summary of each computer’s hardware, energy use, and user experience.
Computer 1
CPU Intel Pentium 4 – 2.8Ghz
RAM 224 MB Chipset SiS 661FX
Graphics Integrated – SiS Mirage Operating System Windows 98SE
Monitor 17” CRT (80 Watts)
Estimated Power usage at Idle 55 Watts (135 with monitor)
Estimated Power usage at Full Load 88 Watts (168 with monitor)
User Experience Poor – Decade old operating system with slow performance. Non-productive applications installed on desktop (games, etc). Outdated software.
Computer 2
CPU Intel Pentium 4 – 2.8Ghz
RAM 480 MB Chipset SiS 661FX
Graphics Integrated – SiS Mirage Operating System Windows 98SE
Monitor 17” CRT (80 Watts)
Estimated Power usage at Idle 54 Watts (134 with monitor)
Estimated Power usage at Full Load 89 Watts (169 with monitor)
User Experience Poor – Decade old operating system with slow performance. Outdated software.
Computer 3
CPU AMD AthlonXP 1700+
RAM 261 MB Chipset nForce2
Graphics Discrete – Nvidia Vanta
Operating System Windows 2000 SP4
Monitor 17” CRT (80 Watts)
Estimated Power usage at Idle 80 Watts (160 with monitor)
Estimated Power usage at Full Load 95 Watts (175 with monitor)
User Experience Poor – Old operating system with slow performance. Non-productive apps installed. Outdated software.
Computer 4
CPU AMD AthlonXP 1800+
RAM 261 MB Chipset nForce2
Graphics Discrete – Nvidia Geforce4 MX440 Operating System Windows 2000 SP4
Monitor 17” CRT (80 Watts)
Estimated Power usage at Idle 90 Watts (170 with monitor)
Estimated Power usage at Full Load 105 Watts (185 with monitor)
User Experience Poor – Old operating system. Non-productive apps installed. Outdated software.
Computer 5
CPU Intel Celeron – 2.4Ghz
RAM 512 MB Chipset Intel 865G
Graphics Integrated – Intel 865G Operating System Windows XP SP2
Monitor 17” LCD (40 Watts)
Estimated Power usage at Idle 81 Watts (121 with monitor)
Estimated Power usage at Full Load 111 Watts (151 with monitor)
User Experience Poor/Unusable – Operating system not updated. Outdated software constantly causing pop-ups and slowing down machine. Deepfreeze makes it impossible to solve software update problems.
The next part includes some estimation that may not fully reflect the energy use of the computer setup at Lake Echo. However, it is important to the comparative analysis that certain liberties be taken to properly see changes in energy use as the new virtualization system is implemented.
For this analysis, we are going to assume that all of the computers are turned on and in operation for eight hours a day every weekday of the year. The computers are turned off on weekends and holidays. This works out to 2000 operating hours per year. It is also estimated that the computers run at 20% utilization, on average.
Computer Yearly Energy Use (KWh) Annual KWh Cost CO2 Equiv (KG)
Computer 1 384.24 $45.32 328.53
Computer 2 383.04 $45.18 327.50
Computer 3 427.04 $50.37 365.12
Computer 4 447.04 $52.73 382.22
Computer 5 355.04 $41.88 303.56
TOTAL 1996.40 $235.50 1706.92
Lake Echo C@P Site Energy Use (After Pilot)
After the pilot project, the physical hardware of the C@P site did not significantly change. The main changes revolve around the addition of a server capable of deploying virtualized desktops. Another change is the replacement of three CRT monitors with three new LCD monitors.
As you can see by the following chart, the most significant changes in the computer’s energy use savings comes from computer that have had CRT monitors replaced by LCD monitors. All computers also receive a lower utilization percentage. They are now estimated at using only 10% of their computational power, as most of the heavy work is being done on the virtualization server.
Computer Yearly Energy Use (KWh) Annual KWh Cost CO2 Equiv (KG)
Computer 1 297.64 $35.11 254.48
Computer 2 296.04 $34.92 253.11
Computer 3 344.04 $40.58 294.15
Computer 4 444.04 $52.38 379.65
Computer 5 349.04 $41.17 298.43
VM Server 385.04 $45.42 329.21
TOTAL 2115.84 $249.58 1809.04
While the server does add to the energy use, most of the energy increase is offset by the lower energy use LCD monitors. The most important part of the changes to the C@P site is not in energy use, but in the user experience and the potential for energy savings for the entire C@P program in the future.
The user experience is now very much improved. Under this virtualized system, all of the computers at the Lake Echo C@P site are running the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is considered to be one of the most user friendly and best supported Linux distributions available. Users at the C@P site now can enjoy using the most up-to-date version of Ubuntu with all of its software completely updated
.
The key to keeping this setup updated is the remote nature of the virtualization server. Administrators can now log into the virtualization server from anywhere to update software and fix problems. Adding new virtual machines and deploying new computers on this system is also much easier. Nothing needs to be installed on a computer to include it in this system. It is even possible for computers without hard drives to connect to this setup.
This allows the Lake Echo C@P site to do two things to reduce its impact on the environment. First, it allows the site to continue using all of its old computer hardware for years to come. The site can also take advantage of donated computers like never before. A donated computer needs absolutely no refurbishing to connect to this system and be operational. In under a minute, a computer can be hooked up, set to boot off the network, and be running all the same software as the other computers. The savings on e-waste and computer maintenance is huge.
The other environmental savings is the reduction of the need for IT staff to have to visit the site. Because almost everything can be maintained remotely, there is a saving of the emissions of travel to all C@P sites using this system.
Lake Echo C@P Site Energy Use (Future)
Now that this virtualization system is in place, it allows for massive energy savings and benefits for the environment for the Lake Echo C@P site in the future.
Since the virtualization server is running all of the machines, the client computers connected to it can be very low powered. This allows the site to employ thinclient and low energy computers. These computers use fewer resources to manufacture and ship (due to their small size and reduced parts), use a lot less energy in operation, and are significantly cheaper to buy
.
Here is a comparison between the average computer at the Lake Echo C@P site now and a typical thinclient computer:
Average C@P Computer Thinclient
Energy Use Idle (Watts) 72 18
Energy Use Full Load 98 25
Size Large metal box Book-sized
Type of Monitor CRT LCD
Monitor Energy Use 80 40
Total Energy Use Full Load 178 65
Therefore, if we were to eventually replace all of the computers at the Lake Echo C@P Site with these types of machines, the energy use would look like this:
Computer Yearly Energy Use (KWh) Annual KWh Cost CO2 Equiv (KG)
Computer 1 218.44 $25.77 186.77
Computer 2 218.44 $25.77 186.77
Computer 3 218.44 $25.77 186.77
Computer 4 218.44 $25.77 186.77
Computer 5 218.44 $25.77 186.77
VM Server 385.04 $45.42 329.21
TOTAL 1477.24 $174.26 1263.04
Comparing this potential energy use to the energy use of the site before virtualization, this would create a 26% reduction in yearly energy use cost and reduce annual CO2 emissions by almost 450KG.
Remote C@P Computers
So far, we have been looking at how the virtualized desktop setup benefits the Lake Echo C@P Site. However, this system is designed to operate well beyond that scope. The system is designed with a remote component as well. This means that computers do not need to be located at the Lake Echo C@P Site to connect to a virtual machine on the server. Any computer with an internet connection can be coupled with a bootable usb drive that automatically boots up connection software and connects to this system.
This can give even more the energy savings and further reduce the environmental impact of other C@P sites. Other whole C@P sites can connect to this system, allowing them to get all the benefits of this setup without the need to install a virtualization server. Also, these remotely connected computers can also use thinclient and low energy computers
.
If we were to assume that the average computer at the Lake Echo C@P site is the same as the typical C@P computer, we can really see the potential for savings for this project. It is estimated that the virtualization server at Lake Echo should allow for, at least, 50 virtual client computers.
An official press release will follow.
Months of research has gone into how to reduce the environmental impact of Halifax`s public internet access network. Today, the Halifax Regional C@P Association releases the results of this study
Green IT Analysis
Introduction
What is C@P?
The Nova Scotia Community Access Program (CAP) is a joint initiative of the Federal Government, through Industry Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia, managed by the Office of Economic Development. The Community Access Program is designed to assist communities to establish public Internet access sites and to train local citizens to make use of information technologies for social and economic benefit to the individual and to the community
.
Issues for C@P
- Costs
- Computer Maintenance
- Updating computers and software
- Energy use and environmental impact
- Increasing Community use
tintedGreen’s Role
We want to develop a system that utilizes virtualization to allow an easier to maintain and less expensive network. This will allows the site the run the latest in operating systems and software. The idea would be to allow each site to use a virtualized desktop setup where all individual computers are running virtually from one server. All of the current computers (and new thin clients) will connect to the virtual machines on the server.
This means that all the real work for these computers would be on the servers and the desktops themselves would just be windows to these virtual machines. This allows the sites to continue to use old hardware as well as buy very inexpensive thin client style computers that use much less energy. Due to the consolidation of these virtualized computers, they would also be easier to maintain and update. It would also allow for remote maintenance and repairs.
Environmental Impact
The sites will reduce its waste by being able to reuse all of their current hardware. Current and future hardware will also last a great deal longer. The sites will also be able to utilize low energy thin client computers for each desktop that use a lot less energy than a typical computer.
Pilot site
Lake Echo has been selected as a pilot for this project. If this site was to work well, we hope to propagate this type of virtualized desktop network throughout Nova Scotia C@P sites.
Technologies and software
- VMware ESXi bare-metal hypervisor
- Linux Terminal Server Project running Ubunutu
- No Machine NX (for offsite computers)
- Thinstation Linux client
- PXE to boot from LAN
Summary
One of the major goals of the C@P Desktop Virtualization project is to reduce the environment impact of the C@P program. We hope to reduce the amount of energy used by the computers and the amount of e-waste created. This document takes a look at the setup of the Lake Echo site before and after the pilot project. Also, it takes an extended look on how this site and others can take advantage of the new system to become much more sustainable in the future.
Lake Echo C@P Site Energy Use (Before Pilot)
Prior to the pilot project, the Lake Echo C@P site consisted of five computers running outdated hardware (between four to eight years old) running software and operating systems that had not been properly updated. Software applications like Deepfreeze keep users from updating some of these computers. The user experience on these computers is poor due to this outdated software, pop-ups, and general slow operation of the computers.
Here is a short summary of each computer’s hardware, energy use, and user experience.
Computer 1
CPU Intel Pentium 4 – 2.8Ghz
RAM 224 MB Chipset SiS 661FX
Graphics Integrated – SiS Mirage Operating System Windows 98SE
Monitor 17” CRT (80 Watts)
Estimated Power usage at Idle 55 Watts (135 with monitor)
Estimated Power usage at Full Load 88 Watts (168 with monitor)
User Experience Poor – Decade old operating system with slow performance. Non-productive applications installed on desktop (games, etc). Outdated software.
Computer 2
CPU Intel Pentium 4 – 2.8Ghz
RAM 480 MB Chipset SiS 661FX
Graphics Integrated – SiS Mirage Operating System Windows 98SE
Monitor 17” CRT (80 Watts)
Estimated Power usage at Idle 54 Watts (134 with monitor)
Estimated Power usage at Full Load 89 Watts (169 with monitor)
User Experience Poor – Decade old operating system with slow performance. Outdated software.
Computer 3
CPU AMD AthlonXP 1700+
RAM 261 MB Chipset nForce2
Graphics Discrete – Nvidia Vanta
Operating System Windows 2000 SP4
Monitor 17” CRT (80 Watts)
Estimated Power usage at Idle 80 Watts (160 with monitor)
Estimated Power usage at Full Load 95 Watts (175 with monitor)
User Experience Poor – Old operating system with slow performance. Non-productive apps installed. Outdated software.
Computer 4
CPU AMD AthlonXP 1800+
RAM 261 MB Chipset nForce2
Graphics Discrete – Nvidia Geforce4 MX440 Operating System Windows 2000 SP4
Monitor 17” CRT (80 Watts)
Estimated Power usage at Idle 90 Watts (170 with monitor)
Estimated Power usage at Full Load 105 Watts (185 with monitor)
User Experience Poor – Old operating system. Non-productive apps installed. Outdated software.
Computer 5
CPU Intel Celeron – 2.4Ghz
RAM 512 MB Chipset Intel 865G
Graphics Integrated – Intel 865G Operating System Windows XP SP2
Monitor 17” LCD (40 Watts)
Estimated Power usage at Idle 81 Watts (121 with monitor)
Estimated Power usage at Full Load 111 Watts (151 with monitor)
User Experience Poor/Unusable – Operating system not updated. Outdated software constantly causing pop-ups and slowing down machine. Deepfreeze makes it impossible to solve software update problems.
The next part includes some estimation that may not fully reflect the energy use of the computer setup at Lake Echo. However, it is important to the comparative analysis that certain liberties be taken to properly see changes in energy use as the new virtualization system is implemented.
For this analysis, we are going to assume that all of the computers are turned on and in operation for eight hours a day every weekday of the year. The computers are turned off on weekends and holidays. This works out to 2000 operating hours per year. It is also estimated that the computers run at 20% utilization, on average.
Computer Yearly Energy Use (KWh) Annual KWh Cost CO2 Equiv (KG)
Computer 1 384.24 $45.32 328.53
Computer 2 383.04 $45.18 327.50
Computer 3 427.04 $50.37 365.12
Computer 4 447.04 $52.73 382.22
Computer 5 355.04 $41.88 303.56
TOTAL 1996.40 $235.50 1706.92
Lake Echo C@P Site Energy Use (After Pilot)
After the pilot project, the physical hardware of the C@P site did not significantly change. The main changes revolve around the addition of a server capable of deploying virtualized desktops. Another change is the replacement of three CRT monitors with three new LCD monitors.
As you can see by the following chart, the most significant changes in the computer’s energy use savings comes from computer that have had CRT monitors replaced by LCD monitors. All computers also receive a lower utilization percentage. They are now estimated at using only 10% of their computational power, as most of the heavy work is being done on the virtualization server.
Computer Yearly Energy Use (KWh) Annual KWh Cost CO2 Equiv (KG)
Computer 1 297.64 $35.11 254.48
Computer 2 296.04 $34.92 253.11
Computer 3 344.04 $40.58 294.15
Computer 4 444.04 $52.38 379.65
Computer 5 349.04 $41.17 298.43
VM Server 385.04 $45.42 329.21
TOTAL 2115.84 $249.58 1809.04
While the server does add to the energy use, most of the energy increase is offset by the lower energy use LCD monitors. The most important part of the changes to the C@P site is not in energy use, but in the user experience and the potential for energy savings for the entire C@P program in the future.
The user experience is now very much improved. Under this virtualized system, all of the computers at the Lake Echo C@P site are running the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. Ubuntu is considered to be one of the most user friendly and best supported Linux distributions available. Users at the C@P site now can enjoy using the most up-to-date version of Ubuntu with all of its software completely updated
.
The key to keeping this setup updated is the remote nature of the virtualization server. Administrators can now log into the virtualization server from anywhere to update software and fix problems. Adding new virtual machines and deploying new computers on this system is also much easier. Nothing needs to be installed on a computer to include it in this system. It is even possible for computers without hard drives to connect to this setup.
This allows the Lake Echo C@P site to do two things to reduce its impact on the environment. First, it allows the site to continue using all of its old computer hardware for years to come. The site can also take advantage of donated computers like never before. A donated computer needs absolutely no refurbishing to connect to this system and be operational. In under a minute, a computer can be hooked up, set to boot off the network, and be running all the same software as the other computers. The savings on e-waste and computer maintenance is huge.
The other environmental savings is the reduction of the need for IT staff to have to visit the site. Because almost everything can be maintained remotely, there is a saving of the emissions of travel to all C@P sites using this system.
Lake Echo C@P Site Energy Use (Future)
Now that this virtualization system is in place, it allows for massive energy savings and benefits for the environment for the Lake Echo C@P site in the future.
Since the virtualization server is running all of the machines, the client computers connected to it can be very low powered. This allows the site to employ thinclient and low energy computers. These computers use fewer resources to manufacture and ship (due to their small size and reduced parts), use a lot less energy in operation, and are significantly cheaper to buy
.
Here is a comparison between the average computer at the Lake Echo C@P site now and a typical thinclient computer:
Average C@P Computer Thinclient
Energy Use Idle (Watts) 72 18
Energy Use Full Load 98 25
Size Large metal box Book-sized
Type of Monitor CRT LCD
Monitor Energy Use 80 40
Total Energy Use Full Load 178 65
Therefore, if we were to eventually replace all of the computers at the Lake Echo C@P Site with these types of machines, the energy use would look like this:
Computer Yearly Energy Use (KWh) Annual KWh Cost CO2 Equiv (KG)
Computer 1 218.44 $25.77 186.77
Computer 2 218.44 $25.77 186.77
Computer 3 218.44 $25.77 186.77
Computer 4 218.44 $25.77 186.77
Computer 5 218.44 $25.77 186.77
VM Server 385.04 $45.42 329.21
TOTAL 1477.24 $174.26 1263.04
Comparing this potential energy use to the energy use of the site before virtualization, this would create a 26% reduction in yearly energy use cost and reduce annual CO2 emissions by almost 450KG.
Remote C@P Computers
So far, we have been looking at how the virtualized desktop setup benefits the Lake Echo C@P Site. However, this system is designed to operate well beyond that scope. The system is designed with a remote component as well. This means that computers do not need to be located at the Lake Echo C@P Site to connect to a virtual machine on the server. Any computer with an internet connection can be coupled with a bootable usb drive that automatically boots up connection software and connects to this system.
This can give even more the energy savings and further reduce the environmental impact of other C@P sites. Other whole C@P sites can connect to this system, allowing them to get all the benefits of this setup without the need to install a virtualization server. Also, these remotely connected computers can also use thinclient and low energy computers
.
If we were to assume that the average computer at the Lake Echo C@P site is the same as the typical C@P computer, we can really see the potential for savings for this project. It is estimated that the virtualization server at Lake Echo should allow for, at least, 50 virtual client computers.
An official press release will follow.
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